Smart Support for Mission Success

TL;DR

This paper discusses the development of AI-powered decision support systems for complex, dynamic battlefield environments, emphasizing predictive, prescriptive, and hybrid AI approaches to enhance logistics, readiness, and sustainability.

Contribution

It introduces a holistic AI-based framework for smart support in defense, integrating multiple AI paradigms for improved asset management and operational decision-making.

Findings

AI can enhance logistics and asset management in defense.

Hybrid AI approaches offer flexible solutions for complex operational contexts.

Metrics and decision support systems improve support effectiveness.

Abstract

Today's battlefield environment is complex, dynamic and uncertain, and requires efficient support to ensure mission success. This relies on a proper support strategy to provide supported equipment able to fulfill the mission. In the context of defense where both systems and organization are complex, having a holistic approach is challenging by nature, forces and support agencies need to rely on an efficient decision support system. Logistics, readiness and sustainability are critical factors for asset management, which can benefit from AI to reach "Smart In Service" level relying especially on predictive and prescriptive approaches and on effective management of operational re-sources. Smart Support capacities can be then monitored by appropriate metrics and improved by multi-criteria decision support and knowledge management system. Depending on the operational context in terms of information and the objective, different AI paradigms (data-driven AI, knowledge-based AI) are suitable even a combination through hybrid AI.