The Integrated Weather Effects Decision Aid: A Common Software Tool to Assist in Command and Control Decision Making

Military operations and weapon systems are adversely affected to some extent by the environment, even those advertised as all weather capable. However, presenting this information to the command and control decision maker has been somewhat nebulous, incomplete, and time consuming. As a result, the Army Research Laboratory has developed an automated software decision aid the Integrated Weather Effects Decision Aid - IWEDA to assist the commander in making intelligent command and control decisions regarding the allocation or use of weapon systems and in mission planning. IWEDA produces detailed graphic and text information regarding the what, when, why, and where of pertinent environmental impacts on 70 weapon systems including 16 threat systems. Impacts are displayed graphically in terms of a Weather Effects Matrix WEM which color codes the impacts on the systems of interest with green favorable, amber marginal, and red unfavorable cells over time. Map overlays allow a detailed inspection of the spatial distribution of the impacts. Efforts associated with integrating physics based model output e.g., target acquisition routines, heat stress algorithms, etc. have either been completed or are ongoing. Additional weapon system miles to include Air Force and Navy systems are being collected for incorporation into a tri-service IWEDA.