System Engineering -- Thermal/Power- Efficiency Assessments of Air Vehicles

In these times of increasing deficits and limited budgets, the Office of the Secretary of Defense is using the idea of Capability-Based Acquisitions. This concept limits spending by focusing investments only for key capabilities. With this concept, Research and Development at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) now also needs to be such that funding is focused on R&D that supports these key capabilities. AFRL has developed a Capability Focused Technology Investment (CFTI) philosophy that utilizes top down planning to support their strategic planning process. This has resulted in a suite of programs that support LRS vehicles, UAVs, sensorcraft suites, and weapons platforms that are quantifiable through numerical modeling. Unfortunately, this only extends to the platform level; the subsystems and payloads are not prioritized. To resolve this issue and to enable subsystem/payload strategic planning, Modelogics has developed Model Engineer, a tool that is capable of modeling major vehicle subsystems. With selection of this Phase II proposal, this capability will be extended to all major vehicle subsystems as well as all relevant platform payloads. Once all these payloads and subsystems are developed, Model Engineer will be demonstrated to work with AFRL/VA CFTI modeling process as well as with competitive future systems.