Knowledge-based maneuver and fire support planning

Maneuver and Fire Support Planner (MFSP) is an expert system which allows edition and evaluation of an Operational Plan. Firstly, it adopts the synchronization matrix metaphor by means of a Gantt chart addressed to the Army, where the user can manipulate military units and tasks. Secondly, it enables the user to run the plan paying special attention to essential parameters of the battlefield such as terrain, mobility, various kinds of strength, effectiveness, etc. As the capability is twofold, MFSP has been designed as a pair of agents belonging to a distributed supra-organization. With MFSP, the user defines (or updates) maneuver and fire support military tasks and then simulates their effects. This process can be repeated as many times as needed until the evolution of the battle satisfies the command team's expectations. MFSP speeds up the command and control process and produces better quality plans, thus preventing operational, tactical, logistic, etc, problems. It also allows war-gaming, as you can play your plan against the machine, which is driven by the "Doctrine" knowledge base. In fact, MFSP has a knowledge-based design, meaning that modules containing domain knowledge are separated from the control-methods. Knowledge bases can be populated with rules and constraints defined in accordance with the commander's expertise, features of the scenario, and operational area. Further MFSP combines both the fuzzy and the production rules with constraint programming and realtime search to reason about the tactical picture. Finally, an extension of the search algorithm achieves anytime calculation of optimal routes. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.