Incorporation of Visibility Estimates into the Sage Toolkit

Incorporation of visibility estimates into the SAGE Toolkit

Steven E. Peckham, Dhiren S. Khona, Michael A. Paquette, John B. Eylander

Scientists at USACE Geospatial Research Laboratory (GRL) have designed, developed, and deployed SAGE Toolkit, a suite of terrain analysis tools to empower geospatial engineers in support of the military decision-making process and troop leading procedures. SAGE Toolkit enhances terrain analysis capabilities from command to the lowest tactical level, while mitigating the need for time-intensive and imprecise manual terrain analysis. SAGE assists personnel by conducting a systematic terrain analysis of obstacles, avenues of approach, key terrain, observation and fields of fire, and cover and concealment (OAKOC). SAGE enables analysts to conduct line-of-sight calculations from observer locations along a route, at specified aircraft landing zones, and more. The output from SAGE deepens a leader's understanding and knowledge of the impact of terrain and weather in the operating environment, ultimately enabling informed command decisions.

This presentation will discuss a methodology that is under development at GRL in collaboration with Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory. This methodology tailors weather-related parameters from high fidelity numerical models into the SAGE decision aid to generate near real-time estimates of horizontal visibility to aid in the computation of mobility related parameters. This methodology deepens a soldiers' insight into environmental impacts by providing nuanced environmental characteristics into a decision aid for military engineering applications.