Military Aviation Applications for a Springs and Masses Safest Path Determining Model

Abstract. Safely navigating the battlefield is required in order to ensure that mission objectives can be achieved with minimum loss of life and equipment. Determining the safest path through the battlefield is complicated by complex and dynamic threat environments. In the air these problems are compounded by the fast pace of combat and the limited number of aircrew that can make pathing decisions. This burden could be removed from the aircrew and given to a safe path determining computational model, but the limited computational power in military aircraft and the short time that solutions need to be generated severely limits the accuracy and usefulness of most models. The Springs and Masses model, however, is computational efficient enough to provide accurate and timely solutions to the full spectrum of safe path problems, including rapidly adapting to "pop-up" threats. The model has also proven to be very robust and can be further extended to better simulate real world threat environments for numerous applications.