Analysis for Cooperative Behavior Effectiveness of Autonomous Wide Area Search Munitions

The purpose of this study is to investigate how a simulation model can accurately represent the performance of the autonomous wide area search munitions, and to find the effectiveness of the cooperative behavior on the autonomous munitions. As a prediction tool for measuring the performance of the virtual weapon systems, simulation models are established because there are insufficient analytical tool for the prediction of weapon system performance. Though the simulation models may not accurately represent the actual autonomous weapon system, the result of the simulation may provide expectations of the performance of the autonomous munitions in actual battlefield scenarios. Several assumptions and limitations are necessary in dealing with the problem for the purpose of the simplicity. The assumptions and limitations will be presented in this thesis. Two simulation models were used in this research. One is a highly simplified model for validity investigation, and the other is an AFRL/VACA model which is still in development phase to investigate the effectiveness of cooperative behavior. The simulation result from the simplified simulation model will be compared to the calculated performance predicted from an analytical tool for validity investigation, and it will also dominate the potential effectiveness of cooperative behavior. The result from the AFRL/VACA simulation will also present the effectiveness of cooperative behavior in the virtual weapon system.