A Model-based approach to architecting and evaluating autonomous network-centric weapon systems: A UAV and Small Satellite System-of-Systems Exemplar

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle;Satellites;SWARN;Network-Centric Warfare;Weapon Systems

The need to limit the number of warfighters on the battlefield has led to an increase in research and application of unmanned robotic vehicles (URV) for battlespace operations and missions. Increasing the effectiveness, survivability and suitability of these URV systems (e.g., Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV)) for successful military operations, requires an effective communication architecture that exhibits network-centric warfare capabilities. As an architectural concept for autonomous weapon systems operating collaboratively, and without an active human-in-the-loop, Network-Centric Warfare (NCW) serves as an enabler for the combination of tactics, techniques, and procedures that are employed by a URV weapon System-of-Systems (SoS) to create a decisive warfighting advantage for desired mission objective. NCW also known as Net-Centric Operations (NCO) is an information superiority-enabled concept of operations supporting a multidomain configuration that includes manned and unmanned platforms, weapons, infantry, and special operations amongst others. In order to achieve warfighting capability as an NCW weapon system, traditional NCW architecture concepts will need to be adapted to accommodate autonomous-only sets of weapon systems operating as an intelligent network of nodes. Any adaptation of NCW architecture for autonomous weapon systems must begin with the identification of stakeholder needs and requirements. Thus, the stakeholder needs directly help to identify the concept of operations and mission objectives.
It is important to note that a majority of current approaches to the design of swarm URV architectures as observed in literature are examined from the perspective of specific engineering disciplines. This includes a focus on concepts such as communication network infrastructure, command and control architectures, sensors, and vehicle platforms. However, a major drawback to this development approach is the absence of a systematic and disciplined system development approach which focuses on the mission and operational contexts of the NCW SoS. A lack of mission conceptualization, operational and system contextualization will obscure gaps and vulnerabilities in the NCW architecture, and significantly impact the suitability of the autonomous weapon SoS configuration to achieve mission objectives.
For this reason, the work outlined in this presentation addresses the architectural development and evaluation of a multidomain configuration of small satellites systems and a suite of autonomous heterogeneous UAVs collaborating as a multi-layered NCW weapon SoS for deployment in complex and highly specialized battlespace scenario. A model-based systems engineering approach (MBSE) utilizing the unified architecture framework (UAF) and modeling language is used to specify and define various intra- and inter-layer architecture alternatives and concept of operations for the multi-layered NCW weapon SoS architecture. In addition, an architectural trade study analysis is performed to evaluate multiple multi-layered NCW architecture configurations based on a set of defined measures of performance (MOP) and Measures of effectiveness (MOE) metrics regarding multiple attributes (i.e., networks, C2ISR, payload capability, and operational), and their suitability for specific notionally defined battlespace special operation scenario.