SC-21 Ship Information Systems Architecture Virtual Prototyping Environment (VPE) Development

The SC-21 Program Office faces an unprecedented challenge in the capture and analysis of information required to take Ship Information System (SIS) architecture from concept through to development, deployment, upgrade, and retirement. The principal objective of the system development process is to establish a design which satisfies the system requirements and constraints while optimizing the key trade-offs and issues associated with system functionality, behavior, and implementation. Current employment of modeling & simulation in the acquisition lifecycle is often stove-piped to single domains, limited in scope, and requires extensive human interaction with the data to conduct multi-domain analysis. Simulation-Based Acquisition (SBA) is a new paradigm in complex system acquisition which employs virtual prototyping of key products and processes in the complex system lifecycle. These virtual prototypes can be analyzed in highly detailed virtual environments to conduct multi-domain engineering analysis in an Integrated Product and Process Development framework. This project will develop a preliminary Virtual Prototyping Environment tailored for SC-21 Ship Information System modeling & simulation. The full-scale environment constructed in Phase II will support detailed engineering modeling, and pave the way for development of an SBA Enterprise Modeling Environment in Phase III.