Software components for Air Defense Planning

Abstract

Modern offensive weapon technologies such as stealth and precision guided munitions have rendered Integrated Air Defense Systems increasingly vulnerable and ineffective. Stealth effectively reduces the performance of radar, but does not have the same impact on passive systems. Sensors have been the most important and vulnerable part of air defense systems throughout the history of air warfare. Research into passive sensors has been encouraging, but before passive sensor systems are produced, procured and deployed, analysis and planning must be conducted to quantify potential benefit and determine feasible system configurations. As this type of analysis encompasses extremely complex system behavior, developing reusable and flexible simulation models becomes important. This thesis develops a prototype software component architecture and component library for building simulation models for air defense analysis. Sensor and airborne weapon simulation components are demonstrated and used in an exploratory analysis of the impact of a network of Infrared Search and Track sensors. The analysis is based on a modern air defense system deployed in a realistic scenario. The component architecture and documentation methodology supports reuse, and provides model configuration flexibility with potential for growth in successive stages of analysis.