Multilayer Graph-Based Evaluation of Space-Enabled Kill-Webs

The increase in quantity and complexity of threats around the world is requiring the US military services to take a broader multi-domain approach to address these threats effectively and rapidly. In recent years, the concept of a "kill-web" was developed which involves connecting the services via a common command & control interface to enable a multi-service and multi-domain response to address emerging threats. The increased scope and complexity of the kill-web presents challenges with modeling and simulations, and with analysis methods to find the optimal combination of assets and capabilities within the kill-web to execute and most effectively accomplish mission objectives. The US Space Force is interested in exploring the impact of space-based assets and capabilities on kill-web effectiveness by integrating model-based and agent-based modeling and simulation (M&S) frameworks to perform advanced kill-web level analyses. The increasing complexity and multi-domain/cross-domain integration of warfare assets suggests a need for more robust modeling paradigms with the capability to support such complex kill-webs. Graph Theory is an area of discrete mathematics that uses graph or "network" structures to represent objects and their relationships in a mathematical configuration. T.C. Defense, along with our partner SimVentions, proposes to research the use of graph theory tools and concepts to develop the Graph Enabled Kill-web Optimization (GEKO) toolset that will interface with M&S frameworks to capture the kill-web architecture, and then model the kill-web as a graph structure to perform the quantitative kill-web analyses, visualizations, and optimizations. The concept will be demonstrating example mission scenarios, translating the mission and kill-web parameters into a graph framework, and performing complex analyses to optimize kill-web effectiveness and evaluate the impact of space-enabled vs. non-space-enabled kill-webs. The GEKO approach will be extensible to a wide range of domains such as cyber, electromagnetic, and electronic-warfare. The effort will also develop the visualization approaches and performance metrics needed to characterize the kill-web resiliency and the effectiveness of space-based assets to support trade-off analyses for operational mission decision makers.