The objective of this SBIR is to define a system that fulfills the strike package planning requirements for low observable (LO) vehicles and addresses the needs of the Joint Armed Services. BONN Corporation will work with user communities from all the armed services to identify LO strike package planning requirements. Part of this effort will be to design a platform-independent, distributed architecture and define the functionality that satisfies the user community requirements. The design will take into consideration dynamic mission management; aircraft and weapons deconfliction; and battlespace characterization that addresses the special needs of the LO community in order to maximize battlespace effectiveness. BONN will explore Passive Coherent Location (PCL) technologies and will define tools to assist the mission planners with tactics and techniques to lessen the effects of these new LO countermeasures. The system architecture design will take advantage of today's technologies and will be flexible enough to accommodate the technologies of the future. The major goals of this system are to significantly reduce the strike package planning timeline, bridge the gap between unit-level mission planning and the force-level planning process, and accommodate multi-service and coalition requirements. The system architecture and some of its functionality have numerous commercial applications.
Benefits: The results of this SBIR have direct application to both the DoD and commercial communities. The resulting system could be incorporated into many facets of the joint armed services, from exercises such as Red Flag and supporting Navy airwing training cycles, to operational units such as JSF and other LO platforms, to joint air operational centers and carrier deployments. The capabilities of this work have civilian application as well, especially in air traffic management and harbor vessel traffic coordination. Airlines have expressed the interest to be able to determine a route on-the-fly and depend on the ground controllers when they get close to their destination. The package planning and deconfliction capability could make on-the-fly air traffic planning a reality. The combination of these capabilities, along with wireless communication technologies currently in use and under development for use on commercial airline platforms, will make the on-the-fly air traffic routing a reality, while at the same time providing a real-time picture to air traffic controllers. Another potential application is in the deconfliction and route planning of naval shipping traffic in congested commercial shipping lanes, especially in and around major harbors.
Keywords: Strike Package Planning, Distributed Computing Architectures, Low Observable Mission Planning, Dynamic Mission Management, Airspace Deconfliction, Passive Coherent Location, Agent Based Technology, Battlespace Characterization
