Special Operations Force Selection in Crisis: A Kernel Decision Support System
Abstract
The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the development of a decision support system to support military mission planners in selecting the most capable and available special operations unit for use in a contingency operation. The adaptive design methodology was used to develop a kernel system to serve as a working testbed for the mission planners around which a fully operational planning aid could eventually be developed. The system generated by this research was named PLANNER Ver. O and incorporates a spreadsheet, relational data base, and expert system to support the unit selection process. PLANNER calculates the distance and time to target for the units available to the mission planners and updates the data base with this information for each unit. PLANNER provides the mission planner with the opportunity to browse the data base or elicit help from the expert system, which uses a set of pre- determined selection rules, in order to select a unit for the mission. The ultimate goal PLANNER is to help a mission planner do this job more efficiently, effectively, and consistently. PLANNER serves as a first cut attempt at designing decision aids for operational planners using off-the-shelf software and hardware products.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 1988
- Accession Number
- ADA205971
Entities
People
- William J. Miller
Organizations
- Air Force Institute of Technology