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We describe a prototype implementation of a semantic filtering capability added to an existing XML-based publish and subscribe infrastructure. An ontology is used to provide vocabulary for expressing both 1) the semantic annotations that characterize the published documents and 2) the subscriptions specifying the class of documents to be routed to a given client. A description logic (DL) classifier is used to determine which subscribers an incoming document is routed to. We outline the key elements of the ontology for the battlefield domain and give some sample annotations and subscriptions. This is the basis for describing a number of scenarios showing how this filtering capability could be used practice. We critically analyze the suitability of a DL language and reasoner in general, and the particular implementation choices (DAML+OIL, FaCT and OilEd) for performing this task. A key result of the work is to demonstrate the importance of testing semantics-based technologies on practical problems. We discovered a number of new and interesting areas for future work, which in turn can direct the focus of the research community.

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