Main Subcommittee Category
Policy, Standards, Management, and AcquisitionHow would you label your submission?
GovernmentAbstract
Simulation-based acquisitions strive to reduce program costs, schedule, and risk throughout the acquisition life-cycle while increasing the military utility and supportability of fielded systems. This is accomplished by developing representative models and simulations of systems and subsystems informed by referent data varying among subject matter expertise, benchtop experiments, test data, and/or first-principal physics. Pioneering a process in verification and validation of models, Branford McAllister developed a systematic process to assess the level of maturity using Model Maturity Levels. Evolving McAllister’s approach, model description reports (MDRs) document model development indices (MDIs) as a consistent, universal framework while progressing through the verification, validation, and accreditation (VV&A) process. Taking a notional air launched weapon system, there can be hundreds of MDRs to describe systems and subsystems from the control system kinematics, rocket motor, and aerodynamics, to the avionics and sensors. A well-conceived VV&A plan with a sufficient number of MDRs focuses on the required criteria for each level of maturity and can optimize test events to gain knowledge points and fill significant gaps with field referent data. When test events illuminate model deficiencies, an iterative process can quickly correct a model, thereby restarting the MDI maturation process. This iterative and graduated approach to VV&A allows for MDRs to advance through VV&A phases to reach a given level of maturity with a similar cadence. Therefore, the system would be ready for accreditation provided all other criteria are met within the V&V plan. These events can be coordinated with acquisition program milestones such as Test, Flight, or Production Readiness Reviews or System Verification Reviews. The evolution of McAllister’s process can yield increased confidence to the models within the simulation, which can lead to highly concentrated experiments to fill data gaps, and consequently, can lead to simulation accreditation and achievement of the goals of simulation-based acquisition.