Analysis, design and implementation of a proof-of-concept prototype to support large-scale military experimentation

Abstract

FORCEnet Innovation and Research Enterprise (FIRE) is an enterprise computer-based solution developed to support large-scale experimentation in the Navy and Department of Defense. Every year, experiments are conducted such as Trident Warrior (TW) events to assess new capabilities developed to achieve FORCEnet concept. FIRE is also used to support experimentation in other projects and for other services. FIRE was built by the Naval Postgraduate School to provide the necessary tools for the coordination of the planning, execution and reporting of these experiments. Since its inception in 2003, FIRE has played an essential role in TW by empowering all stakeholders with the collaborative and management tools to perform tasks that were time-consuming and manpower-intensive in the past. However, a survey conducted a few years ago showed that FIRE lacks some required features and improvement in various areas needed to be considered. The objective of this thesis was to design, develop, and test a proof-of-concept prototype of an improved web-based application to support the coordination of large-scale experimentation to address the shortcomings of the old FIRE system. This was achieved by using the following: a modern design approach; the Model-View-Controller; a state-of-the-art framework; Oracle Application Development Framework; and powerful development tools such as Oracle JDeveloper and Oracle WebCenter.