Revisiting the JDL model for information exploitation

Abstract—The original Joint Directors of Laboratories (JDL) model was developed in the early 90’s, with revisits in 1998, and 2004. Today, with new technologies of big data, cloud computing, and machine analytics, there is an ever increasing need for integration of people and machines. The original JDL model focused on the data fusion (correlation, filtering, and association) issues, while today there is an increasing emphasis on an integrated approach to information exploitation over sensors, users, and missions using enterprise architectures, interoperability standards, and intelligence to the edge. Given these recent changes to computation and distributed access, we examine ways for extending the JDL model from 1998 to support exploitation functions and information management for situation awareness, massive data analytics for contextual awareness, and domain-specific needs for mission awareness.