Faculty members from the Center for Operational Analysis and the Department of Operational Sciences paid a visit to our Canadian allies in Kingston, Ontario, from 18–22 June 2007. The visit came about from discussions between AFIT’s Professor Richard F. Deckro and Fred Cameron from the Canadian Forces Centre for Operational Research and Analysis Land Capability Development (CF CORA LCD) division at various meetings sponsored by the Military Operations Research Society, International Military Operations Research Society, and the Canada/US Army Operational Research Society over the last several years.
AFIT visitors were Professor Richard F. Deckro, Associate Professor Alan Johnson, Associate Professor and COA Director J.O. Miller, and Assistant Professor Maj. Shane Knighton. The goal of the meeting was to develop an initial face-to-face exchange of information between the US Air Force and the CF Operational Research communities, specifically the CF CORA LCD and the CF Air Staff Operational Research at Ottawa. By visiting beautiful Kingston, along the northern shore of Lake Ontario, AFIT's visitors were also able to schedule an exchange with the Canadian Royal Military College and look at potential areas for research collaboration. AFIT Associate Dean Paul Wolf joined the group mid-week and was able to meet with the RMC Acting Dean of Graduate Studies and Research, Professor Ron Weir (the so called Weir-Wolf meetings) to discuss school wide issues.
RMC was established by an act of the Canadian Parliament in 1874 "for the purpose of providing a complete education in all branches of military tactics, fortification, engineering, and general scientific knowledge in subjects connected with and necessary to thorough knowledge of the military profession." It serves as the undergraduate Canadian Military Academy for all Canadian Forces, in addition to offering graduate courses in management and engineering. The RMC agenda included briefings from AFIT and RMC on Professional Military Education in operations research. Overview briefings were provided by AFIT faculty members on research in a variety of areas to include advance degree planning, coalition modeling, combat modeling, fighter sortie generation and scheduling, mobility readiness spares planning, sensor fusion, simulation, and social network modeling. Likewise, RMC faculty provided briefings on their research in computer network security, data clustering, network channel access control, sensor placement, and queuing theory.
CORA is one of seven research centers that fall under the umbrella of Defense Research & Development Canada, which responds to the scientific and technological needs of the Canada Department of National Defense. As an R&D entity, CORA serves to provide expert analytical support and advice. During AFIT's visit, the group toured the Land Force Capability Center as well as the CF Army OR and Experimentation Simulation facilities, where the group was able to observe the progress of a large scale exercise involving military students at Vimy Barracks. While with the CORA LCD representatives, additional research topics were discussed which included such areas as ballistics and armor penetration calculations and civilian representation in synthetic combat modeling environments. AFIT's visitors were also fortunate to have two individuals from the CF Air Staff Operational Research Ottawa, Ontario, brief them on research they are performing in areas of future air capability, application of air power, mission support, and ISR.