Discrete event command and control for network teams with multiple military missions

Abstract

During mission execution in military applications, the US Army Training and Doctrine Command Pamphlet 525-66 Battle Command and Battle Space Awareness capabilities prescribe expectations that networked teams will perform in a reliable manner under changing mission requirements, varying resource availability and reliability, resource faults, etc. In this paper, a command and control structure is presented that allows for computer-aided execution of the networked team decision-making process, control of force resources, shared-resource dispatching, and adaptability to change based on battlefield conditions. A mathematically justified networked computing environment is provided called the Discrete Event Control (DEC) framework. DEC has the ability to provide the logical connectivity among all team participants, including mission planners, field commanders, warfighters, and robotic platforms. The proposed data management tools are developed and demonstrated with a simulation study on a realistic military ambush attack. The results show that the tasks of multiple missions are correctly sequenced in real time, and that shared resources are suitably assigned to competing tasks under dynamically changing conditions without conflicts and bottlenecks.