Towards: Efficient Use of Resources in Military: Methods for Evaluation Routes in Open Terrain
Volume 6, Issue 1 (2016), pp. 53–70
Pub. online: 30 September 2016
Type: Article
Open Access
Open Access
Published
30 September 2016
30 September 2016
Abstract
A good knowledge of terrain characteristics and movement possibilities within it are crucial conditions for operations success. If a commander and his staff have enough information about the terrain, he can optimize a combat formation and its movement in an open terrain. Such as optimization can finally spare manpower as well as equipment and decrease probability of loss of life. This paper deals with a complex mathematical model of terrain passability, which respects both geographical and meteorological conditions in the terrain and with its adaptation to calculation in the environment of geographic information systems (GIS). Such a model can be directly implied into command and control system to support decision-making processes.
The main problem of an off-road vehicle movement in an open terrain consists in considering the properties of a given surface; also, technical properties of a particular off-road vehicle have to be considered. The model of terrain passability is based on measurable factors that characterize the natural environment, which is possible to calculate using the data saved in GIS databases. While calculating parameters for a complex model, it is necessary to consider data quality, which influences the level of vagueness of the resulting calculations. In order to express this level of vagueness, a method of fuzzy functions was selected and applied while calculating the individual deceleration coefficients given by the natural factors. The method of cost map was selected for the final evaluation of possibilities of vehicles movement. The complete procedure was debugged in the environment of ArcGIS 10.