Optimized Planning for Threat Interception using Markets for Uncertainty Management (OPTIMUM)

Emerging threats and technologies have significantly increased the requirements for successful battle management and fire control in ballistic missile defense applications. The growing interdependencies between weapons and sensor systems demand defensive planning tools that integrate weapon allocation with sensor management, and problems such as inventory management and weapon-to-target assignment create the need for predictive planning that can manage the uncertainty and risk that dominates missile defense. Here, we propose Optimized Planning for Threat Interception using Markets for Uncertainty Management (OPTIMUM), to provide a solution that integrates the whole of the layered defense system in a framework that incorporates many sources of uncertainty and provides a decision rationale to human operators, allowing them to quickly determine the consequences of overriding any system-generated decision. This approach uses market-based optimization, which applies solutions from economic theory, particularly game theory, to battle management and fire control by creating an artificial market for weapon and sensor capabilities. With a properly designed market, we can engineer a system that reaches competitive equilibrium, ensuring an optimal allocation of assets and resources.