An example of simulation use in Army weapon system development

Abstract

The use of modeling and simulation in the development of military weapon systems began to expand several years ago as the costs of flight testing began to rise. Since then, the role of modeling and simulation has expanded to include areas such as planning and conducting warfare, system development, and acquisition in an effort to minimize system development and acquisition costs. The paper discusses the use of modeling and simulation in the development of the Pre-planned Product Improvement (P3I) Brilliant Anti-Armor BAT submunition. A high-fidelity flight simulation (HFS) is being developed that combines the tactical flight software, high fidelity infrared/millimeter wave seeker model, 6-Degree-of-Freedom flight dynamics model, and validated infrared and millimeter wave synthetic imagery into one integrated digital simulation. The HFS development methodology emphasizes the use of tactical software, legacy models, and high fidelity imagery and encourages commonality between the HFS, hardware-in-the-loop, and system effectiveness simulations. Animated graphical displays provide visualization of both the trajectory and the scene/environment. The use of this methodology is increasing the accuracy of the simulation and reducing development costs. The HFS development is on schedule with the master program plan, and is being utilized for captive flight test prediction analyses and system performance studies.