Multimodal ISR Sensor Tasker (MIST)

Commanders execute different types of missions throughout the phases of a military campaign. For missions which involve engaging or avoiding the adversary, a Commander needs to know the location, identification, and status of the opposing side’s assets, aka, their Order Of Battle (OOB). The Navy leverages a variety of taskable and fixed sensor networks to observe the adversary’s OOB. However, the adversary does not want their OOB known and will act to deny this information. Modern adversaries can disrupt sensor systems in various ways, from denying (jamming) all the way to destruction. Different tasks (such as detection, tracking, or positive ID) require different sensor types, hence the definition of OOB observation “coverage” must consider the type of sensor necessary for the task at hand and how it couples with the target signature.To mitigate these issues, the United States is continually improving its sensing capacity. This includes partnering with commercial data providers, fielding new sensor technologies, and deploying proliferated sensor systems. But even with these efforts, ideal observation coverage is not guaranteed, and a well-resourced adversary can still open up holes in coverage. When the adversary opens up holes in coverage, the U.S. must detect those holes and fill them. Coverage gaps are specific to the sensor modalities, which are driven by the mission needs, which themselves evolve over time and space.To address this need, Knight will deliver the Multimodal ISR Sensor Tasker (MIST), a tool which automatically analyzes sensor coverage and mission success requirements, highlighting current short-term dynamic and future long-term static gaps. MIST determines and presents the user with options to fill those gaps, prioritized by success, cost, and risk. Upon selection of one or more courses of action, the taskable Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) systems are then supplied with the appropriate tasking orders.