Modeling, materials, and metrics: the three-m approach to FCS signature solutions

Teresa G. Gonda; David J. Thomas; Raju Namburu; Timothy Edwards

doi:10.1117/12.478800

6 August 2002 Modeling, materials, and metrics: the three-m approach to FCS signature solutions

Teresa G. Gonda, David J. Thomas, Raju Namburu, Timothy Edwards

Proceedings Volume 4718, Targets and Backgrounds VIII: Characterization and Representation; (2002) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.478800
Event: AeroSense 2002, 2002, Orlando, FL, United States

Abstract

There is a push in the Army to develop lighter vehicles that can get to remote parts of the world quickly. This objective force is not some new vehicle, but a whole new way of fighting wars. The Future Combat System (FCS), as it is called, has an extremely aggressive timeline and must rely on modeling and simulation to aid in defining the goals, optimizing the design and materials, and testing the performance of the various FCS systems concepts. While virtual prototyping for vehicles (both military and commercial) has been around as a concept for well over a decade and its use is promoted heavily in tours and in boardrooms, the actual application of virtual protoyping is often limited and when successful has been confined to specific physical engineering areas such as weight, space, stress, mobility, and ergonomics. If FCS is to succeed in its acquisition schedule, virtual prototyping will have to be relied on heavily and its application expanded. Signature management is an example of an area that would benefit greatly from virtual prototyping tools. However, there are several obstacles to achieving this goal. To rigorously analyze a vehicle's IR and visual signatures extensively in several different environments over different weather and seasonal conditions could result millions of potentially unique signatures to evaluate. In addition, there is no real agreement on what evaluate means or even what value is used to represent signature; Delta T( degree(s)C), Probability of Detection? What the user really wants to know is: how do I make my system survivable? This paper attempts to describe and then bound the problem and describe how the Army is attempting to deal with some of these issues in a holistic manner using SMART (Simulation and Modeling for Acquisition, Requirements, and Training) principles.

Citation Download Citation

Teresa G. Gonda, David J. Thomas, Raju Namburu, and Timothy Edwards "Modeling, materials, and metrics: the three-m approach to FCS signature solutions", Proc. SPIE 4718, Targets and Backgrounds VIII: Characterization and Representation, (6 August 2002); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.478800

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