Description:
TECHNOLOGY AREA(S): Materials
OBJECTIVE: Develop and demonstrate ability to discover, aggregate and analyze disparate data types and formats to enhance the decision making process during weapon system design and development.
DESCRIPTION: In performing design trades, Analysis of Alternatives (AoA), statistical inference, and requirements development the engineer must be able to utilize an aggregation of Model based Systems Engineering (MBSE) data and models to mature the design into a system which has sound systems engineering qualities. As every process requires a starting point, MBSE would be tremendously enhanced by seeding the process with existing weapon system data. The starting point of a new design should include not only the warfighter requirements found in the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS), Capabilities-Based Assessments (CBA) and Initial and Capability Development Documents (ICD/CDD), but any available historical data for the given class of weapon system or subsystem at hand. Lessons learned (good and bad) from all previous endeavors should be taken into account in a new design. Therefore, the goal of this project is to create a capability to employ traditional techniques from “Big Data” research to seed design, capability development, and system integration with substantial prior knowledge from the vast collection of technical development documentation provided to the Government through years of system acquisition and sustainment. This new capability would be developed in the form of a software toolchain which provides a design environment to reason over historical information such as material, subsystem, or system performance, production experience, test results, and sustaining engineering analyses. This environment would provide substantial acceleration of solution development resulting in reduced time to deliver critical technology to the warfighter. The ability to capture multiple types of historical engineering reports and technical documents into a digitized shared reasoning environment which allows engineers to link desired design artifacts together will provide systems engineers with the opportunity to make cross-domain trades. Also, this capability will offer engineers the capability to use available existing weapon system and subsystem data in the design of new innovative weapon systems and subsystems that by nature are resilient and possess greater OSS&E qualities based on years of lessons learned.
PHASE I: Define solution to store data, import common engineering documents, link design artifacts to represent correlation, and conduct cross-domain trades. Solution must specify data storage and computational requirements. Solution will identify existing DoD capabilities which may contribute to the desired end-state capability, identify capability gaps and establish a methodology to deliver needed capability.
PHASE II: Develop, prototype, validate and demonstrate the proposed data analytic capability leveraging as much existing DoD infrastructure as possible. Demonstrate the system using a predetermined list of databases and MBSE tools from Phase I.
PHASE III: The technology developed in Phase I and demonstrated in Phase II will have application throughout government and industry.
REFERENCES:
1: Zweber, J. V., Kolonay, R. M., Kobryn, P., & Tuegel, E. J. (2017). Digital Thread and Twin for Systems Engineering: Requirements to Design. In 55th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting (p. 0875).
2: Tuegel, E. J., Kobryn, P., Zweber, J. V., & Kolonay, R. M. (2017). Digital Thread and Twin for Systems Engineering: Design to Retirement. In 55th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting (p. 0876).
3: Wang, Gang, et al. "Big data analytics in logistics and supply chain management: Certain investigations for research and applications." International Journal of Production Economics 176 (2016): 98-110.
KEYWORDS: Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE), Analysis Of Alternatives (AoA), Statistical Inference, Requirements Development, Joint Capabilities Integration And Development System (JCIDS), Capabilities-Based Assessments (CBA), Initial Development Documents, Ca
