ICONVIEW - ISR CONstellation Visualization and Investigative Evaluation Workbench

Generating a collection plan for airborne ISR assets is a long-standing problem which has led to the development of many different automated management algorithms. Not only does a collection plan have to satisfy multiple constraints (e.g., collision avoidance, limited fuel supply), but it must also meet numerous and often competing objectives (e.g., avoiding adverse weather effects, maximizing sensor performance, and consistently tracking targets). These challenges, coupled with the increasing number of sensors and sensor platforms, the highly diverse advantages and limitations of each, and the ways of combining them, are making it harder for ISR mission planners and ISR operators to optimize their use. As automated ISR constellation management algorithms are being developed to address this problem, the acquisition community has the challenge of objectively identifying superior algorithm performance under differing operational scenarios with varying assets and sensors. We propose to develop ICONVIEW (ISR CONstellation Visualization and Investigative Evaluation Workbench) as a means of impartially evaluating and contrasting different ISR constellation management algorithms. ICONVIEW is a complete end-to-end analytical research environment capable of specifying scenarios, customizing metrics, executing simulations, and evaluating the results using visualization techniques to bring insight into the analysis of alternatives (AoA) task within the acquisition process. BENEFIT: The ICONVIEW workbench will have immediate and tangible benefit for a number of military agencies in the acquisition community, such as AFMC’s ESC and ASC, by helping them with the comparative analysis of alternatives process. ICONVIEW also has the potential to improve the effectiveness of ISR constellation planning operations in the J-2 community and the JAOC by determining the best ICMA to use as part of the planning process. Additionally, technology developed under ICONVIEW will be incorporated into our own DRIVE™ visualization toolkit to increase its appeal as a commercial product and to support our consulting services to customers within the DoD, other Federal agencies, and commercial markets.