A configural Mine Countermeasure Dynamic Planning Tool -- Phase I (U)

The overall objective of Phase I and Phase II is to develop (1) the mathematical means to design, control, and modify a minesweeping operation in order to minimuze the time needed to nullify a minefield with specified assets in the light of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) products that become available befor and during the mine countermeasure operation and (2) a software implementaion of those algorithms that permits revised estimates to be made in "near real time" on a desktop computer. The algorithms to be developed determine the minimum minsweeping time that is sufficient to ensure that the random number of casualties among the ships that subsequently attempt to penetrate a minefield of unknown but customary design is at most an acceptably small, specified number with at least a suitably high, specified probability. The general factors to be accommodated that pertain to ISR products include mines that may have been laid, their operational characteristics, and their quantities; the boundaries of the minefield; and on-site operational observation sof minefield behavior in the course of the minesweeping operation. Phase I is primarily analytical. Its principal objective is to develop, describe, and illustrate the architecture of the dynamic planning tool and to discuss and illustrate what the underlying mathematics does.