An algorithmic solution to mission planning via auto-routing algorithms.

Mission planning for radar jamming escort missions is a tedious and complex problem to solve. For years this type of mission planning has taken many hours to solve and used multiple pilots to develop a solution. This thesis discusses the development of a MATLAB solution for auto-routing aircraft for a mission planning scenario. The unique contribution of this work involves the development and implementation of an auto-router algorithm called the Augmented Mission Planning (or AMP) algorithm. The AMP algorithm is developed by combining techniques for Jamming Acceptability Region (JAR) construction, weighted map creation from DTED data, and an augmented version of the A* path finding algorithm. This auto-router preforms within a typical mission planning system framework and we demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach for determining mission planning in a timely manner.