Combat Systems of the Future

During Phase I, the Rite-Solutions team has explored enabling technologies critical to the Navy's reduced manning objectives. They include mission- and intent-focused displays; expert systems; robust, high availability architectures that result in minimal or no operator maintenance during a mission; and constraint based reasoning. In the interest of constraining our initial look to a manageable subset of the overall combat system, we have determined that it is feasible to develop a Command Decision Support System that provides high level advisory decision support and human interface capabilities to ship's command personnel as part of our Phase II effort. The system concepts evolved using a highly-structured Humans Systems Integration process and employs advanced AI-based and visualization technologies. Commercial high availability architectures are an essential enabler for reduced manning and several approaches have been explored. Leveraging our success with 24/7 commercial gaming systems, we will develop the foundation for a high-availability combat system architecture consistent with optimized onboard performance as well as offboard GIG/IA compliance. Constraint based reasoning approaches will be further investigated and demonstrated during Phase II as a means to reduce the level of uncertainty thereby transferring cognitive workload from human to machine.