An interactive information and processing system to assist the military with command and control decision making

Military operations and systems are adversely affected to some extent by the environment, even those advertised as "all weather capable". There are many documented weather effects on systems and operations (e.g., reduced visibilities will adversely impact certain target acquisition devices, turbulence or icing can ground fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft, etc). However, presenting this information to the decision maker has been somewhat nebulous, incomplete, and time consuming. Typically, the weather officer would provide input to the commander in terms of a weather effects matrix (WEM) that would graphically depict the environmental impacts versus time via a color coded cells (green=no impact; amber=marginal impact; red=unfavorable impact). However, this WEM did not lend itself to a detailed description of what the impacts were or where these impacts were over the area of interest.

The Army Research Laboratory has developed an automated and interactive application (the Integrated Weather Effects Decision Aid - IWEDA) to assist in making intelligent command and control decisions regarding the allocation or use of systems and in mission planning. IWEDA produces detailed graphic and text information regarding the what, when, why, and where of environmental impacts on numerous systems. Impacts are displayed graphically in terms of a WEM which color codes the impacts on the system(s) of interest with green, amber, and red cells over time. Map overlays (using the same color schema) allow a detailed inspection of the spatial distribution of the impacts. The user is allowed to interactively query the map overlay to determine and display the exact environmental impact(s) on the system in the form of a text message. IWEDA has been implemented in a client-server environment for the tactical Army to allow all Battlefield Functional Areas (BFAs, e.g., intelligence, logistics, maneuver, etc.) to automatically view the temporal and spatial distribution of weather impacts on the weapon systems of interest to them on their own workstations. High resolution environmental data (in space and time) required to run IWEDA is provided by ARL's Battlespace Forecast Model (BFM) and post-processor Atmospheric Sounding Program (ASP) which provide forecasts of nearly 20 meteorological parameters for a 500x500 km domain out to 24 hours.

IWEDA is an integral part of the Army's tactical weather system, the Integrated Meteorological System (IMETS) and has been successfully demonstrated in a client-server environment. Clients running IWEDA make remote procedure calls to the IMETS' IWEDA database to determine environmental effects on systems of interest to them.

Recent discussions with the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA) and NOAA's Forecast Systems Laboratory (FSL) have taken place regarding the transition/merging of the IWEDA technology to the commercial sector. This collaboration would provide an environmental assessment tool to local law enforcement agencies, disaster relief agencies, etc. to provide an interactive means to assist in the understanding of the impact of the environment on planned or ongoing operations. The software could be made available via the Local Data Acquisition and Dissemination (LDAD) function of the National Weather Service's Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS).