Aircraft protection for complex threat platforms through integrated EWOS application

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering, The University of Sheffield, Mappin Street, Sheffield, S1 3JD, United Kingdom.

10.1088/1757-899X/610/1/012078

Abstract

The advancement of threats is focusing commanders to consider how to combat these complex threats throughout the kill chain including prior to launch and Anti-Access Area Denial (A2AD). To match this technology race, modern platforms have been designed with integrated command and control systems and automated Defensive Aids Suites built on modular open system architectures incorporating less diverse but more complex software driven systems. The successful operation of these combat systems is reliant upon the availability of accurate, configured, harmonised and “time sensitive” mission data without which the systems may be ineffective. This paper explores the use of threat analysis diagramming techniques, and open architectures tightly integrated with a EWOS life-cycle; to develop countermeasures with a measured response beyond the traditional self-protection kill chain stages of self-protection. It introduces how threat analysis prepares understanding for simulation and how a countermeasure description language can be used to store and exchange countermeasures in a structured form. This level of intelligence data support and analysis coordinated and synchronised across multiple platforms thereby facilitating the complexities of force protection higher up the kill chain into an onion of protection mapped to a Venn diagram of countermeasure types (design intentions) with differing data needs.