SPEAR (Search Planner with Environmentally Adaptive Response)

Since the Second World War, increased performance has been acquired by investing heavily in expensive new sensor hardware, including advanced off-board sensors, at the near exclusion of developing new algorithms and tactics to optimize use of sensors in complex environments. The shift toward threats in just such hostile areas demands a more synergistic approach wherein new sensors breed new tactics, and possibly vice versa. The optimization strategies to date either provide precise answers to sensor usage, but too slowly to be tactically useful, or quick answers that are at best suggestive of the proper strategy. SPEAR (Search Planner with Environmentally Adaptive Response) is a novel approach which combines the best aspects of the most promising existing tactical planners (i.e., GRASP and SCOUT), adds environmental adaptation, and approaches the solution in a sufficiently general way that its capabilities will be useful for all DD(X) ASW missions.