SBIR-STTR Award

Exploiting the weather and its effects to determine the impact on a mission is an essential element across a range of military air operations. U.S. Air Force Weather Officers are the personnel who provide the essential weather intelligence needed by decision-makers to exploit weather information at key decision points in the mission decision cycle. Through a process known as Mission Watch, they collect, filter, evaluate and integrate current and future weather conditions that facilitate the exploitation of weather information and its effects in support of military operations. In this report, we investigated the Mission Watch process and found disproportionate levels of human involvement and process inefficiencies that unfavorably impact the mission decision cycle time. A high decision cycle time puts a mission at risk as the benefits from the alternative solutions are delayed, and consequently options are lost. To solve this problem, we present a novel design for an autonomous weather decision support tool called WISE: the Weather Intelligence Support Environment. WISE considerably reduces the decision cycle time by monitoring multiple mission air operations for weather effects on the aircraft, area of operations, and mission objectives.