Operational Capability Advancement Through Open Architecture Application - Flipbook - Page 9
5: Common Mission Planning Management
Figure 5: Artist rendering of a USN F/A-18E Super Hornet with drone wingmen
The collaboration between co-deployed assets has, historically, been a human-centric dimension. As we make greater use
of increasingly sophisticated unmanned systems, both as part of a Manned/Unmanned Teaming (MUMT) package and as a
completely unmanned package of effects, there is a requirement to ensure that mission planning data and mission management
duties can be understood and executed by non-human mission system elements.
There are myriad reasons why a human may no longer be in the loop at all times. For example, an unmanned package may
need to operate in an RF-denied environment, either through jamming or a requirement for a comms blackout to evade detection, or a manned element of a MUMT package may be lost.
OA can deliver a mission system where the concept of mission planning, management of goals and objectives, assessment
and re-planning, and post-mission analysis is a collective of all the systems that are deployed on the mission. The common and
standard con昀椀guration of the architecture, data model, and functional products introduces much greater 昀氀exibility as to where in
the force-mix the mission-critical assessments and decisions can be made. This provides the ability for the package of systems
to manage attrition and re-assign certain roles and responsibilities among themselves, enhancing the likelihood that a signi昀椀cant
and useful military effect can be delivered against the reality of a capable enemy response.
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