The Combined Aerospace Operations Center (CAOC) of the Future

The art of commanding aerospace power lies in integrating systems to produce the exact effects the nation needs. Currently, information overload prevents C2 warriors from making operational decisions with precision and effect. The objective is to correct this and dominate the battlespace by making smarter decisions faster. Intelligent decision making will be enabled by awareness when and where it is needed, via an operationally superior information enterprise. This paper discusses a new Air Force Research Laboratory's Information Directorate initiative that combines prior work in areas such as Effects Based Operations, information fusion, decision support, mission training and enterprise defense. These efforts lay the groundwork so a Commander will receive the right information at the right time. This information will be displayed in a way to allow the Commander to do the right things, at the right time and in the right way. This paper discusses five applications built on JBI services that will fuse collected information to drive an effects based operational solution along with the research and development efforts required to transform today's AOC into tomorrow's CAOC. Ultimately, the objective being to develop and field a capability using the Command and Control (C2) framework of Monitor, Assess, Plan and Execute. The original document contains color images.