Sol: An Agent-Based Framework for Cyber Situation Awareness

In this article, we describe how we augment human perception and cognition through Sol, an agent-based framework for distributed sensemaking. We describe how our visualization approach, based on IHMC’s OZ flight display, has been leveraged and extended in our development of the Flow Capacitor, an analyst display for maintaining cyber situation awareness, and in the Parallel Coordinates 3D Observatory (PC3O or Observatory), a generalization of the Flow Capacitor that provides capabilities for developing and exploring lines of inquiry. We then introduce the primary implementation frameworks that provide the core capabilities of Sol: the Luna Software Agent Framework, the VIA Cross-Layer Communications Substrate, and the KAoS Policy Services Framework. We show how policy-governed agents can perform much of the tedious high-tempo tasks of analysts and facilitate collaboration. Much of the power of Sol lies in the concept of coactive emergence, whereby a comprehension of complex situations is achieved through the collaboration of analysts and agents working together in tandem. Not only can the approach embodied in Sol lead to a qualitative improvement in cyber situation awareness, but its approach is equally relevant to applications of distributed sensemaking for other kinds of complex high-tempo tasks.