System of Systems Composition and Mission Planning
- Explore:
- Overview
- Framework
- Mission Planning
- Capabilities
Metron is a pioneer in advanced decision-aid technologies for composing systems of systems and mission plans.
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Metron is a pioneer in advanced decision-aid technologies for system of systems composition and mission planning for the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security.
Navigating Complexity
In our increasing complex world, it can be daunting to navigate through seemingly unlimited options for what systems or technologies are the best to use, how they can be combined, and how their capabilities can be applied to accomplish objectives. Often, planning systems default to rudimentary solutions based on arbitrarily picking a starting point and building a sub-optimal solution from there.
Metron has developed a suite of principled methodologies that effectively manage the complexity of an enormous space of possibilities to quickly identify an optimal solution or a range of near-optimal solutions. This provides the planner with speed, confidence and flexibility.
Systems of Systems Framework
A system of systems (SoS) is a collection of individual task-dedicated systems brought together to enable a broad array of capabilities, often connected in ways that were not considered or planned when they were designed. The options for system of systems composition can be overwhelming.
Metron has collaborated with University of California-Riverside Professor John Baez and other researchers to develop a mathematical framework for composing a system of systems based on concepts from applied category theory. This math framework has been implemented in software decision aids that have been tailored for Department of Defense customers and application domains.
Our framework:
- encodes composition rules and constraints for integrating systems via physical connections, communications, software integration, and other types of inter-system links
- provides a concise representation and means to explore the vast space of viable system of systems
- enables customizers to develop measures of effectiveness for the capabilities enabled by a system of systems, facilitating the implementation of highly capable and agile systems of systems.
- enables both top-down planning and bottom-up composition
Mission Planning
Mission planning is the art of developing the best way to achieve the desired objective. It often requires many disparate entities to come together collaboratively to provide unique information necessary to find an appropriate solution. However, the more resources, time, space, or objectives one has to consider, the more options are possible. While skilled planners are able to leverage their experience to narrow many options to feasible solutions, the vast solution space of most complex problems can overwhelm even the most experienced planners.
Not intended to replace the planner, Metron’s systems handle complex combinatorial math to provide the planner solutions quickly and potentially identify possibilities not normally considered based on conventional experience. Additionally, these approaches lend themselves to rapid update of plans based on new information. This ability to rapidly replan provides significant flexibility in achieving a desired objective. Metron continues to improve the capability and efficiency of these mission planning approaches while extending their application to other users and domains.
Metron has developed a suite of principled approaches to explore all possible mission planning options quickly and identify the optimal solution or range of near optimal solutions and do so in a fraction of the time needed for traditional planning.
Capabilities
Metron has decades of experience developing principled approaches to solve problems that involve reducing a vast space of options to a small set of near-optimal solutions. In particular, Metron has developed a number of technologies to:
(a) compose complex, agile systems of systems, and
(b) formulate mission plans for systems to coordinate and achieve objectives.
These technologies have been tailored to specific customers, domains, and scenarios to consider the systems, platforms, functions, and objectives relevant to them. Our technologies are instrumental decision aids to human planners that are otherwise overwhelmed by the complexity of the problems they face.
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