The Surface Warfare Tactical Decision Aid (SUWTDA) is a tactical decision aid for planning non-acoustic searches against surface ships and submarines. The initial build of this system, known as ASUWTDA, was integrated as a segment of the Global Command and Control System-Maritime (GCCS-M), and deployed with the John F. Kennedy, George Washington, Stennis, Eisenhower, and Enterprise battlegroups. This program, which first went to sea in January 1997, has received high praise in official traffic from flag level warfare commanders and has been credited with helping plan highly successful exercise operations against normally very difficult Orange opponents. SUWTDA maintains comprehensive databases of Navy platform and sensor types with detection tables for all common sizes and classes of non-acoustic targets. It permits users to establish a local database of platforms and associated sensors. It permits the user to automatically generate an optimal plan for an entire day’s mission with multiple sorties, in a single step. The optimization algorithms account for the special nature of the uncued surveillance problem, and in particular account for the fact that the targets must usually be relocated and loosely tracked. If a day’s operations have begun, or if specific platforms are assigned search areas by other authority, then the operator has the opportunity to include or exclude sorties in the optimization process. This makes it easy to re-plan only a portion of the day’s mission. The system also provides displays to permit the operator to evaluate the adequacy of the assigned surveillance assets. A two-dimensional “clearance map” shows, in color, the detection achieved in portions of the area of interest. A time-referenced “effectiveness graph” shows clearance objective curves for different sub-areas as a function of time, superimposed on a sortie Gantt chart. In follow-on work we have implemented a server for generating radar effectiveness estimates using in-situ data, and demonstrated the use of SUWTDA and this server in Fleet Battle Experiment-Echo (FBE-E). In addition, we have developed a simplified PC version, which is currently managed by Tactical Training Group Pacific (TTGP) for Third Fleet.

Clearance effectiveness in areas of interest and sortie search areas.

Probability over time of having classified a large patrol boat in the areas of interest.