DoD Unmanned Systems Roadmap 2013

The FAA isn't the only one "roadmapping". The US Department of Defense recently released a road map for unmanned systems.

Strategy and budget realities are two aspects of the Defense Department’s new Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap, released today. The report to Congress is an attempt to chart how unmanned systems fit into the defense of the nation. “The 2013 Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap articulates a vision and strategy for the continued development, production, test, training, operation and sustainment of unmanned systems technology across DOD,” said Dyke Weatherington, the director of the unmanned warfare and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance office at the Pentagon. “This road map establishes a technological vision for the next 25 years and outlines the actions and technologies for DOD and industry to pursue to intelligently and affordably align with this vision,” he continued.

DOD Looks 25 Years Ahead in Unmanned Vehicle Roadmap

The funding profile is interesting. The roadmap mentions a reduction in funding for unmanned systems over the next five years. One of the results in Ehrhard's study of UAV development is that funding for these systems tends to dip in the interwar periods relative to manned systems.

EELV Competition Legislation

The NDAA is being done a bit differently this year.

This legislation is substantially based on two bills: (1) HR. 1960, the National Defense Authorization Act for FY14 which passed the House on June 14, 2013 by a vote of 315-108; and (2) S.1197, a product of the Senate Armed Services Committee which passed out of committee on the same day by a vote of 23-3.

Because passing this legislation before the end of the calendar year is vital, these two products were merged through a series of negotiations at all levels of the House and Senate. Negotiators also considered, and in many cases included, a number of proposals offered by members of both parties that were intended for consideration by the full Senate. This legislation represents a broad bi-partisan consensus about America’s national security goals, resources, and policies.

The text of the "pre-conferenced" bill is available on the House Armed Services Committee site.

One of the interesting portions is Section 145: Competition for Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle Providers.

The Secretary of the Air Force shall develop a plan to implement the new acquisition strategy for the evolved expendable launch vehicle program described in the acquisition decision memorandum dated November 27, 2012.

The acquisition decision memorandum mentioned in the law is described in this article. The plan is supposed to include:

• proposed cost, schedule and performance
  
• mission assurance activities
  
• manner in which the contractor will operate under the Federal Acquisition Regulations
  
• the effect of other contracts in which the contractor is entered into with the Federal Government, including the evolved expendable launch vehicle launch capability contract, the space station commercial resupply services contracts, and other relevant contracts regarding national security space and strategic programs
  

That last portion is most interesting to me. What are the effects of the CRS contract, and the infrastructure subsidy contract on competition for EELV-class launches?

GE Jet Engine Bracket Challenge Winners

Topologically Optimized Bracket by KMWE + TU Delft

The winners for the GrabCAD GE Bracket Design challenge have been manufactured and tested. See all the pictures here. The team I mentioned previously that was using topology optimization went ahead and manufactured their bracket themselves. What a great demonstration of metal additive manufacturing (3d printing) and topology optimization. I hope the GrabCAD folks get the promised detailed feedback for all the entries up soon.

FAA Releases UAS Integration Roadmap

From the press release:

WASHINGTON –The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) today released its first annual Roadmap outlining efforts needed to safely integrate unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into the nation’s airspace. The Roadmap addresses current and future policies, regulations, technologies and procedures that will be required as demand moves the country from today’s limited accommodation of UAS operations to the extensive integration of UAS into the NextGen aviation system in the future.

By way of AUVSI. The Roadmap and Comprehensive Plan are both available to download from the FAA site.

LockMart SR-72

NASA SP-2001-4525

AvWeek has a nice marketing piece for Lockheed-Martin's Mach 6 ISR/strike concept based on Blackswift that they're calling SR-72. They have a nice set of graphics that compares the the new Mach 6-capable combined cycle engine to the old Mach 3 SR-71 cycle.

YF-12 Inlet Schematic

The SR-71 provides a nice historical example of design for high-temperature metallic structures. There is also a great deal of detail on the research NASA did on the YF-12 which includes quite a bit of declassified material on how the YF-12 family managed the inlet boundary layer and shock train across the wide range of Mach numbers at which it operated. One of the aircraft involved in that research program is at the museum so folks can go see it, and there is a virtual tour of the SR-71 cockpit available for those who can't make it to Dayton.

Free (not Libre) TopOpt App

This little app from the TopOpt research group at the Technical University of Denmark is lots of fun to play with. Versions available:

• iOS AppStore
  
• Android Google Play
  
• On the web
  
• pre-compiled binaries for Linux
  

You can move around boundary conditions and forces to see what 2-D arrangement of material is the stiffest. There is also an option to export the geometry to an stl file for 3-D printing.

I couldn't find links to any source for this implementation, but it is based on the methods in the 99- and 88-line codes I've written about previously.

Defense Acquisitions: Where Should Reform Aim Next?

An alternative title for this GAO report might be, "Defense Acquisitions: Constantly Reforming." We've been "reforming" for decades with such little variation in results that "Acquisition Reform" has become nearly impossible to take seriously:

Let's just skip the acquisition reform charade... Another blue-ribbon study, more legislation and a new slogan will not make it happen at last...
Prof. H. Sapolsky, MIT

Luckily, this latest GAO report on the problem has no sweeping "blue ribbon"-style reform suggestions. There seems to be a pretty pragmatic recognition that perverse incentives are largely the reason that many of the grandiose reform efforts of the past were doomed to failure:

Reforms that focus on the methodological procedures of the acquisition process are only partial remedies because they do not address incentives to deviate from sound practices. Weapons acquisition is a complicated enterprise, complete with unintended incentives that encourage moving programs forward by delaying testing and employing other problematic practices. These incentives stem from several factors. For example, the different participants in the acquisition process impose conflicting demands on weapon programs so that their purpose transcends just filling voids in military capability. Also, the budget process forces funding decisions to be made well in advance of program decisions, which encourages undue optimism about program risks and costs. Finally, DOD program managers' short tenures and limitations in experience and training can foster a short-term focus and put them at a disadvantage with their industry counterparts.

Drawing on its extensive body of work in weapon systems acquisition, GAO sees several areas of focus regarding where to go from here:

• at the start of new programs, using funding decisions to reinforce desirable principles such as well-informed acquisition strategies;
  
• identifying significant risks up front and resourcing them;
  
• exploring ways to align budget decisions and program decisions more closely; and
  
• attracting, training, and retaining acquisition staff and managers so that they are both empowered and accountable for program outcomes.
  

These areas are not intended to be all-encompassing, but rather, practical places to start the hard work of realigning incentives with desired results.

Open Source Aeronautical Engineering Tools

* permanent page with updates: Open Source Aeronautical Engineering Tools*

I was reading through some of the papers and cites related to OpenMDAO and stumbled across a couple interesting papers[1, 2] on open source software in aeronautics.

Abstract: Open source software has become an alternative to commercial software for industrial users. Industrial users adopting to OSS and the underlying concepts need to consider changing their software development practices and organization in order to benefit from the OSS model. These changes may involve both technical and non-technical aspects. Openness and collaboration with a community are two non-technical concepts that may require such changes, while evaluating OSS products or evaluating different strategies for integrating OSS products are two technical aspects that may require adoption.

The objective of this paper is to create an awareness for the adoption of OSS in an industrial context. OSS can be used in different ways. Four categories of using OSS are presented by discussing motivation, implication and experience for each category. The main conclusion from this work is that organizations should have a realistic expectation of both the designated benefits and extension of organizational changes necessary to adopt to OSS. This conclusion is based on observations from industrial organizations using OSS, including OSS in the aeronautics industry, as well as from observations reported in the literature on open source.

BG CFD Group at TU Berlin Youtube Channel

Some great visualizations of detached eddy simulations around cylinders, airfoils and cascades on the youtube channel for BG CFD group at TU Berlin.