Infrastructure for rapid execution of strike-planning systems

A rapid-planning system for military aircraft strikes is under design. It is intended to be capable of creating aircraft routes through enemy and friendly space with minimum loss of aircraft and maximal damage to specified target areas. The system must support joint strike planning, where the effects of several simultaneous strikes by differing groups of aircraft are captured. This paper describes a three-phased approach to the analysis of routes: static analysis to establish potential routes, detailed simulation to capture dynamic behaviors in the system, and human-in-the-loop evaluation of the most promising routes. A parallel, discrete-event simulation technique is proposed to support the detailed simulation. Optimizations based on application characteristics are described. A technique to combine discrete-event and time-stepped models is proposed. Performance results of the current simulation engine are given.