Description
The Coordinating Austere Nodes through Virtualization and Analysis of Streams (CANVAS) program is seeking innovative research to develop a capability to continuously orchestrate command and control (C2) processes in an Agile Combat Employment (ACE) operational environment through distributed workflow execution. The program aims to design and develop a system prototype that assumes contested and degraded environments will be normal for executing distributed operations. The system will include a virtual C2 layer (TA1) and a decentralized C2 framework (TA2) to support the execution of workflows across many physically dispersed C2 nodes.
• The program will focus on developing a capability to execute distributed C2 workflows across multiple locations while maintaining awareness of changing states to functions, resources, and mission objectives.
• The system will be designed to optimize, orchestrate, and execute distributed C2 task allocations, while anticipating effects of conditions-based authorities to enable process execution.
• The program will also research and develop the ability to orchestrate operational processes, while optimizing for limited resources in a contested environment.
• The Air Force plans to complicate the adversary’s targeting problem through the distribution of forces to increase survivability and maintain functionality.
• Successful distributed C2 operations will rely on distributed control and decentralized execution, with an assumption that specific conditional authorities will be delegated to lower tier nodes.