Project Description

The Conflict Simulation Lab (CSL) has a project to construct a X-window based movement route planner. The route planner will allow a user to select starting and ending positions and then generate a movement plan based on position costing functions. The route planner will use Livermore’s polygonal terrain representation and be implemented in C++. The movement route will be both graphically displayed and optionally written out to a data file.

Costing functions will be used to determine the selection of a route. Each costing function will contain several components that determine the value of the projected move. Some of these components are:

• Distance - Distance from current location to destination.
• Time - Time estimated to perform the current move.
• Concealment - Amount of concealment provided by the terrain
• Viewability - Measurements amount of viewable terrain
• General Area Tokens - Weighting based on distance to general token. [ NOTE: weighting can be positive or negative. Is intended to denote locations of enemy positions or supporting positions. ]
• General Area Tokens With Line-Of-Sight (LOS) - Like General Area Tokens, but has different weighting if we can see the token position.
• Terrain Type - weighting for terrain type. (Eg. Road might have a high rating to promote road travel)

Each of the components can be enabled/disabled. Additionally, the costing function will have a position, a radius of affect, a decay falloff vs. the radius, and a time range that denotes when the costing function is valid.

Set of Costing Functions

All costing functions will be bundled into a set. Each new movement leg will be costed against a set of costing functions. The intent is to provide a costing function near the starting position to encourage "fastest" movement, and another costing function near the ending position to encourage "best hiding" movement.

The NAU team will provide the flexibility to generate a user selected amount of moves from each position.

The NAU team will use software provided by the CSL as a foundation. This will include reading of terrain files, creation of terrain objects, and providing base LOS algorithms. Additionally, the NAU team is encouraged to provide suggestions for improvements to the Livermore software.

The scheduled project completion date is the Monday before the Senior Capstone Design Conference.

The Lawrence Livermore team decided to Use the spiral design paradigm to allow a shorter design cycle with more customer interaction, due to the necessity to interface to code from the client.

The primary tools being used in the design and development of the project are:

• Software through Pictures: Object Modeling Technique
• CC C++ compiler

From our customer requirements, the user interface will be in Motif, with the backend code done in C++. The code being developed is reserved for the use of the Lawrence Livermore National Labs - Conflict Simulation Lab, and their designees.

Technical Consultant: Dr. Murali Medidi	Technical Consultant: Dr. Melvin Neville
Project Manager: Dr. Ken Collier