Watchtower: Forecaster

The sixty-year evolution of the United States Air Force (USAF) ICBM system has led to the need to integrate several aging data systems that were not designed to work together.  On behalf of the USAF, AFRL’s Center for Rapid Innovation (CRI) sought a Command and Control (C2) capability to bridge this information gap and unify the many disparate data sources required for Situational Awareness (SA) and Decision Support in the maintenance and security operations of US ICBM missile fields. The team proposes an application, Watchtower: Forecaster, to be integrated with a current Common Operating Picture (COP) system in use by the 20th AF (Watchtower). Watchtower: Forecaster will provide enhanced decision support capabilities through the use of data analytics and predictive analytics. The proposed capabilities of Watchtower: Forecaster will allow the Wing Operations Center (WOC) personnel along with other commanders and stakeholders several advantages. Watchtower: Forecaster will 1) implement a data storage and retrieval system in order to allow “replay” of Situational views for analysis, debriefing, and training, 2) engage predictive maintenance technologies to better anticipate when things will break and allow for correction of those issues beforehand, 3) develop and deploy heuristic data analytic solutions and machine learning techniques to examine both single data sources and data fused from multiple sources including field maintenance systems and non-DOD spaces, such as weather and road conditions, in order to grant improved situational awareness and incident prevention, and 4) integrate visualizations with the current Watchtower system, layering the modeling predictions over current displays.  Taken together, Watchtower: Forecaster will be designed to allow commanders to better react to adverse conditions before they fully manifest.