Optimized and Rapid Employment of Loitering Weapons in Response to Calls for Fire

Advances in the Tactical Tomahawk weapon system enable the concept of stationing the Tactical Tomahawk missiles in loiter paths for rapid responses to calls for fire from ground commanders. Data Fusion Corporation in collaboration with the University of Virginia Department of Systems and Information Engineering is now developing algorithms and an interactive software system that optimize the planning for and near real-time employment of loitering weapons, maintain situational awareness, and support critical user decisions. Once the region of conflict, the mission parameters, and the weapon parameters are specified, the set of algorithms works autonomously to determine the Pareto optimal path from the initial location of the weapon to the target location. The algorithms estimate the number of Tactical Tomahawk missiles that are required for a region of conflict, coordinate the actions of multiple missiles, and determine Pareto-optimal loiter paths. These algorithms perform in near-real time. The proposed Phase-II prototype software application is called the Tactical Tomahawk Interface for Monitoring and Retargeting, with Loiter planning functionality (TTIMR+L).