Dynamic Influence Nets: An Extension of Timed Influence Nets for Modeling Dynamic Uncertain Situations

Abstract : This paper proposes structural and parametric enhancements in the Timed Influence Nets (TINs) based framework for modeling Effects-Based Operations (EBO). The existing TIN framework does not have the capability to model the impact of different sequences of actions. Thus, no matter what the sequence of action is, the final outcome remains the same. Furthermore, it is assumed that the influence of an event on another event is stationary, i.e., the influence remains the same throughout the campaign. Both of these constraints may turn out to be unrealistic in many real world situations. The enhancements proposed in this paper would overcome the above two limitations. The proposed structural enhancement would enable a system modeler to model the impacts of different sequences of actions on the desired effect; while the parametric enhancements would aid the mathematical modeling of time-varying influences. Together these enhancements make it possible to model the impact of repetitive actions in a dynamic uncertain situation.