SBIR-STTR Award

The development of modern weapon systems requires complex dynamic subsystems that must be coherently developed and integrated. Today technology systems tend to be developed at a technology development facility, tested in collocated test bed facilities, and then flight tested or deployed at another facility. The Real-Time Integrated Planner/Player (RIPP) provides a distributed engineering environment with the capabilities to flight test and/or mission rehearse subsystems and weapon systems directly in their development and integration facilities utilizing a common synthetic battle space. RIPP will provide a Real-Time "Sensor - Decision Maker - Shooter" tool set (self-contained) and development environment that will support single development facilities as well as physically distributed ones. To extensively test a weapon system, the system must be capable of accepting mission scenarios from all candidate test and user communities. All participants must be provided with a common theater/engagement environment. All participants and observers must have the capabilities of viewing In-Cockpit displays, Out-the-Window displays and theater level displays. Planners must be capable of interacting with all planning sites/nodes as well as receive real-time reconnaissance data from RIPP vehicles.

Theater Commanders and Air Operation Centers (AOC) are responsible for preparing the battlefield strategy, defining the targets to be attacked, and generating the Air Tasking Order (ATO) for the combat units to accomplish the actual mission assignment. During ATO generation, many of the ATO functions are performed manually, and mission rehearsal and mission effectiveness analysis is very hard or impossible to accomplish. Lessons learned out of Desert Storm, Bosnia, and Kosovo after-action-reports documented an operational need for improved ATO automation, quick turn-around for time critical targets (such as SCUDs) and visualization technologies that have the capability to integrate combat information and display a consistent battlespace. "Time Critical Targets" are of primary concern for the operational commanders while the tools needed to develop and demonstrate new technical Command and Control concepts are also a stated requirement.The Realtime Integrated Planner/Player (RIPP) will provide a distributed engineering environment with the capabilities to flight test and/or mission rehearse subsystems and weapon systems directly in their development and integration facilities utilizing a common synthetic battle space. RIPP will provide a Realtime "Sensor - Decision Maker -Shooter" tool set (self-contained) and development environment that will support single development facilities as well as physically distributed ones within the C41.

Keywords:
COLLABORATIVE ENGINEERINGMODELING AND SIMULATION SENSOR/DECISION MAKER/SHOOTER AIR OPERATIONS CENTER