Distributed Weapon Systems & ISR Platforms

[Abstract] With the DOD’s increasing emphasis on network-centric warfare (NCW), weapon systems and ISR systems are becoming more network-enabled. State-of-the-art collaborative systems technology enables improved military mission effectiveness and situational awareness. This paper discusses a collaborative onboard adaptive mission controller that will improve mission management for teams of semi-autonomous entities. The mission management model was designed to be adaptive to multiple types of missions involving m-on-n engagements such as: search-and-destroy, weapon-to-target assignment (WTA), and force protection system optimization. The controller automates path planning, performs weapon-target pairing, and optimizes task allocation in real-time; all with minimum human intervention. The intent is to reduce the resource management and mission planning burden on the battle commander by using adaptive onboard targeting maps to do dynamic planning in real-time. The planner architecture and design is based on the concepts of joint situational awareness, single integrated air pictures (SIAPs), and common operating pictures (COPs). The algorithms are designed to improve team performance in terms of measures of effectiveness (MOEs) with respect to function, time, and space. Each system in the group responds jointly to changes in the battle situation. The unmanned entities collaborate with each other to efficiently allocate tasks in realtime. Our simulations and analyses showed that the distributed, adaptive engagement manager (DAEM) improved overall mission effectiveness. Moreover, this algorithmic approach has been demonstrated to perform well over a wide ranging set of problems.

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