Command and control (C2) theory: A challenge to control science

The basic premise of this perspectives paper is that the field of military command-and-control (C2) systems offers challenging basic research opportunities to researchers in the conlrol sciences and systems engineering disciplines, in point of fact, the analysis and design of complex, survivable, and responsive C2 systems requires novel advances in the area of distributed dynamic decision-making under uncertainty. Advances are also needed in systems engineering tools for describing, decomposing, and analyzing such systems. As a consequence, control scientists and engineers are uniquely- qualified to extend their technologies to meet the multidisciplinary challenges posed by C2 systems, to advance the state of the art in the development of a relevant C2 theory, and to contribute to the development of future military C2 systems that must meet stringent performance, survivability, and responsiveness specifications. The author strongly believes that the methodological, theoretical, algorithmic, and architectural questions which arise in the context of military C2 systems are generic and quite similar to those needed to improve the reliable performance of many other civilian C2 systems, such as air traffic control, automated transportation systems, manufacturing systems, nuclear reactor complexes, etc. All such military and civilian C2 systems are characterized by a high degree of complexity, a generic distribution of the decision-making process among several decision-making "agents," the need for reliable operation in the presence of multiple failures, and the inevitable interaction of humans with computer-based decision support systems and decision aids; moreover, they require the development of novel organizational forms and system architectures which provide for the harmonious interface of Ihe mission objectives associated with the C2 process and the physical hardware, such as sensors, communications, devices, computer hardware and software, and effectors-weapons or machines-which implement the overall command, control, and communications (C3) system whose purpose is to support the global C2 decision process. Military C2 systems provide one particular focus for the development of a whole new class of control/estimation/decision technologies-- technologies which share the intellectual roots of current research in the control sciences, but which can grow and blossom into methods applicable to a very large variety of civilian complex systems. In addition, they exemplify the kind of growing complexity that systems scientists and engineers must continually face and find ways of managing. These military C2 processes and C3 systems provide the most stringent performance requirements, exhibit a clear-cut need for quantification of their measures of performance (MOP's) and measures of effectiveness (MOE's), and require novel distributed architectures and organizational forms. The discussion will undoubtedly reflect the personal bias of the author who has studied and researched military C3 systems over the past decade, and whose central thesis is that quantitative methodologies will provide a significant impact in performance improvements in these complex systems. The challenge is to develop the required theoretical and algorithmic tools to allow for systematic analyses and designs in future endeavors.