into the design alternatives used by decision-makers to choose the next generation of weapon platforms. With the help of ERS, the alternatives are not only greater in number, but also more accurate and detailed, which allows for selections earlier in the acquisition process. In October 2017, the Army announced six modernization priorities – an initiative to update its forces and equipment with improved capabilities. One of those priority areas is Future Vertical Lift, which aims to increase reach, protection, lethality, agility, and mission flexibility to dominate in a contested and complex airspace. As part of that initiative, the Army is exploring designs for a new Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA). Earlier this year, the Army chose five vendors to develop plans for the future helicopter and issued mandatory design requirements and a list of other mandates. Researchers from ERDC’s Information Technology Laboratory who work with the ERS program in support of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation & Missile Center contributed to design optimization efforts for the FARA. They used advanced process automation and high-fidelity simulations to reduce the proposed performance time for simulations from weeks to days, a capability that will be used in the down-select process of the FARA. Collaboration across the services is nothing new for ERS, as the program began in 2011 as a priority steering committee before becoming one of 17 DOD Reliance 21 Communities of Interest. The communities work to encourage collaboration across multiple agencies working in the same technology focus areas. During the early days, ERS leadership contacted DOD stakeholders to arrange demonstrations of ERS-related techniques and tools, leading to early success for the program.
In 2013, ERS was tested when the Naval Sea Systems Command was considering a new amphibious transport dock warship, known as the LX(R). Traditional methods for such a task called for point-based design, which originates with one existing design and modifying one component at a time until all the new criteria are met, but ERS introduced the idea of set-based design. The concept produces a list of all possible designs up front, and then narrows and sorts it down based on feasibility. Similar previous studies examined between five and 20 potential designs, but the ERS approach allowed decision-makers to consider more than 22,000 designs in only three months. In another Navy project, ERS tools and techniques offered 3.6 million options based on 212 variables developed in less than a half-hour. Since the early days when ERS introduced set-based design into the world of military acquisitions, the program has grown significantly and also partnered with industry and academia. The initiative aims to mature its high-fidelity physics capabilities and create mission-level simulations that allow decision makers to complement physical testing and evaluation to predict system performance. And just like they were with the Army’s future attack helicopter, ERS researchers are committed to providing an integrated computational environment that supports high-fidelity physics and more detailed analytics earlier in the military acquisition process. As the global landscape of battle quickly changes, ERS tools, techniques, and personnel stand ready to assist decision-makers in strong resilient system selection to serve and protect the American warfighters. n
DEVELOPING INSTALLATION ENERGY AND WATER RESILIENCE BY HOLLY KUZMITSKI, ERDC
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f a hurricane hits, can an installation’s buildings maintain their mission-critical functions? In the aftermath, how long will the facility’s hospital have access to potable water and electricity? These are the questions answered by the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center’s Rumanda Young, Ph.D., associate technical director of Environmental Engineering and Modeling, and customer manager with the Applied Research Planning Support Center (ARPSC) in Fort Worth, Texas. The ARPSC team is partnering with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ (USACE) districts, the U.S. Army,
and the U.S. Air Force to develop installation energy and water plans. The plans build resilience into energy and water systems – into infrastructure and into the systems themselves – for mission continuance in the face of worst-case scenarios, such as floods or hurricanes. “The ARPSC is part of the ERDC Environmental Laboratory [EL] due to the technological and modeling aspects of our work,” Young said. “The Installation Energy and Water Plan [IEWP, July 26, 2018] mission is conducted mostly by a partnership between the ERDC Construction Engineering Research Laboratory and EL, but we draw research power from all seven of ERDC’s laboratories. 135
