Progress toward a DoD Ground Vehicle Tradespace and Affordability Analysis Framework

During ground system conceptual design and engineering development many tradeoff decisions are made to balance functional performance, cost, risk, robustness, reliability, interoperability, growth margin, and other life-cycle characteristics. Tradespace analysis reveals and quantifies the compound and ripple effects and interactions among performance requirements and system design options. An analytic tradespace framework is an executable model that represents the logical and causal relationships among vehicle subsystems and system performance characteristics. Logical relationships define compatibility requirements between interacting subsystems. Causal relationships quantify higher level system attributes as functions of lower level subsystem attributes. Research at the US Army, TARDEC, has been developing a generic ground system performance specification framework, and a ground system standard product classification hierarchy. The current research seeks to integrate these two frameworks with a unifying framework of the logical and causal relationships. The tradespace framework identifies the relevant subsystem attributes and how they interact to govern product performance and life-cycle characteristics, and identifies the subsystem interfaces and compatibility characteristics that constrain and enable practical ground vehicles. The objective is a qualitative and quantitative framework integrating system architecture and technology options with functional and life cycle performance to support design and performance requirement decisions. The goal is to integrate the ground system architecture and performance specification frameworks for interactive tradespace analysis and exploration. The research is motivated by, and grounded in, an understanding of the performance and affordability tradespace decisions and supporting analysis in ground vehicle development programs.