Within the context of military air operations, Time-sensitive targets (TSTs) are targets where modifiers such, “emerging, perishable, high-payoff, short dwell, or highly mobile” can be used. Time-critical targets (TCTs) further the criticality of TSTs with respect to achievement of mission objectives and a limited window of opportunity for attack. The importance of TST/TCTs within military air operations has been met with a significant investment in advanced technologies and platforms to meet these challenges. Developments in ISR systems, manned and unmanned air platforms, precision guided munitions, and network-centric warfare have made significant strides for ensuring timely prosecution of TSTs/TCTs. However, additional investments are needed to further decrease the targeting decision cycle. Given the operational needs for decision support systems to enable time-sensitive/time-critical targeting, we present a tool for the rapid generation and analysis of mission plan solutions to address TSTs/TCTs. Our system employs a genetic algorithm-based multi-objective optimization scheme that is well suited to the rapid generation of approximate solutions in a dynamic environment. Genetic Algorithms (GAs) allow for the effective exploration of the search space for potentially novel solutions, while addressing the multiple conflicting objectives that characterize the prosecution of TSTs/TCTs (e.g. probability of target destruction, time to accomplish task, level of disruption to other mission priorities, level of risk to friendly assets, etc.).
Military services require C4I systems that support a full spectrum of operations. This is specifically relevant to the theatre missile defense (TMD) mission planning and analysis community where there have been several recent concept changes; advancements in information technology, sensors, and weapons; and expansion in the diversity and capabilities of potential adversaries. To fully support campaign development and analysis in this new environment, there is a need for systems and tools that enhance understanding of adversarial behavior, assess potential threat capabilities and vulnerabilities, perform C4I system trades, and provide methods to identify macro-level novel or emergent combat tactics and behavior derived from simpler micro-level rules. Such systems must also be interactive, collaborative, and semi-autonomous, providing the INTEL analyst with the means for exploration and potential exploitation of novel enemy behavior patterns. To address these issues we have developed an Intelligent Threat Assessment Processor (ITAP) to provide prediction and interpretation of enemy courses of actions (eCOAs) for the TMD domain. This system uses a combination of genetic algorithm-based optimization in tandem with the spatial analysis and visualization capabilities of a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) geographic information system to generate and evaluate potential eCOAs.
Future command and control (C2) systems must be constructed in such a way that they are extensible both in terms of the kinds of scenarios they can handle and the type of manipulations that they support. This paper presents an open architecture that uses commercial standards and implementations where appropriate. The discussion is framed by our ongoing work with a course of action planner and generator that uses genetic algorithms together with an abstract wargamer to suggest a small number of possible COAs (FOX).
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