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One problem facing today’s tactical Army is that Command and Control (C2) systems do not have adequate tools for planning and analysis. Tactical C2 is a highly dynamic multi-dimensional process that must allow decisions about current operations to occur simultaneously with decisions and planning about future operations. To be effective, commanders and staff must execute the tactical decision-making process within the enemy’s decision cycle. By doing this, they seize the initiative and force the enemy to abandon their objectives and resort to a reactive decision-making process. The current generation of tactical C2 systems provides capabilities for automated data distribution, system-to-system interoperability via formatted messages, "real-time" situational awareness, and graphical and textual presentation of the "common picture," but does not support rapid planing and analysis. Current Command and Control Systems MITRE surveyed existing C2 decision support and simulation systems, and came up with four findings: (1) Current operational tactical C2 systems do not have adequate tools for mission planning. (2) Current prototype C2 decision support systems are standalone or "stovepipe" systems. (3) Course of Action (COA) development and analysis are interwoven (happening more simultaneously than sequentially) and are a time-consuming part of the mission planning process. (A COA is a strategic plan that uses advanced simulation technology. It specifies the intermediate objectives with maneuvering strategies to achieve them). (4) Current closed-form simulation systems are inadequate for COA analysis. Based on these findings, we hypothesized that it is necessary to develop a common infrastructure geared toward sharing information and analysis results that are relevant to decision making. We believe that a component-based, distributed, open architecture provides the necessary flexibility.
Proposed Architecture The architecture (Figure 1) is a set of software components sharing information in a distributed object-based environment. It consists of three distinct layers: data model, controllers, and applications. The lowest layer is the data model where the objects representing C2 planning information reside. The controllers represent the middle layer and make available certain services such as C2 object factories, global clipboard, and the C2 wargaming engine. At the top layer are the applications that users interface with directly. Information flow is directed downward. Higher-layer components can freely access components at their own level or at lower levels through defined Application Programmers Interfaces (APIs). The lower layers, however, cannot directly access information from layers above. In addition to the data model, controllers, and applications layers, there is an event service component providing a means for objects from the data layer to asynchronously influence higher layers. Through a "publish and subscribe" mechanism, data objects can notify applications and controllers components of certain events that might be of interest (for instance, when an enemy unit moves into an engagement area). This approach provides a plug-and-play environment where upper-layer components share a common set of data and services with lower layers. The intent is to move away from the stovepipe or large monolithic C2 applications to an environment where components can be developed somewhat independently while conforming to an established set of APIs for the underlying infrastructure. Prototyping We used prototyping to demonstrate four decision-support concepts and to validate the ability of the proposed infrastructure to integrate these different types of decision support: COA Development provides interactive COA sketch and planning aids (force ratio, route analysis, etc.) to quickly develop and refine a COA. The capability provides a mechanism that quickly interleaves a 2D and 3D COA presentation. COA Analysis supplies a coarse-grained embedded wargaming capability that supports faster than real-time (100-1000X) COA analysis. Embedded wargaming allows interactive adjustments (stop/rewind/revise/play) of a COA based on results as a war game unfolds. Execution monitoring automatically tells about a critical event or a plan deviation based on the underlying current Common Picture. It provides unit-forecasting capabilities through embedded wargaming to determine future plan deviations. With COA visualization, the 3D application gives the user a dynamic view of the war game showing an abstract representation of the units involved on a scaled down 3D representation of actual terrain. This view is created using VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) plug-in and Java within the constructs of a Web browser. Conclusions The principal objective of this work is to make it easier to introduce advanced decision support capabilities into tactical C2 systems. Our research gave us the opportunity to develop a C2 decision support testbed that demonstrated COA development and analysis capabilities, execution monitoring capabilities, integration of legacy C2 systems, and the integration of C2 simulation systems. For more information, please contact Kevin Kelly using the employee directory. |
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