Showing papers on "Concept of operations published in 2002"

Effects-Based Operations: A New Operational Model?

Abstract: : The post cold-war environment has caused the U.S. military to reexamine the way it will conduct military operations in the future. Today technological advances and changes in the international security environment may redefine how the United States will wage war. Success in meeting the national security challenges depends on the adequacy of national military strategy and the ability of the armed forces to execute their assigned tasks. Toward that end, the United States Joint Forces Command is examining current trends and emerging concepts regarding the application of military and other elements of national power. Such an examination depends on, among other inputs, experience, which must provide a critical source for validating current and generating new concepts. From observation of the 1990-1991 Gulf War, some in the United States argue that the war portended a new construct for the "American way of war." They posit that recent conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo have also demonstrated a maturation of the new concept of effects-based operations. According to the proponents of effects-based operations, rather than relying on the old approaches of annihilation or attrition, the new way of conducting operations focuses on generating desired effects rather than focusing on objectives or the physical destruction of targets. Examination of this concept resulted in the publication of a White Paper by the J9 Concepts Department of the United States Joint Forces Command on 18 October 2001 titled Effects Based Operations. The White Paper is, according to J9, "a result of pre-concept topic area exploration and subsequent command decision to proceed with concept development." It describes effects-based operations as "an enabler of the Rapid Decisive Operations Concept." This study will analyze the concept of effects-based operations and attempt to answer the questions, what, in the end, is effects-based operations?

Regaining Lost Separation in a Piloted Simulation of Autonomous Aircraft Operations

Abstract: NASA is currently investigating a new concept of operations for the National Airspace System, designed to improve capacity while maintaining or improving current levels of safety. This concept, known as Distributed Air/Ground Traffic Management (DAG-TM), allows appropriately equipped autonomous aircraft to maneuver freely for flight optimization while resolving conflicts with other traffic and staying out of special use airspace and hazardous weather. While Airborne Separation Assurance System (ASAS) tools would normally allow pilots to resolve conflicts before they become hazardous, evaluation of system performance in sudden, near-term conflicts is needed in order to determine concept feasibility. If an acceptable safety level can be demonstrated in these situations, then operations may be conducted with lower separation minimums. An experiment was conducted in NASA Langley s Air Traffic Operations Lab to address issues associated with resolving near-term conflicts and the potential use of lower separation minimums. Sixteen commercial airline pilots flew a total of 32 traffic scenarios that required them to use prototype ASAS tools to resolve close range pop-up conflicts. Required separation standards were set at either 3 or 5 NM lateral spacing, with 1000 ft vertical separation being used for both cases. Reducing the lateral separation from 5 to 3 NM did not appear to increase operational risk, as indicated by the proximity to the intruder aircraft. Pilots performed better when they followed tactical guidance cues provided by ASAS than when they didn't follow the guidance. As air-air separation concepts are evolved, further studies will consider integration issues between ASAS and existing Airborne Collision Avoidance Systems (ACAS).These types of non-normal events will require the ASAS to provide effective alerts and resolutions prior to the time that an Airborne Collision Avoidance System (ACAS) would give a Resolution Advisory (RA). When an RA is issued, a pilot must take immediate action in order to avoid a potential near miss. The Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) II currently functions as an ACAS aboard commercial aircraft. Depending on the own aircraft s altitude, TCAS only issues RA s 15-35 seconds prior to the Closest Point of Approach (CPA). Prior to an RA, DAG-TM pilots operating autonomous aircraft must rely solely on ASAS for resolution guidance. An additional area of DAG-TM concept feasibility relates to a potential reduction in separation standards. Lower separation standards are likely needed in order to improve NAS efficiency and capacity. Current separation minimums are based in large part on the capabilities of older radar systems. Safety assessments are needed to determine the feasibility of reduced separation minimums. They will give strong consideration to surveillance system performance, including accuracy, integrity, and availability. Candidate surveillance systems include Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) and multi-lateration systems. Considering studies done for Reduced Vertical Separation Minimums (RVSM) operations, it is likely that flight technical errors will also be considered. In addition to a thorough evaluation of surveillance system performance, a potential decision to lower the separation standards should also take operational considerations into account. An ASAS Safety Assessment study identified improper maneuvering in response to a conflict (due to ambiguous or improper resolution commands or a pilot s failure to comply with the resolution) as a potential safety risk. If near-term conflicts with lower separation minimums were determined to be more challenging for pilots, the severity of these risks could be even greater.

Effects-Based Operations: Building the Analytic Tools

Abstract: Overview The U.S. military, under the guidance of the Secretary of Defense, is moving toward a new concept of military planning and operations that is agile and adaptable to the conflict at hand. The aim is to develop capabilities that can rapidly break an adversary's will to fight and undermine the utility of asymmetric capabilities. The new concept called effects-based operations (EBO) encompasses processes, tools, and organizations that focus on planning, executing, and assessing military activities for the effects produced rather than merely tallying the number of targets destroyed. EBO practitioners draw on the full range of instruments of national power to anticipate, track, and understand the indirect as well as direct effects of U.S. actions throughout the enemy political, military, and economic systems. The EBO concept requires deep knowledge not only of enemy but also of friendly capabilities and structures. The current suite of analytic tools employed by the Department of Defense cannot support this approach to military operations. These tools were not designed to determine how the use of force affects adversary strategic will, to model adaptive behavior, to represent unintended consequences, or to evaluate alternative courses of action that include other instruments of national power beyond military force. During the Cold War, the dominant principle of military planning was the ability to mass forces at key points while preventing the adversary from doing the same. Success in battle was understood to depend on the ability to dominate the enemy in an extended attrition campaign. However, the operations that the U.S. military has been called on to execute have changed in character. They are typically against opponents who have nowhere near the military might of the United States (let alone the United States with its allies), and they are not limited to the classic cross-border invasion that leads to defined battle lines, with success measured by territory defended or gained. As demonstrated by Operation Allied Force in Kosovo and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, considerations of military superiority at strategic or operational levels are inappropriate when compared with other factors, such as the enemy's will to fight and local considerations of military force that allow for asymmetric capabilities to be employed effectively. The new concept of effects-based operations (EBO) is an effort to leverage American military and technical might with enormous advantages in computation, information, and analysis to achieve political-military outcomes that so far have eluded the United States in the new strategic environment. Making EBO a reality will depend on developing and using appropriate analytic frameworks of political and military problems. These frameworks and associated methodologies will enable commanders to plan more effectively for operations and then adapt those plans and operations as political and military situations unfold. Future operations that reflect the principles of EBO will require U.S. political and military leadership to understand the consequences of what may occur in the future beyond immediate military activities. Political and military decisionmakers will require a modeling framework that integrates concepts such as the explicit linking of military actions to national strategy, the continual assessment of operational outcomes and unintended consequences, the coordination of interagency efforts, and the appropriate utilization of emerging operational concepts such as network-centric warfare and rapid decisive operations. EBO seeks to control the duration and scale of a conflict, allowing the state to achieve strategic objectives at an acceptable cost. Efforts to achieve the desired effects are pursued under the dual objectives of operational efficiency and political effectiveness. Under EBO, commanders would not commit to operations that squander precious resources, nor would they undertake actions without a likelihood of success; for example, they would not commit to a strategy of deterrence against an adversary intent on fighting regardless of the potential costs or loss. …

Toward a Concept of Operations for Aviation Weather Information Implementation in the Evolving National Airspace System

Abstract: The capacity of the National Airspace System is being stressed due to the limits of current technologies. Because of this, the FAA and NASA are working to develop new technologies to increase the system's capacity which enhancing safety. Adverse weather has been determined to be a major factor in aircraft accidents and fatalities and the FAA and NASA have developed programs to improve aviation weather information technologies and communications for system users The Aviation Weather Information Element of the Weather Accident Prevention Project of NASA's Aviation Safety Program is currently working to develop these technologies in coordination with the FAA and industry. This paper sets forth a theoretical approach to implement these new technologies while addressing the National Airspace System (NAS) as an evolving system with Weather Information as one of its subSystems. With this approach in place, system users will be able to acquire the type of weather information that is needed based upon the type of decision-making situation and condition that is encountered. The theoretical approach addressed in this paper takes the form of a model for weather information implementation. This model addresses the use of weather information in three decision-making situations, based upon the system user's operational perspective. The model also addresses two decision-making conditions, which are based upon the need for collaboration due to the level of support offered by the weather information provided by each new product or technology. The model is proposed for use in weather information implementation in order to provide a systems approach to the NAS. Enhancements to the NAS collaborative decision-making capabilities are also suggested.

A Concept of Operations for a New Deep-Diving Submarine

Abstract: : The NR-1 is the Navy's only nuclear deep-diving research submarine capable of scientific and military missions. Its nuclear reactor will be exhausted in 2012; therefore, the NR-1 must be refueled or retired before then. As part of its considerations in this regard, the Navy is developing a concept of operations (CONOP) for a possible replacement platform, initially designated the NR-2. The study summarized here was designed to provide insight into the capabilities that an NR-2 platform or system might incorporate and help define operational capability requirements based on a prioritization of those capabilities and the missions they would support. We neither discuss potential alternatives to an NR-2 nor analyze the costs associated with the platform. The results of this study will inform a future Navy analysis of alternatives, including a cost-benefit assessment.

Recent advances in the design of distributed embedded systems

Abstract: The network-centric 'system-of-systems' concept popular in current defense programs has been viewed from a very functional perspective. However, the heart of such a system is going to be an embedded software infrastructure of unprecedented complexity, and the technology for developing and testing this software needs as much if not more immediate attention than the concept of operations for the envisioned applications. Such an embedded software system will need to be infinitely scalable, modular, verifiable, and distributed, yet satisfy the myriad hard real-time performance constraints imposed by each of perhaps many different device types and service demands. It is suggested here that the only path to a robust design methodology for such systems is with model-based design. Model-based embedded system design is the focus of the Model-Based Integration of Embedded Software (MoBIES) program, currently underway at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), managed by the author. This paper will motivate the model-based approach to large-scale embedded software design and explain how projects funded under MoBIES are contributing to the development of interoperable model-based design tool components. An application for such technology is provided in the context of digital flight control systems for aggressive aircraft maneuvers, which is the subject of another DARPA sponsored program, Software-Enabled Control (SEC).

Free-space optical communication systems (FOCUS): a U.S. Army overview

Abstract: The Army's objective is to design, develop and demonstrate its 'ability to distribute information around the battlefield.' Future Army systems will be based on a survivable, adaptable network capable of integrating commercial services and securely utilizing bandwidth for voice, data, and video applications. However, microwave bandwidth allocation has been a serious problem (given crosstalk, interference and frequency management) for a mobile, adaptive communication network. Because of the inherent advantages of the high data rate, crosstalk independence, jam - resistance, covertness and quick system setup time, the Army is looking into optical wireless communication as a means to address this communications requirement. However, development of a fielded laser communication system requires the development of enabling technologies, the understanding of physical limits and performance, and concept of operations (CONOPS).

Development of an airborne Internet architecture to support SATS: Trends and issues

Abstract: NASA is undertaking the development of the Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS). SATS could play a major role in decreasing the doorstop to destination times for travel and shipping. It is conceived to meet four major objectives: higher volume at non-towered/non-radar airports, lower landing minimums at minimally equipped landing facilities, increased single crew safety and mission reliability, and integrated procedures and systems for integrated fleet operations. SATS is to be prototyped in the 2005 timeframe. A key enabling technology for such a system is the development of an airborne Internet to provide aircraft to ground, ground to ground and aircraft to aircraft communications in support of air traffic management, fleet operations, and passenger support services. A critical first step in attaining the desirable capabilities of an airborne Internet is a well-conceived architecture. The architecture must be robust enough to enable the concept of operations envisioned for the 2025 timeframe yet flexible enough to support prototypes using technology and systems available in the 2005 timeframe. This paper addresses some of the trends and issues involved in developing an airborne Internet capable of achieving this goal. Understanding relationships between these trends, issues and objectives, and functional requirements of the program will allow various participants in this complex program to keep activities in proper perspective. The architecture process provides a robust framework to add functionality, systems and equipment. It must also describe the linkage to the existing National Airspace System.

Advanced airborne military communications architectures enabled by commercial broadband satellite communications

Abstract: The advent of commercial broadband satellite communications systems and services for in-flight civil aircraft provides the opportunity to enable advanced military communications architectures sooner than government-planned systems and associated bandwidth will be available. Application of these commercial systems/services to MILSATCOM architectures and concept of operations is discussed herein. These newly evolving satcom technologies for commercial aviation applications provide national and international governmental departments additional options to supplement supporting ever-expanding requirements in the rapidly changing "information age". The need to "keep up" with technology, which has life cycles of 12 to 18 months, versus the fielding of major new MILSATCOM infrastructure with life cycles of 10 - 25 years, leaves governments at tremendous shortfall in capability versus demand. Even with new programs fielded, the exponential growth of bandwidth requirements, as exemplified by the Internet, points to the need to supplement non-mission critical communications to other than high demand, mission critical government unique MILSATCOM assets. These new commercial broadband SATCOM systems and services offer the chance to "bridge the gap" between existing capabilities and future government programs while providing valuable operational experience that can be applied to those future programs. Moreover, the commercial broadband SATCOM systems/services can enable new communications architectures that help meet the "network centric warfare", global information grid connectivity, and real-time data requirements that exist today.

A Concept of Operations for a New Deep-Diving Submarine: Executive Summary

Abstract: By 2012, the U.S. Navy's deep-diving research submarine's reactor will be exhausted, making it necessary to refuel the reactor or replace the submarine. If the Navy opts for a new submarine, what would be its vital missions and what would it need to perform them? This executive summary of MR-1395 encapsulates the authors' work with scientists, defense experts, and the Navy to develop a concept of operation for a new platform, analyzing which missions should have the highest priority. They conclude with a list of highest-priority missions and two design concepts best able to achieve them.

Smoothing the integration path: key elements in the design of data interfaces and simulators

Abstract: The integration phase of a satellite program is sometimes filled with unpleasant surprises, particularly in the area of data interfaces among the spacecraft and instruments. Clearly defining the data interfaces is often relegated to the low priority list. Yet, due to the aggressive schedule associated with small satellite programs, surprises at integration time are something the program can ill afford. This paper will present guidelines to follow when designing data interfaces which can help to keep development costs down, increase the likelihood of a common interpretation of the interface, and facilitate the development of low-cost interface simulators. The paper will define what constitutes an interface "concept of operations" and describe why it is so critical to mission success. Finally, the paper discusses the keys to designing effective, low-cost data interface simulators which will both smooth the path to integration and provide a useful tool during on-orbit operations.