Integrated Software Environment for Battlespace Digital Mapping and Target Range Acquisition

The explosive growth in information technology provides a tremendous opportunity for enhancing US warfighting capabilities. The associated digitization of the battlespace, in tandem with deployment of highly capable sensor systems, provides a tremendousopportunity to enhance battlespace operations. Additionally, the use and proliferation of Geographic Information Systems (GISs) and digital mapping can further enhance military situation awareness and visualization. These advances have substantialapplication for the development of improved tactical fire control support systems for target-rich multi-shooter environments. Here we propose an Integrated Software Environment (ISE) for Battlespace Digital Mapping and Target Range Acquisition. Our novelsystem integrates: an in-house battlefield simulation and visualization software environment with an embedded COTS-based GIS processing for digital mapping support and target range acquisition; and a geometric approach for target location predictionaugmented with conventional estimation algorithms. We see considerable potential for this approach in enhancing fire control support systems and addressing information dominated battlespace requirements.Our Phase I effort will: 1) identify systemrequirements and scope; 2) formulate and design a limited-scope prototype ISE ; 3) develop a working concept prototype; 4) demonstrate its use and assess overall feasibility in a selected scenario; and 5) develop requirements for follow-on development andcommercialization.We see several potential applications of the developed technology. Direct application of the developed ISE exists to DoD C2 and fire control support systems. Generalization of the developed GIS processing and visualization system to otherdomains, in particular, law enforcement and search and rescue is also apparent. Additionally, we see opportunities for enhancement of our Intelligent Agent Toolkit (IAT) product via the incorporation of the software development environment andvisualization components of the proposed ISE.