Establishment of a system operating characteristic for autonomous wide area search munitions

The optimal employment of autonomous wide area search munitions is addressed. The specific scenarios considered involve a munition searching a battle space for targets in the presence of false targets. Target encounters are modelled using either a uniform or Poisson distribution. False target encounters are modelled using a Poisson distribution. All relevant parameters are extracted from intelligence information, the sensor performance specification, and the air vehicle performance specification. Analytic system effectiveness measures are derived using applied probability theory. The effectiveness measures derived handle time-varying parameters which characterize the battle space environment and the performance of the system. This allows the formulation and solution of optimization problems that maximize the probability of a target attack while at the same time constraining the probability of a false target attack. Optimal schedules for controlling sensor threshold and area coverage rate during a mission are derived and compared to the constant-parameter results. These schedules establish a system operating characteristic. An increase in system effectiveness is demonstrated when parameters are dynamically controlled during a mission