Undersea Acoustic Risk Analysis Decision Aid for Theater Anti-Submarine Warfare (TASW) Mission Planning

At the Commander, Task Force (CTF) Watchfloor, the TASW Planners have a series of resources to analyze risk vs mitigations to future TASW operations, to include a Common Operating Picture (COP), METOC and Intel Support. The Undersea Warfare Decision Support System (USW-DSS), a Command and Control (C2) system, was designed to help fuse this data into an ASW tactical picture, however,  current USW-DSS lacks risk analysis mission planning capability that captures the full needs of the disparate users in both understanding and assessing risk (relative to existing mitigation measures) to these future plans. TASW Planners require Risk Analysis Mission Planning capability in order to “visualize” and “evaluate” the full impact of the risk involved to future operations in a high op-tempo, multi-threat environment. Further this capability must not only provide decision makers situational awareness they currently lack regarding the nature of the risk but also provide an evaluation of “residual” risk resulting from current mitigation measures; and do so in an intuitive way within a GUI able to interface with current UWS-DSS display and architecture. During the Phase I effort, the MAI team was able to demonstrate Transition Readiness Level (TRL) 3 Proof of Concept for a Theater Anti-Submarine Warfare (TASW) Risk Analysis Tactical Decision Aid (TDA) able to visualize TASW Risk to Future Operations (FUOPS) Planners. The TDA utilizes MAI’s logic-based, 4-D Monte-Carlo acoustic modeling and simulation software, as well as acoustic databases and sensor libraries developed as part of the Phase I effort. While the results for this Proof of Concept represent a limited data set based on simplified assumptions and current limitations of the MAI software utilized for this effort, a more robust analysis effort in the future would address the following shortcomings needed to fully optimize the model and simulation. This more robust test and analysis effort would be necessary in identifying and improving critical components and functionality necessary for integration with USW-DSS as part of Phase II Prototype development. The Phase II Technical Objectives are designed to ultimately to provide a low risk Phase III transition path schedule, to include a Transition Readiness Level (TRL) 6 Seminal Transition Event (STE) at the end of Phase II Base Period as well as a TRL 7 System of Systems Demo at the end of the Phase II Option 1 period (ideally at a CTF shore site instantiation). Target transition will be USW-DSS Build 3 (TASW Build) via scheduled FY23 Capability Drops (CD 23).   Phase II Base Objectives: Develop initial TASW Risk Analysis Tool TRL-5 prototype Test Performance of TDA software to meet Navy goals Refine TASW Risk Analysis TRL-6 protype Provide key protype documentation to meet transition activity needs   Phase II Option 1 Objectives: Take part in USW-DSS Phase III transition planning activity Deliver final TRL-7 TASW Risk Analysis prototype