Electronic Attack Platform Placement Optimization (Defense)

An increasingly dynamic battlefield requires increasingly faster software development. Cyber threats and Information Assurance certifications induce significant delays in software operational deployment designed to meet these emerging battlefield requirements. An alternative software development methodology for Department of Defense (DOD) acquisitions was proposed. The proposed software development methodology uses tailoring of commercial pre-approved applications such as Microsoft Office and Adobe currently available on most DOD networks. The application developed to test the validity of this approach is called the electronic attack platform placement optimization (EAPPO) algorithm. Given digital terrain data, a user inputted strike route, and an enemy order-of-battle (EOB) with their respective jammer techniques as inputs, the application output includes terrain and radar impacted threat range rings, aircraft strike routes, and an optimized flight path for the jamming platform (EA-18G). Successful development of the application validates the potential of using pre-approved, non-compiled software to develop military specific applications, a process that could significantly decrease software development time and cost for the DOD.