Transforming the DoD test and evaluation enterprise to enable unmanned autonomous systems of systems

Many US Department of Defense (DoD) systems operate within a systems of systems construct, which present many challenges and will be ever increasing for test and evaluation of unmanned autonomous systems of systems. Challenges include emergent behaviors along with resource limitations that will cause test planners to balance tradeoffs in order to effectively plan test missions. The current test and evaluation enterprise will have to change in order to address such challenges. This thesis investigates how a decision support system can be utilized by DoD test and evaluation stakeholders to adequately plan missions for unmanned autonomous systems of systems testing. Research was conducted to serve dual strategic and tactical purposes. Strategically, this research served to identify potential gaps in the test and evaluation enterprise, which create challenges for unmanned autonomous systems of systems testing. Tactically, this research investigated how a decision support system can deliver value to the stakeholders of the enterprise. This effort was guided by five research focus areas. First, focus was on differentiating testing at the system and systems of systems levels. Second, test and evaluation stakeholders were identified and their saliency was determined. Third, stakeholder values for testing of unmanned systems were gathered via stakeholder interviews. Fourth, challenges of testing unmanned autonomous systems of systems were determined. Lastly, a use case example was utilized to demonstrate how stakeholder value is generated by the use of a decision support system.

Department dc:contributor.department

System Design and Management Program.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2011

Author dc:creator

• Cowart, Karl K., 1975-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Ricardo Valerdi.

• Engineering Systems Division.
• United States. Defense.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/67218

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/67218