Agent-based target evaluation and fire doctrine: an aspect-oriented programming view

Threat evaluation is a vital process for any defense system, and it consists of a series of calculation and evaluation based on the inferred capabilities and intents of the targets that aim to give damage to defended assets. Target evaluation is proceeded in a wargame and the aim is to compare weapon target pairs according to a set of criteria. The target evaluation cycle is repeated anytime a new detection is received and when any change happens in the target currently detected. The whole process consists of a set of tasks that are shared between Command and Control units and the tasks require different responsibilities. Each task is succeeded by a specific behavior that is represented as a reasonably ordered set of actions. The task sharing is organized by taking the C2 architectures into account. In this paper, an agent-based command and control entity, which is in charge of target evaluation and giving engagement decision, is designed and it is situated in an air defense simulation environment. The study aims to propose an agent design in military decision-making domain, bringing analytic methods with the first-order logic together, and combine aspect orientation with agent design. The study also improves dynamic aspect management in agent programming using the relation concept.