Adding Weather to Wargames
Abstract
Employing the capability of the Target Acquisition Weapons Software (TAWS) tactical decision aid, and the rules embodied in the Integrated Weather Effects Decision Aid (IWEDA) we developed techniques that allowed significant improvement in weather effects and impacts for wargames. TAWS was run for numerous and varied weather conditions; the resultant database was subsequently used to construct third-order polynomial curves to represent infrared sensors acquiring targets under those weather conditions. IWEDA rules were used in determination of go/no-go weather situations for platforms or systems. We found that the wargame realism was increased without impacting the run time. While these techniques are applicable to wargames in general, we tested them by incorporation into the Advanced Warfighting Simulation (AWARS) model. AWARS was modified to incorporate weather impacts upon sensor operation and platform mobility. These modifications included revision of the direct-fire sensor detection algorithm to reflect variations of the maximum number of resolution cycles over the direct fire target with meteorological visibility, time of day, sky cover, target state, and haze aerosol type. The speed of these computations was an important consideration, so the parametric fit technique was selected after a favorable comparison with table look-up methods. Weather effects upon combatant platform mobility were modeled by implementation of IWEDA rules classes for both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft platforms. The impacts of these modifications in both the presence and absence of adverse weather conditions were tested and are summarized.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2007
- Accession Number
- ADA461984
Entities
People
- Richard C> Shirkey
- Sean G. O'brien
Organizations
- United States Army Research Laboratory