Operations-Focused Optimized Theater Weather Sensing Strategies Using Preemptive Binary Integer Programming

Throughout history, successful military leaders have recognized that weather conditions on the battlefield can play a significant role in determining the victor. For this reason, the United States maintains and equips several different types of military units that are tasked to provide dedicated weather support to operational commanders. These units use a variety of types of sensors with differing capabilities to collect current weather conditions on the battlefield. In support of the commander's Concept of Operations (CONOP), United States military doctrine dictates that, as a part of general military campaign planning, a Meteorological and Oceanographic (METOC) collection plan be developed. This collection plan should specify the allocation of all weather sensing sources within the operational theater and throughout all phases of the military operation. This paper describes a methodology for creating a robust METOC collection plan in support of any given military campaign plan that deploys air, land, maritime, and special operations component weather sensing equipment in a way that maximizes expected detection of operationally significant weather conditions over the largest area possible for a given set of available weather sensors.