Threat aircraft intent estimation in joint air defence within operations

Abstract

The objective of Joint Air Defence (JAD) is to defend own assets against all types of hostile aerial attack. Due to modern trends this will often occur within the context of Operations Other Than War (OOTW). OOTW is a complex environment where discrimination between friendly and hostile becomes extremely difficult. The modern airspace is much busier than a few decades ago. This has also become a rich environment for attempting terror attacks against military and civilian targets. A capability is required to determine the intent of an aircraft to assist in classification of airborne threats/targets. Throughout all military operations Intent is used to plan and execute operations. Knowledge of the enemy’s Intent will be useful to predict his actions. The estimation of Intent can be modelled through a Command and Control (C2) simulation system employing Agent Base Modelling (ABM) to capture human cognitive and social interactions. This can be implemented as a Sense-Making tool in the form of modelling and simulation of the enemy C2 process to be used in estimating a set of planned actions.