A multi-criteria vehicle-target allocation assessment model for network-centric Joint Air Operations

Joint Air Operations (JAO) are traditionally orchestrated using centralised planning and scheduling that assigns air assets to mission packages for the purpose of achieving campaign objectives. However, the current command and control model used by the Air Force lacks ‘agility’, since it can neither anticipate changes in the battlespace nor take advantage of continuous information provided by the sensors in a network-centric environment. In this study, we propose a Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis model that considers four competing objectives (effort, effectiveness, efficiency, and connectivity) to assess vehicle-target allocation for network-centric JAO. The proposed model uses entropy, multi-hop connectivity, and the Analytic Hierarchy Process to derive an overall measure of the performance for alternative vehicle-target allocation scenarios.