Overview

The Information Sharing and Integration Group (ISI) develops novel tools and techniques for group collaboration, intelligent information sharing, knowledge management, and data integration. The customers for these tools are distributed teams of NASA scientists and engineers, as well as aviation industry teams responsible for safety, operations, and maintenance within commercial airlines. Research within the group is conducted in the following areas:

• Tailored search and information integration systems for mission operations
• Semantic web
• Heterogeneous information integration architectures
• Collaboration technologies
• Knowledge acquisition
• Knowledge management
• Information visualization

Project List (Active)

Collaborative Decision Environment (CDE)

The Western States Fire Mission is demonstrating improved wildfire imaging and mapping capabilities of the sophisticated imaging sensor and real-time data communications equipment developed at Ames Research Center. The CDE is used as a decision support system for distributed mission planning, situational awareness, and data product visualization. It uses Google Earth as the visualization component, but also includes Quicktime video streaming from the aircraft and Jabber instant messaging for group collaboration. The imaging sensor is capable of peering through thick smoke and haze to record hot spots and the progression of wildfires over a lengthy period. Data is overlaid on Google Earth maps and downlinked in near real-time to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, and made available to fire incident commanders to assist them in allocating their firefighting resources.

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Collaborative Traffic Flow Management (CTFM)

The CTFM concept of operations explores how collaboration can improve the efficiency of air traffic flow management, as well as the satisfaction level of the airspace users. The original field studies and concept development were conducted before the Intelligent Systems Division’s involvement. The current focus of the project is to simulate (in software) aspects of the concept of operations, revealing possible benefits and issues before employing human-in-the-loop simulations. CTFM researchers are developing agent-based models to simulate the collaboration processes in the final simulation.

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XSearch for JSC's Missions Operations Directorate

XSearch is a new system that provides search and linkage across multiple databases used by International Space Station (ISS) and Shuttle flight controllers. XSearch integrates data from several separate flight operations databases. Through a common interface, Mission Control personnel using XSearch can issue a single search query and simultaneously interrogate multiple mission operations data sources. In addition to conducting searches, the system also contextualizes search results by detecting records that are cross-referenced by or textually similar to the search results.

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Project List (Inactive)

Aviation Data Integration
This project explores methods and techniques for integrating heterogeneous aviation data to support safety, operations, maintenance, and training needs within NASA and the aviation industry. The Aviation Data Integration System (ADIS) integrates flight data with auxiliary sources of relevant contextual data, including weather data, airport operating condition reports, radar data, runway visual range data, and navigational charts. ADIS consists of a data repository and associated integration middleware that provides rapid and secure on-demand integration of these diverse data sources with airline-owned flight data.

Knowledge Discovery Tools for System-Wide Security
The Knowledge Discovery Tools for System-Wide Security (KDTSWS) Project is leveraging existing technologies to enable knowledge discovery from system-wide aviation security information with the goal of improving decision-making in cargo screening and air security.

SemanticOrganizer
The SemanticOrganizer project focuses on research and development activities associated with the SemanticOrganizer collaborative knowledge management system. SemanticOrganizer provides a semantically-structured information repository that supports the knowledge-sharing needs of distributed NASA project teams, including multidisciplinary teams of scientists, engineers, and accident investigators. This project encompasses development of the base SemanticOrganizer system architecture and two primary applications built upon it: InvestigationOrganizer and ScienceOrganizer.