Intelligent systems technology for higher level fusion

The premise of this paper is that a combination of information extraction techniques, knowledge bases and natural language processing technology can assist the intelligence analyst by providing higher level fusion capabilities to support the decision making process. The paper examines programs and the tools that have evolved from these programs being researched by the Air Force Research Laboratory´s Information Directorate. These programs include DARPA sponsored High Performance Knowledge Bases (HPKB), Rapid Knowledge Formation (RKF) and Evidence Extraction and Link Discovery (EELD). Some of the tools include the CYC knowledge base, Intelligent Mining Platform for the Analysis of Counter Terrorism (IMPACT) and the START natural language query system. By exploiting and leveraging the strengths of each system, we believe that a high level of information fusion is possible.