Your Destination for Mobility Engineering Resources
Announcements for SAE Mobilus
Browse All
Recently Published
Browse AllThis paper presents updates to a “meta-algorithm” for achieving safer AI driven systems by integrating systems theoretic process analysis, quantitative fault tree analysis, structured generation of safety metrics, and statistical hypothesis testing of metrics between simulation and reality. This paper presents updates to the meta-algorithm after its application in use cases involving commercial autonomous vehicle deployment.
Manufacturers of fans/propellers using hydraulically-actuated pitch control claim energy efficiency gains up to 75% over fixed-pitch solutions. Unfortunately, the added cost, weight, reliability and maintenance considerations of hydraulic solutions has limited the introduction of pitch control for small-to-medium fans and propellers leaving a large market unserved by the efficiency gains associated with changing the pitch of a blade when the blade shaft’s speed changes. Pilot Systems International and Cool Mechatronics are developing an electromagnetically controlled pitch (EMCP) fan/propeller that will produce a new pareto optimal in size, weight, power, cost and cooling (SWaP-C2). The technology will substantially improve the efficiency of military ground vehicle cooling fans which is typically the third greatest power draw (~20kW)1 in the entire vehicle and provide critical performance improvements during silent watch. It will be a key enabler for the electrification of aircraft.
To achieve Army modernization plans, advanced approaches for testing and evaluation of autonomous ground systems and their integration with human operators should be utilized. This paper presents a framework for developing digital twins at the subsystem level using heterogeneous modeling and simulation (M&S) to address the challenges of manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T) in operational environments. Focusing on the interplay between robotic combat vehicles (RCVs) and human operations, the framework enables evaluation of soldiers’ cognitive loads while managing tasks such as maneuvering robotic systems, interacting with aided target detection, and engaging simulated adversaries. By employing subsystem-level digital twins, we aim to isolate and control key variables, enabling a detailed assessment of both systems’ performance and operator effectiveness. Through realistic operational scenarios and human-machine interface testing, our approach may help identify optimal solutions for soldier
The Technical Cooperation Program (TTCP) is a five-nation defense innovation network that harnesses science and technology in support of the defense and national security of the participant nations. The 2019 TTCP Scrum Event’s objective, sponsored by the Aerospace Systems group, was to enhance the military capability of current and future systems through collaborative research and innovation. The primary goal of this effort was to contribute to a shared understanding of the benefits of a MS&A-powered wargame-like event while examining future concepts. The 2019 Scrum Event was a collaborative event demonstrating a new approach of MS&A capabilities to FVEY partners fostering future TTCP scrum processes and relationships. This paper will discuss the resultant simulation environment, analysis methodology comparing constructive and virtual simulation, provide an overview of the scrum’s origins, purpose, and composition, and provide high-level results, outcomes, and lessons learned.
Thermal or infrared signature management simulations of hybrid electric ground vehicles require modeling complex heat sources not present in traditional vehicles. Fast-running multi-physics simulations are necessary for efficiently and accurately capturing the contribution of these electrical drivetrain components to vehicle thermal signature. The infrared signature and heat transfer simulation tool, “Multi-Service Electro-optic Signature” (MuSES), is being updated to address these challenges by expanding its thermal-electrical simulation capabilities, provide a coupling interface to system zero- and one-dimensional modeling tools, and model three-dimensional air flow and its convection effects. These simulation capabilities are used to compare the infrared signatures of a tactical ground vehicle with a traditional powertrain to a hybrid electric version of the same vehicle and demonstrate a reduction in contrast while operating under electrically powered conditions of silent watch and
The Vision for Off-road Autonomy (VORA) project used passive, vision-only sensors to generate a dense, robust world model for use in off-road navigation. The research resulted in vision-based algorithms applicable to defense and surveillance autonomy, intelligent agricultural applications, and planetary exploration. Passive perception for world modeling enables stealth operation (since lidars can alert observers) and does not require more expensive or specialized sensors (e.g., radar or lidar). Over the course of this three-phase program, SwRI built components of a vision-only navigation pipeline and tested the result on a vehicle platform in an off-road environment.
The development of cyber-physical systems necessarily involves the expertise of an interdisciplinary team – not all of whom have deep embedded software knowledge. Graphical software development environments alleviate many of these challenges but in turn create concerns for their appropriateness in a rigorous software initiative. Their tool suites further enable the creation of physics models which can be coupled in the loop with the corresponding software component’s control law in an integrated test environment. Such a methodology addresses many of the challenges that arise in trying to create suitable test cases for physics-based problems. If the test developer ensures that test development in such a methodology observes software engineering’s design-for-change paradigm, the test harness can be reused from a virtualized environment to one using a hardware-in-the-loop simulator and/or production machinery. Concerns over the lack of model-based software engineering’s rigor can be