Real-time In-situ Adaptation of Decision Parameters for Undersea Target Tracking in a Sensor Field

Network-centric command and control of complex military missions (e.g., anti-submarine warfare, collaborative mine hunting, etc.) calls for cost-effective designs that can dynamically tradeoff multiple conflicting objectives. Often these optimizations have to be carried out at a higher level, and the associated control directives have to be disseminated down to a distributed system, thereby, influencing its behavior. The key innovations in the proposed effort are twofold: 1) mathematical formulation and algorithm development of real-time in-situ decision-parameter adaptation for undersea target tracking in a sensor field, and 2) development of an enhanced composable cross-layer simulator for realistic undersea communication to validate the proposed algorithms. This research will be jointly conducted by Penn State University and IAI under the technical direction of Prof. Asok Ray of Penn State University. Penn State University will lead the research on formulation of multi-objective-optimization and language-measure-theoretic decision tools and the associated software development at the preliminary stage. These software tools will be developed and modified by IAI for implementation on the simulation test-bed; the software development efforts will address emulation of communication problems in the undersea network environment.