High-Fidelity UCAV Simulation Station

The Uninhabited Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV) is a new and promising multi-role and multi-mission system concept currently under development and evaluation by the armed forces. Similar to current generation of weapon systems, simulation of the UCAV mission profile will undoubtedly be an essential part of the system development process. Further, the rapid pace of their development and the evolution of various UCAV applications stress the need for expeditious optimization of air-to-air and surface attack tactical options in realistic combat scenarios using high-fidelity yet low-cost simulators. Advances in high-speed computer systems allow realistic simulation and assessment of many aspects of UCAV system, ranging from flight dynamics, ingress/egress profiles, sensor effectiveness, weapon tactics, and multi-vehicle coordination schemes. Furthermore, the maturity in personal computer (PC) systems makes them ideal for preliminary evaluations of UCAV systems previously addressable only by complex and expensive dome simulators. The proposed effort will further expand the application of offeror's current six-degree of freedom high-fidelity simulation capabilities on the PC's and provide Navy the unique capability to cost-effectively simulate and test UCAV air-to-air and surface attack maneuvering tactics and control paradigms in realistic combat scenarios. This submittal proposes to use a PC-based commercial off-the-shelf simulation environment, D-Six, developed under Air Force SBIR by the offeror, as the basis for the development of the UCAV simulation platform. The system will be leveraged by the many embedded development, analysis and networking features, significantly reducing the time and cost required for research, testing, demonstration and evolution of a viable multi-vehicle simulation platform.