PATHA: A Planning Aid for Tasking Heterogeneous Assets for route survey or mine countermeasures operations

The Planning Aid for Tasking Heterogeneous Assets (PATHA) is a decision support tool that addresses shortcomings in current route survey or naval mine countermeasures mission planning capabilities. The tool is able to optimally assign heterogeneous assets to segments in an area of interest. Track positions for each allocation are also determined by PATHA, in order to give optimal coverage in each segment. These assignments are calculated using each asset's sonar performance-based on environmental characteristics of the ocean-and the time taken for the asset to clear the segment. The sonar performance modelling tool, ESPRESSO, is used to infer sonar performance curves based on sonar properties and environmental characteristics. These models use a novel combination of Signal-to-Noise and Shadow-to-Background ratios as a function of target range and sonar altitude to qualify sonar performance. In this paper, we show how PATHA can be used to plan a complex mission involving many assets with diverse performances in a large oceanographic area with heterogeneous seafloor. We also show how PATHA is easily adaptable to changes in mission parameters (e.g. number of assets, constraints on clearances or time, et cetera). This allows for comprehensive mission analysis of “What If” scenarios and real-time mission considerations.