METOC-driven vessel interdiction system (MVIS): Supporting decision making in Command and Control (C2) systems

This paper presents a decision support system (DSS) to help Command and Control (C2) operators. Hereby, the METOC-driven vessel interdiction system (MVIS) is presented. It is aimed to help the decision-making process in case of interdiction operations so that the success rate increases. In particular, MVIS yields the best location along a predicted path to interdict a vessel in the best meteorological and oceanographic (METOC) conditions and/or taking the fastest track. The system scheme includes two main processing stages: the routing algorithm and the decision-making stage. The routing algorithm finds out the minimum cost-optimal-routes through an optimization algorithm to the predicted interdiction locations. The algorithm is guided by means of a navigation model that employs METOC variables, such as the significant wave height or the wind. A numerical ocean model (NOM) provides the METOC forecasts. The decision-making stage arranges the proposed solutions according to a risk metric, which is computed by an objective function. The best solution corresponds to the lowest metric. As a final step, the ranking of solutions is visually presented to the operator. To illustrate the MVIS performance, a case study within the Mediterranean Sea is developed that yields satisfactory results.