"Oh, By the Way," SIFT Awarded $3M DARPA Contract for Mission Planning Support

SIFT, along with teammates University of Maryland (Drs. Dana Nau and Ugur Kuter) and Arizona State University (Dr. Subbarao Kambhampati), have been awarded a 39 month, $2M DARPA contract to develop decision aiding techniques, based on AI planning, to support US military operations planners, under the Oh By The Way (OBTW) program, BAA10-058. The total value of the contract with options exercised is over $3M.   

The primary objective is to develop a tool called S3, that will efficiently perform several key plan analysis functions on mission plans:

• Generates an estimate of plan robustness for comparison to alternatives and expert benchmarks;
• Generates estimates of plan likelihood of success;
• Identifies particular mission plan segments that are susceptible to failure, with explanation;
• Creates plan repair alternatives for commander’s review and selection, and
• Identifies particular planning components (methods) that are potentially flawed.