A Method of Risk Analysis and Threat Management Using Analytic Hierarchy Process: An Application to Air Defense

Efficient risk analysis and threat management are essential requirements of modern air defense (AD) systems. The paper is a half-way between the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and the practical reasoning to model and analyze the risk and threat related to military AD applications. The models are applied for decision making tasks of AD command and control (C2) for assessing and prioritizing the threat from hostile targets for efficient risk management. The paper presents a method for threat assessment using the fuzzy set theory, the AHP and the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS). The target’s threat attributes are first represented using the fuzzy set theory. The subjective opinions of the experts about different alternatives are quantified and ranked following the solutions of the AHP process. These solutions of AHP are obtained through the TOPSIS for prioritization. The models are implemented in a simulated environment. The simulated system runs without any human intervention, and represents the state-of-the-art model for the C2 system. The use of the fuzzy set theory, AHP and TOPSIS for decision making task is particularly useful from the point of view of the futuristic risk and threat management in the battlefield. This method is easy to implement in practice and good at real-time application. KeywordsAnalytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Multiple Attribute Decision Making (MADM), TOPSIS, Threat Assessment, Air Defense.