STELLENBOSCH UNIVERSITY Threat Evaluation & Weapon Assignment Centre of Excellence JH van Vuuren Introduction 4 December 2009 STELLENBOSCH UNIVERSITY LEDGER Conference 2009, Innovation Hub, Pretoria, 3-4 December 2009

OVERVIEW Context of Work What is TEWA Decision Support? Collaborators in Industry Past & Current Activities Activities in the Near Future Medium Term Objectives Lets start with a brief overview of the presentation…

Context of Work (GBAD) Targets Assets Radar Sensors Weapon Systems HQ Main focus of our centre of excellence is within GBADS domain In GBADS domain, number of physical elements include: ens. HQ

What is TEWA? DSS divided into two parts: TE, behaviour of aircraft are analysed with respect to capability or intent to compute a threat value between every DA and target part Stored as part of a prioritised list of threats passed on to the WA system WA system takes the attributes of WS into account to assign available WSs to targets in the air

Collaborators TFDC Centre of Excellence UDDC STELLENBOSCH UNIVERSITY Military Academy Although our work is theoretical in nature, we work in very close cooperation various collaborators in the military and industry to ensure that our work may be implemented as is realistic within a real-world environment The work started with a collaboration between the US and Reutech Radar Systems, where we worked on development ADC software of GBADS project, analysis of EADS TEWA ARMSCOR funds the theoretical study at Stellenbosch by means of LEDGER project and at Reutech a number of other project to investigated TEWA at higher levels of AD were started Theoretical work at RRS is done in close cooperation with DPSS (department of CSIR) modeling and simulation group various projects will use testing of TEWA models within their VGD Speak to other users of TEWA, for example IMT, who analysis the TEWA as part of Combat Management System on Corvette Frigates We need to ensure that we can incorporate ADC doctrine and pre-deployment planning into TEWA, a number of work sessions with the UDDC in Kimberley On TE system testing requirement realistic flight profiles, in this regards work OTB/TFDC and Military Academy in Saldanha (work sessions with pilots) and Epsilon Also important how TEWA output is provided to the OIL, spoke to ERGOTECH

Past Activities: Two 4th Year Projects Design of a weapon assignment system Francois du Toit Completed October 2006 The assignment problem Grant van Dieman Francois du Toit Grant van Dieman Over the past five years a number of honours and masters studies were conducted Our two Honours projects were compled in October 2006 Francois du Toit work on the design of a WA system, as well as on the assessment of DAs to compute there priorties Grant van Dieman dit a literature survey on the assignment problem in general

Past Activities: Masters Project 1 Real-time TE of Fixed Wing Aircraft in the GBAD environment Jaco Roux Completed April 2006 My masters project was the first within the TE domain For my thesis I looked at the development of TE system architecture As well as various TEMs, including deterministic and stochastic models In a way my thesis served as a basis for the TE work to follow

Past Activities: Masters Project 2 Measuring the Threat Value of Fixed Wing Aircraft in a Ground Based Air Defence Environment Andries Heyns Completed March 2008 Andries finished is masters at the beginning of this year and was appointed by Reutech Radar Systems He developed a number of deterministic TEMs and investigated the combination or fusion of these various TEMs He also investigated a number of LOS algorithms within the TE environment and proposed his own hybrid version of quick LOS calculations

Past Activities: Masters Project 3 Real-time Weapon Assignment in a Ground Based Air Defence Environment Cobus Potgieter Completed March 2008 Cobus Potgieter finished his masters at the beginning of this year and is now also working for Reutech Radar Systems He did some fundamental work on the design of a WA system in the GBADS environment Proposed a number of simple WA algorithms for assigning weapons in real-time He did this by focusing on the so-called SSHP of the WS, proposing filters to manipulate these values wrt terrain, weather and other factors

Past Activities: Masters Project 4 The Dynamic Weapon Target Assignment Problem in a Ground Based Air Defence Environment Francois du Toit Completed March 2009 Francois in the process of submitting his Masters project He proposed a novel dynamic WTA formulation within the GBADS environment and Investigated a number of solution techniques for this formulation, comparing solutions with regards to solution quality and time He also continue the good work of his Honours with regards to defended asset prioritization and proposed a fresh way of computing DA priorities! Francois description: Multiple variations of the weapon--target assignment (WTA) problem, which consists of the problem of assigning multiple weapons to multiple targets (threats), is reviewed as well as some of the readily available solution techniques. The SANDF method of asset prioritisation within asset assessment is described and two alternative methods of asset prioritisation are considered. A novel, generic dynamic WTA problem formulation is formulated and a discussion of solution techniques for the problem formulation follows.

Past Activities: Masters Project 5 Modeling Rigid Body Kinematics with Splines Jacques du Toit Completed March 2009 Jacques is also in the process of submitting his masters thesis. Jacques worked on interpolation algorithms (using B-splines) to describe the motion of aircraft through a number of waypoints. By varying these waypoint a number of variations on similar profiles may be created which is very useful for simulation purposes. Simple description: A means to describe aircraft motion from observed data or create a potential motion from a collection of collection of waypoints was investigated. These data were interpolated or approximated using B-splines which provide a continuous description of the motion. Using this approach, it is possible to create variation on a particular profile simply by varying the waypoints. This method may be used to model the situation where a pilot repeatedly attempts to fly the same profile; ever trial generally looks the same, but contains small variations Complicated description: Describing a smooth trajectory of a point within a body in space requires the description of its position and orientation, relative to some reference frame, as a function of time. Assuming that particulars relating to the body may not be known but that successive points along its trajectory are available, it is possible to obtain a description of its motion by interpolating or approximating pertinent kinematic quantities, such as heading or speed, that may associated with these points. B-spline curves are used to interpolate both the translational and rotational components of motion with the latter described by unit quaternions.

Past Activities: Contract Research [1] Roux JN & van Vuuren JH, 2007, Threat evaluation and weapon assignment decision support: A review of the state of the art, ORiON, 23(2), pp. 151-187. [2] Roux JN & van Vuuren JH, 2008, Real-time threat evaluation in a ground based air defence environment, ORiON, 24(1), pp. 75-101. At this stage I will hand over to Prof Jan van Vuuren to tell you more about our Contract Research

Past Activities: Conference Papers ORSSA 2004 (1 presentation) ORSSA 2005 (5 presentations) LEDGER 2005 (1 presentation) LEDGER 2006 (4 presentations) ORSSA 2007 (8 presentations) LEDGER 2007 (4 presentations) IFORS 2008 (5 presentations) LEDGER 2008 (1 presentation) ORSSA 2009 (2 presentations)

Past Activities: Workshops I Attack Technique Workshops TFDC/OTB Workshop (2006) Presented TEWA work Lecture Lance Wellington Obtained flight profile data US Workshop I (2007) Presentations by Jan Durandt Sensitizing of flight profile data Langebaanweg Workshop (2007) Introduction to simulator Informal discussion pilot US Workshop II (2008) Lecture John Erasmus TFDC Military Academy

Past Activities: Workshops II Asset Assessment Workshops RRS Workshop (2006) UDDC Workshop (2006) Scenario Workshops RRS Workshops (2005-2008) DPSS Workshops (2006-2008) UDDC Workshops (2008) Operator in the Loop Workshops IMT/Ergotec Workshop (2008) UDDC

Current Activities: Masters Project 6 Solution methodologies for the classical assignment problem Grant van Dieman Grant will be submitting his thesis at the beginning of next year He looked at a number of exact, heuristic, and meta heuristic WA solution methodologies Compares these solution with regards to solution quality and solution time

Current Activities: Masters Project 8 Aircraft Membership Estimation in a Ground Based Air Defense Environment Willa Lotz Willa will submit his thesis in September next year Working on a sub-model of our stochastic TE models He will be analyzing real flight profile data by means of data-mining to obtain important characteristics of aircraft attributes required during TE

Current Activities: Masters Project 9 Evaluation of a fully fledged TEWA system in a GBADS environment Basie Kok Submitted November 2009

Current Activities: PhD Project 1 Design of a TE Subsystem Jaco Roux Submitted November 2009

Evaluation of Conceptual TEWA System xxx

Evaluation of Conceptual TEWA System xxx

Evaluation of Conceptual TEWA System Aircraft 1 (turquoise) attacks Asset 1 (bridge) at time 125 seconds Its threat values start to rise sharply just before 100 seconds Aircraft 2 (blue) attacks Asset 2 (airfield) at time 78 seconds Its threat values are high and climb further just before 70 seconds

Future Activities: Masters Project 10 The incorporation of utility functions into the objective function of a weapon assignment problem Objective is to be able to model various modes in which weapon assignment may take place (such as deterrence or attrition, for example) by means of utility functions Danie Lötter (to Commence 2010)

Future Activities: Masters Project 11 Network threat evaluation and resource assignment Assign the minimum number of resources required to protect a network whose nodes model military infrastructure components and whose edges model line of sight, or access possibility Bernard Schlünz (to Commence 2010)

Future Activities: PhD Project 2 Coastal threat evaluation decision support by means of pattern recognition and pattern mining Description: Management, filtering, classification and evaluation of intelligence data. Jacques du Toit (Commenced January 2009)

Future Graduate Research Topics Topic: Design of a resource assignment decision support system in a law enforcement environment Description: Implementation of a decision support system to aid the law enforcement authorities with the assignment of resources. Related honours studies: (hopefully one of the Honours students will enroll for the Masters programme) Topic: Design of a resource assignment system on ADA regiment level Description: Utility and assignment theory are used to design a decision support system for operators on ADA regiment level. Related honours studies: (hopefully related Honours student will enroll for the Masters programme) Topic: Design of a weapon assignment system in the GBAD environment Description: A decision support system is designed to propose possible engagement between threats and effectors in real-time. Related masters studies

Other Future Activities (2010-2012) Contract Research & Interest Development Projects Further build Centre of Excellence Research Material Postgraduate laboratory containing 12 PCs Maintain and update equipment Workshops Workshops with various military partners Workshops with various industry partners Conferences LEDGER 2010-2012 ORSSA 2010-2012 IFORS 2011 Additional to graduate student bursaries…

Medium Term Objectives Long term planning, 4 years, to ensure the sustainability of the centre of excellence Main objective to develop the first South African TEWA concept demonstrator for future GBADS phases (Ph2+) – in collaboration with Reutech Radar Systems Secondary objectives to develop or support development of DSSs: TEWA on higher levels of ADA TEWA or TERA in the JAD environment TE DSS during Operations Other Than War (OOTW) Large Events Peace Keeping Task force assignment of SAP TE DS for coastal surveillance