inspect-newsletter.html

<TITLE>INSPECT</TITLE>

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<H1>                 INSPECT: </H1>
<H1>An Intelligent Tool to Evaluate Air Campaign Plans</H1>
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<H2>General Background</H2>


<A HREF="http://www.isi.edu">
ISI</A>
's
<A HREF="./expect-homepage.html">
EXPECT </A>
project was part of the Fourth Integrated Feasibility Demonstration
(IFD-4) of the DARPA/Rome Laboratory Planning Initiative (ARPI).  The event took
place on June 12 at the US Air Force Air Combat Command in Hampton, Virginia. 
The goal was to demonstrate how research in planning and scheduling from ARPI can
improve the current process of Air Campaign Planning in the Air Force.  Our
experts from the CHECKMATE cell at the Pentagon built the Air Campaign Planning
Tool (ACPT) as a structured editor to build their plans.  For IFD-4, we extended
ACPT with tools that detect errors and flaws in the plans. The EXPECT team from
ISI contributed a plan evaluation tool that we call INSPECT, and collaborated
with ISX to provide a formal language and an editor for specifying goals in this
domain.  SRI and GE built a feasibility analysis tool based on the TACHYON
temporal reasoner and the SIPE planner.
<P>

INSPECT is a knowledge-based system that we developed using the EXPECT framework.
The knowledge base captures criteria that experienced planners from CHECKMATE
use to build good plans.  INSPECT uses these criteria to detect plan
incompleteness, problems with plan structure, and lack of resources.  INSPECT
produces an agenda of all these kinds of problems found with the plan, and shows
it to the user together with detailed explanations of the reasons for each
problem and suggestions for how the user can fix each problem.
<P>

Without a tool like INSPECT, ACPT users can create plans that may be inconsistent
or have low quality. Another benefit of using INSPECT is to help users plan
effectively in crisis situations, when the time pressures make it very hard to
manually check the consistency of all the alternative plans that are considered
for a given crisis, each one changing as the crisis evolves.  Ultimately, INSPECT
could also be used as a training tool for planners, by pointing out possible
faults in the plans they create.
<P>

Although not demonstrated in IFD-4, an important benefit of building a tool like
INSPECT with the EXPECT framework is to support users in knowledge acquisition
and maintenance.  Because each campaign is different, the knowledge base of any
planning tool must be updated to include all the particulars of the scenario:
forces and resources available, specific rules of engagement, etc.  As part of
our research, we continue to develop interactive knowledge acquisition tools that
allow end-users to maintain and update knowledge-based systems.
<P>

The first IFD was DART, a system developed to schedule the transportation of all
U.S. personnel and materials such as vehicles, food, and ammunition from Europe
to Saudi Arabia during the operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.  It
prompted the now famous quote that DART alone "reportedly more than offset all
the money the Advanced Research Projects Agency had funneled into AI research in
the last 30 years" (Critical Technology Assesment of the US Artificial
Intelligence Sector, US Department of Commerce, August 1994.)
<P>

Although ACPT is a relatively new system, it was used by CHECKMATE to help NATO
commanders select targets in Bosnia.  Efforts are under way to transform the
IFD-4 demonstration software into a usable tool for CHECKMATE and ultimately for
the numbered air forces throughout the world.
<P>

<H2> Ongoing Work on INSPECT</H2>

INSPECT is being extended in several important dimensions under the 
<A HREF="http://yorktown.dc.isx.com/iso/planning/jfacc.html">
DARPA JFACC program</A>.  
Some of these extensions require basic R&D work on 
the EXPECT framework on
generating explanations and justifications for INSPECT's recommendations,
and on Web-based tools to support domain experts to change 
INSPECT's knowledge base.
Other extensions will widen the scope of INSPECT's evaluations to include 
additional types of objectives (such as LOG and ISR) and to evaluate
the plan from a more global perspective that would include information about 
strategy and plan rationale.


<H2> References </H2>

Valente, A., Gil, Y. and Swartout, W. R. 
<A HREF="http://www.isi.edu/~valente/inspect/inspect.html">
INSPECT: an Intelligent System for Air Campaign Plan Evaluation based on EXPECT
</A>.
<P>

Valente, A., Swartout, W. R. and Gil, Y.
<A HREF="http://www.isi.edu/~valente/grammar/grammar.html">
A Representation and Library for Objectives in Air Campaign Plans
</A>.
<P>

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For more information about INSPECT, send mail to 
<A HREF=mailto:expect@isi.edu>expect@isi.edu</A>.

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<i>Last updated: June, 1997.</i>