McDonald wins DoD semantic Web work

McDonald Bradley Inc., Herndon, Va., won a $7.8 million contract to help unify Defense Department back-end intelligence systems, the company announced March 17.

The contract is for the Defense Information Systems Agency's Net-Centric Enterprise Services pilot, an initiative to integrate the back-end information systems and data repositories.

When completed, the project will allow authorized users to quickly draw information from many intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance resources and configure them into unique combinations via a Web browser.

Users may include military intelligence, as well as agents from the Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the Department of State, said Kenneth Bartee, president of McDonald Bradley.

McDonald Bradley will explore use of metadata tagging, data-content markup, taxonomies, ontologies and other extensible markup language and semantic Web techniques to help systems index and provide information.

An extension of Web protocols, the semantic Web is an emerging framework of protocols that will enable computers and other electronic devices to interact more intelligently.

The company will also implement tools for secure knowledge sharing, which will determine what content individuals are cleared to see. Northrop Grumman Corp. of Los Angeles is a subcontractor.

According to Bartee, McDonald Bradley will draw from work on a previous project called the Virtual Knowledge Base pilot, a 2000 Defense Department initiative worth about $750,000.

The company hopes to extend its expertise out to other military work, Bartee said. Personnel from other command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems have shown an interest in the work, Bartee said.

Founded in 1985, McDonald Bradley focuses on providing services in independent verification and validation, visual intelligence, system integration and Web Integration services. Clients include the departments of Housing and Urban Development and Justice, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority.

The company employs 200 people, and reported revenue of $18.2 million in fiscal 2002, according to Bartee.