Technology Development for Army Unmanned Ground Vehicles (2002) / Chapter Skim
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6. Technology Integration
6. Technology Integration
Pages 94-103
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From page 94... ...
Key considerations for integration of UGV technologies are life-cycle support, software engineering and computational hardware, assessment methodology, and modeling and simulation. System engineering is defined as an integrated design approach, from requirements definition, through design and test, to life-cycle support, that optimizes the synergistic performance of a system, or system of systems, so that assigned tasks can be accomplished in the most efficient and effective manner possible.
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From page 95... ...
Assigning all technology integration and system engineering responsibilities to a single person (office) with resources and ability to influence changes in design and development Identifying, developing, and integrating technologies early in UGV design that can reduce life-cycle support requirements Developing an effective and efficient software engineering effort Developing an integrated assessment methodology that includes experimental analysis throughout the design and development of the UGV, as well as early user evaluation and test of UGV components and systems Developing metrics to support the above assessment and Utilizing modeling and simulation, where appropriate, to support experimentation and test.
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From page 96... ...
Determining support requirements for systems in development is usually based on reviewing historical support data of similar fielded predecessor systems and adjusting support requirements for new technology benefits or disadvantages. The difficulty with determining future support infrastructure needs for a UGV system is that there is little to no historical information from operational uses of UGVs.
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From page 97... ...
97 the general development methodology, and software development environment and tool sets. Software Architecture Considerations Well-defined software architecture is a ~ necessary antecedent to efficient software engineering.
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From page 98... ...
Industry-standard middleware technology enables an object-oriented component-based application development approach. Use of object-oriented technology allows the use of existing COTS tools and methods in the specification of the software engineering environment.
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From page 99... ...
Unfortunately, present-day limits on computing power, among other factors, make this expectation highly unrealistic. It is clear that a brute-force approach to mimicking the computational power of the brain cannot be supported by semiconductor technology.
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From page 100... ...
As noted in the previous section, the quality of software is also a major issue, adding three or more years for software engineering, re-implementation, and performance testing before system fielding to the UGV system development time line. ASSESSMENT METHODOLOGY Demonstrations alone do not provide statistically significant data to assess the maturity, capabilities, and benefits of a particular technology both as an individual technology and as part of a larger system or system-of-systems concept.
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From page 101... ...
The methodology should also identify input and support requirements, key assumptions, and time lines for the assessments. The assessment methodology should include a series of experiments that initially begin with analyses of concepts and technologies and mature to technology-integration warfighting experiments that approach levels of assessment similar to operational test and evaluation.
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From page 102... ...
UGV-specific mobility issues, such as the mobility metrics used in the DARPA Tactical Mobile Robot program should be considered. The measures should be based on specific applications being evaluated (e.g., logistics follower on structured roads, soldier robot over complex terrain)
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From page 103... ...
The Army has made good strides toward overcoming similar deficits in this area by extrapolating the results of laboratory experiments, using information from similar fielded systems and applying subject 103 matter expertise from the Joint Virtual Battlespace at the Joint Precision Strike Demonstration Project Office (DMSO, 2001~. While existing M&S tools are adequate for the near term, complex UGV systems in the far term are likely to require M&S tools designed specifically to address system engineering issues.
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