Applying Distributed SAT-based Constrained Optimization to Global Missile Defense Battle Management

As part of an ongoing MDA SBIR effort we have developed REASON, a scenario environment for the missile defense battle management asset assignment and employment problems. Through that effort, we demonstrated how it was both possible and computational advantageous to map missile defense intercept scenarios involving complex coordination, mutual-exclusion, and deconfliction constraints and global notions of solution fitness to instances of the Boolean Satisfiability (SAT) problem. Through the implementation of a series of algorithmic innovations, we demonstrated considerable speedup resolving these instances in distributed computing environments that will ultimately scale up from commodity clusters all the way to future net-centric environments. In this effort, we propose to build upon and extend that ongoing work with new capabilities that address the need for (1) optimization in the context of global inventory management (2) incorporation of constraints that address probabilistic outcomes and (3) a broader problem formulation that admits feedback and iterative refinement. We are again partnering with Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems & Sensors (MS2) developers of the Aegis BMD system who will be assisting us with requirements analysis and evaluation. Lockheed Martin MS2 has an interest in transitioning this technology to address problems in persistent surveillance, multi-target tracking, and multi-sensor fusion.