Evaluation of JSAF EM propagation prediction methods for navy continuous training environment / fleet synthetic training results and recommendations: part II – potential improvements to propagation modeling within JSAF

Abstract

Incorporating the Navy’s Advanced Propagation Model (APM) into JSAF would greatly improve the EM range prediction accuracy, particularly for situations with strong refractive effects such as commonly occur in the Mideast and other locations. Many, but not all of the various physical effects on EM transmissions are already included in the APM model and therefore would not require development by NWDC. Because APM is the official OAML EM propagation model for the Navy, there will be continuous improvements and it will not stagnate. Incorporating these improvements into JSAF should be relatively straightforward because most of them will be internal to the program and not require any extra changes to the JSAF “sockets” that allow input and output of data between APM and the rest of JSAF. Including some of the physical effects, besides refraction, would require significant costs to NWDC in terms of programming effort. They would also contribute more complexity to the user interface. A later report will analyze the associated costs and benefits to various modeling improvements and compare these with the cost/benefits of enhancing the environmental inputs. This analysis will serve as an aid to decision makers who will determine which features should be the focus of JSAF developments now and in the future.