Modeling the Impact of Technology Transition on Ship Operational Capabilities

The Navy's DD(X) program is the centerpiece of a family of three surface combatant ships, including a destroyer, a cruiser and a smaller craft for littoral operations. The scope and complexity of the design work, which includes development and integration of new hull and ship systems as well as advanced combat systems, is unprecedented for a U.S. Navy surface combatant. The intent is to innovatively combine the transformational technologies developed in the DD(X) program with the many ongoing R&D efforts involving mission focused surface ships. Navy decision-makers need a new approach for evaluating investment, development and technology insertion strategies that balance all design factors to maximize overall ship performance, within the current and future schedule, budget, and technological constraints The DAC team will address this challenge by applying innovative Object-Oriented Bayesian Network (OOB) techniques to mathematically model, manage and understand the complex relationships between design factors such as: technology maturity; component, system, or ship performance; development costs; implementation costs; schedules; and life-cycle factors such as reliability, maintainability, and sustainability. Moreover, the capability will evaluate the expected value, level of risk, and variable sensitivities for different combinations of systems within multiple ship configurations to determine optimal technology insertion strategies