REVOLUTIONARY AVIONICS PAYLOAD COST ESTIMATING FOR UNINHIBITED AIR VEHICLES (UAVs): THE ADVANCED AVIONICS PAYLOAD COST (AAPCO) MODEL

Government and industry are being challenged to develop revolutionary avionics technologies, architectures, and payload packages for uninhabited air vehicles (UAVs) as these vehicles are proposed to meet an expanding array of military missions. In today's budget conscious world, the affordability of these avionics payloads has become equal in importance with their size, weight, and performance as determinants for their selection. Accordingly, there is a pressing need for an advanced avionics cost estimating model to operate in concert with engineering design and performance evaluation tools starting at concept definition, and continuing forward through the system development and acquisition process. Tecolote Research proposes to develop the innovative Advanced Avionics Payload Cost (AAPCO) model to meet these challenges for future UAVs. The AAPCO model will include comprehensive libraries of baseline technical information for a wide range of UAV missions and avionics functions; will be flexible to encompass both traditional and advanced architectures and technologies; will provide a user friendly interface for problem definition, whether characterized by high-level inputs during concept definition, or more detailed descriptors; and, most importantly, the AAPCO model will employ advanced numerical methods to enable cost as an independent variable, and to guide the user toward cost effective solutions.