FA873022C0038

Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR) Phase II

Next Generation Weapons Planning System (NGWPS)

Next Generation Weapons Mission Planning

Current weapon mission planners are tasked with planning increasingly diverse missions with complex next generation weapons and tactics. Planners must coordinate across various systems of systems, platforms, and weapons, leaving less time for each task. Their workload is immense and currently, not enabled by the JMPS system, because it was not designed to support the level of complexity, the limited time available to plan, and newer weapon types, like Network Enabled Weapons (NEWs). Fighter pilots plan in two hours or less, and bombers plan larger missions in eight hours or less. The system is not intuitive, requiring significant training and experience to become proficient with the system, every time the system is upgraded, additional training must occur and there is a significant dip in performance until teams become familiar with the updated software. Monterey Technologies, Inc. (MTI) and Tapestry Solutions, A Boeing Company (Tapestry), propose to develop a Next Generation Weapons Planning Software User Interface (NGWPS). NGWPS will provide a workflow-driven, task-based user interface (UI) designed to support rapid development of high-quality weapons plans. The UI steps will incorporate auto-fill, decision support, and full automation where appropriate, to reduce the cognitive load on the planner, and to improve the consistency of the results. NGWPS UI will also be instrumented using a novel model-based instrumentation that enables data logging of all interactions with the UI with minimal resource usage. The data logs will then be reviewed by an artificial intelligence (AI) engine designed to identify planning tasks that are causing the user frustration, rework, excessive time, or varying results. This analysis of user patterns will then feed back to the design and development of improvements, resulting in a spiral improvement of Weapons Planning System (WPS) to optimize the duration and results of the weapons planning process.

The goal of phase II is to continue the R&D efforts initiated in Phase I. Funding is based on the results achieved in Phase I and the scientific and technical merit and commercial potential of the project proposed in Phase II.

AF212-0008

F212-0008-0006

21.2

Douglas Cherry