Ontologies and Rules for Rapid Enterprise Integration and Event Aggregation

Ontologies enable explicit expression of collective concepts and support Machine-to-Machine (M2M) interactions at the semantic level. Ontologies expressed in a standard language, such as the Web Ontology Language (OWL) and exposed on a network offer the potential for unprecedented interoperability solutions since they are semantically rich, computer interpretable and inherently extensible. Rules that operate over ontologies allow for fusion of events in a semantically rich way. In this paper, we describe how we applied ontologies and rules for rapid enterprise integration of heterogeneous data sources and aggregation of events in the battlefield. We found that once a robust foundational domain ontology is established, it is easy and quick to integrate new data sources and therefore rapidly provide new system capabilities. We also found that rules that operate over ontological concepts are useful in agile aggregation of events for enhanced situational awareness.