A technical demonstration of a map based logistics planning tool

Abstract

The post Cold War is characterized by a wide range of possible military missions, from full scale war to peace keeping missions and by great uncertainty about when and where military response will be required. Military planning systems (for example, logistics, counter logistics, protection of infrastructure, and infrastructure restoration) must be flexible enough to allow rapid response to situations whose details can not be anticipated. These advanced systems must be able to coordinate resources (maps, overlays, networks, algorithms, models, people) over a distributed network of heterogeneous computers and systems. This thesis develops a prototype system to demonstrate some of these capabilities. The system loads maps, data files, and algorithms from a computer network and has algorithms to determine optimal ways to disrupt, restore, or protect logistics networks. The planning tool displays the data as an overlay on a map and is user interactive for modification and sensitivity analysis. The system is developed using the Java programming language and thus can be executed without change in a variety of computer environments