Due to their unique characteristics, military domains contain various peculiarities that directly or indirectly and favourably or unfavourably impact the development of software products. Observations of systems development in the Brazilian Navy for many years have shown that systems are developed and delivered usually with many delays, and during development there are many changes to the requirements initially elicited. Since many authors in the software engineering literature agree that problems in requirements account for more than 70% of total system development failures, it seemed to be logical that any effort to solve the problems encountered in the military environment should start focusing on the requirements area. Currently several techniques and approaches already exist that support the execution of activities in this phase. With this abundance of techniques, it becomes a difficult task for the analysts to select the best technique in a given circumstance. To support the selection of these techniques, several frameworks were also created, each one guided by a respective group of influencing factors. This study examined, in a detailed manner, these techniques and frameworks, and noticed that there are still issues to be addressed to guide the selection of elicitation techniques, especially in a complex environment such as the military one. To elicit these issues an exploratory qualitative research was performed. The results showed that social issues rather than technical ones were the main concern in the domain under study. Issues such as hierarchy and high staff turnover interfere in the requirements process but are yet not addressed. The findings of the qualitative research are the first contribution of the thesis. Based on these results this research proposed a novel framework for requirements elicitation within the context of a military environment taking into account social and technical factors, which is the second contribution of the thesis. Such a framework was developed following Conflict Theory from sociology. This framework organized a selection of techniques based on possible solutions to conflicts. Finally, the solution was evaluated to assess its efficacy. This evaluation was based on qualitative and quantitative research. Based on the evaluation results the framework was updated.

No description available.

Accurate weather forecasts are vital to air combat operations. Quantitative assessments of forecasts and their operational impacts are essential to improving weather support for war fighters. We adapted an existing U.S. Navy, web-based, near-real time system for collecting and analyzing data on the performance and operational impacts of military forecasts. We used the adapted system to collect and analyze data on Air Force Weather (AFW) forecasts, and the planning and execution of flying operations, at six Air Combat Command and Pacific Air Forces bases. We analyzed the data to develop quantitative metrics of forecast performance and operational impacts. Our results indicate that planning weather forecasts (PWFs) have a higher potential for making positive contributions to air operations than do mission execution forecasts (MEFs). This is notable because AFW units spend significantly less time developing PWFs than MEFs. Surface visibility, cloud ceilings, and cloud layers caused most negative mission impacts, indicating these phenomena should be a focus of future research and training. We found high levels of mission success even when forecasts were inaccurate, perhaps due to aircrew and mission flexibility. Our analyses revealed a need for improved education of flying units on the nature and availability of AFW products.

No description available.

The coordination and collaboration of information has never before been more important to the success of tactical missions. Hybrid wireless-mesh networks have the capability to put critical information at the fingertips of the operator, enabling tactical units to successfully carry out their missions. The increasing use of expeditionary and special operations forces operating in ad hoc, dynamic, and tactical environments poses a need for an adaptable, flexible, and responsive Deployable Network Operations Center (DNOC) to support their efforts. Whether co-located or virtual, the DNOC must supply tactical units with the right information, at the right time, and in the right format. The DNOC must also serve as a rapid, reliable, and secure communications network platform so that forces can collaborate in a manner which builds quality interactions and trust. This thesis effort consisted of designing, building, and implementing a DNOC to support Naval Postgraduate School's Tactical Sensor- Decision Making Network (TSDN) field experiments. Baseline operating processes were explored and recommendations for life-cycle maintenance and future upgrades are made.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

In the past two decades policy assisting computer models have made a tremendous impact in the analysis of national security issues and the analysis of problems in various government affairs. SURMAN (Survivability Management) is a policy assisting model that has been developed for use in national security planning. It is a large scale model formulated using the system dynamics approach of treating a problem in its entirety rather than in parts. In this thesis, an encapsulation of SURMAN is attempted so as to sharpen and focus its ability to perform policy/design evaluation. It is also aimed to make SURMAN more accessible to potential users and to provide a simple tool to the decision makers without having to resort to the mainframe computers. To achieve these objectives a personal/microcomputer version of SURMAN (PC SURMAN) and a series of curves relating inputs to outputs are developed. PC SURMAN reduces the complexity of SURMAN by dealing with generic aircraft. It details the essential survivability management parameters and their causal relationships through the life-cycle of aircraft systems. The model strives to link the decision parameters (inputs) to the measures of effectiveness (outputs). The principal decision variables identified are survivability, availability, and inventory of the aircraft system. The measures of effectiveness identified are the Increase Payload Delivered to Target Per Loss (ITDPL), Cost Elasticity of Targets Destroyed Per Loss (CETDPL), Combat Value Ratio (COMVR), Kill to Loss Ratio (KLR), and Decreased Program Life-Cycle Cost (DPLCC). The model provides an opportunity for trading off decision parameters. The trading off of survivability enhancement techniques and the defense budget allocation parameters for selecting those techniques/parameters with higher benefits and lower penalties are discussed. The information relating inputs to outputs for the tradeoff analysis is presented graphically using curves derived from experimentally designed computer runs. / M.S.

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1986 H44 / Master of Arts / History