The objective is to determine the best algorithmic approach to optimally select unmanned vehicle flight paths that maximize mission success for attached sensors. That involves trade-offs between a) active emissions and passive collections, b) high and low altitudes, c) high and low speeds, d) day and night operations, e) rough and smooth terrain, f) accuracy and efficiency, etc. The solutions will optimize altitude and speed, accounting for the tradeoff between mission success, sensor performance, fuel efficiency, and vulnerability. The solution will involve a strategy for active emissions that considers target reaction. Optimal emission strategies (in space and time) will be evaluated that cause desired threat behavior (i.e., herding), so that passive sensor performance will be enhanced. The solution will represent a blend of accuracy and efficiency, and the operator will have control over this trade-off. Quick calculations (with loss in accuracy) are required in order to plan over large areas or to consider and choose between many reasonable plans. A layered, iterative approach will be followed so that intermediate solutions can be considered automatically. Physical assumptions and constraints will be relaxed, in an objective controlled way, in order to achieve the correct blend of accuracy and efficiency.
Benefit: Modern Naval tactics were developed during the Second World War based on simple physical assumptions and static, homogeneous scenarios. They have remained mostly unchanged for many years. Even today, with a) further improvements in sensors and processing, b) new vehicles to carry the sensors, c) new sea and land threats, d) new missions and e) new environments (i.e., shallow water and rough terrain), work on updated tactics has been sparse. This standard approach of buying increased performance by investing heavily in expensive new hardware, at the near exclusion of developing new algorithms and tactics to optimize use of sensors and platforms, is deficient. There should be a synergistic approach wherein new sensors and vehicles breed new tactics, and possibly vice versa. Project CURVE (Coordinated UV Routing in Variable Environments) addresses this problem by developing new unmanned vehicle tactics that adapt to the ever-changing environment. The solutions will apply to a large class of problems, beyond the Naval requirements. The ideas apply to mission planning in complex environments, and they could be adapted to surface-ship searches (military operations or civilian search and rescue), counter-drug surveillance, or to the fishing industry.
Keywords: search, Decision-Aid, environment, mission-planning, Sensors, Optimization, Tactics, Unmanned Vehicles
