Mission planning in the context of military combat requires detailed information about the state of friendly and possibly hostile forces. Based on this overview of the situation the commander is able to come up with a corresponding mission plan resulting in adequate orders. State-of-the-art information systems already support the task of data acquisition and provision. This is typically done by some sort of distributed database augmented by tailored user interfaces for entering and querying data. In this context solely the efficient data acquisition and provision is not sufficient for optimal mission planning in complex situations. As different planning steps can be complex and time consuming the usage of intelligent software algorithms shows a big potential to support military decision taking in many fields.

The Austrian research project C2DSAS (Command and Control Decision Support and Advisory Systems) focused on the development of software-based methods for the operational command and control decision support. In particular, resource optimization and re-scheduling for complex decision-making processes in the fields troop movement, reachability, visibility, weapon impact, and defensive position areas have been investigated. All algorithms have been implemented in a corresponding prototype and tested on the basis of map material provided by the Austrian Armed Forces.

Contact:
Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt -
Institut für angewandte Informatik
o. Univ.-Prof. DI Dr. Gerhard Friedrich
Universitätsstraße 65-67
9020 Klagenfurt
Tel: 0463 / 2700 - 3757
gerhard.friedrich@uni-klu.ac.at