Aerial Common Sensor [ACS] Concept Exploration (CE)
ACS began with a concept exploration (CE) phase, followed by a component advanced development (CAD) phase. During the CE phase, three competing teams developed models of their system concepts to be evaluated in a common operational level environment that was capable of simulating different threat scenarios and weather conditions. The HLA based federation that was developed for use during the CE phase was an operational level federation, as opposed to an engineering level, whose purpose was to provide insight into the strengths, weaknesses, and overall effectiveness of the competing system concepts in a variety of missions, under varying environmental conditions.
ACS used the Key Performance Parameters (KPPs) from their Operational Requirements Document (ORD) and higher risk areas to develop Measures of Effectiveness (MOEs) /Measures of Performance (MOPs). These were then refined to drive their M&S planning at the start of the CE phase. While the M&S Integrated Planning Team (IPT) and Engineering IPT identified eleven MOEs, they found four MOEs out of the eleven that were particularly appropriate for modeling and simulation. The M&S IPT further refined the MOEs and MOPs to be supported by M&S. The primary ACS M&S effort was then focused on how to discriminate between competing system designs against these MOEs/MOPs. ACS took a very focused, disciplined and analytical approach to prioritizing their M&S resources. The Army Model and Simulation Office (AMSO) agrees that the focus of the comparison/crosswalk of the ORD to the M&S tools should be on the KPPs and higher risk areas.
In an 18 month period, the ACS team developed the South West Asia (SWA) and Balkans scenarios, the ACS sensor and platform federates and the RF/EO Propagation Federates. This work resulted in a vast amount of data that was very difficult to analyze efficiently. Therefore, the JPSD developed a Data Analysis Tool. Initially, the PM ACS team was the only user of the Tool, but later the program granted full access to the contractor teams. The contractor teams could develop new queries as needed as well as analyze and understand the structure of existing queries. ACS discovered that developing mini-calibration scenarios helped to ensure that all simulation data was complete. The ACS SWA and Balkans scenarios contained between 9,000 and 12,000 targets with an objective of 80,000 targets in the future. Each of these scenarios produces large volumes of data and is time consuming to analyze.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
