Quantifying dust emissions from pre and post Stryker transformation at Pohakuloa Training Area, Hawaii

Dust generated from military vehicle maneuvers on unpaved roads and trails is a serious issue that affects military readiness, human health and safety, and environmental quality. Dust emissions from military training exercises at Pohakuloa Training Area (PTA) was one of the concerns identified by U.S. Army in maintaining environmental compliance during the Stryker transformation. A comparative evaluation of the influence of transformation on dust generated at Pohakuloa Training Area (PTA), Hawaii was performed. Stryker transformation was a process involving the shift of the 25th Infantry, 2nd Brigade from a Light Infantry to a Stryker Brigade. Vehicles were tracked using GPS vehicle tracking systems. A pre transformation study was conducted in November 2006 using Garmin 18 GPS receivers to track Medium Tactical Vehicles, (MTV-M1083) and High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles, (HMMWV-M998), belonging to the 1-21 Battalion of the 2nd Brigade.A post transformation tracking study involved 8-wheeled Infantry Carrier Vehicles (ICV) called Strykers (M1126) of 1-21 Battalion, 2nd Brigade, conducted in April 2007. The relative amount of dust generated pre and post transformation exercise on different unpaved road segments at PTA was estimated using dust emission estimation model, developed by US EPA (1979). During the pre transformation exercise, 11 vehicles (HMMWV\u27s and MTV\u27s combined) traveled an estimated 221.5 km for a period of 10 days with an average velocity of 5.79 m/s and generated 2,090 kg/km dust per Battalion day. During the post transformation exercise, 16 vehicles (Strykers) traveled 128 km for a period of 10 days with an average velocity of 5.45 m/s and emitted 24,654 kg/km dust per Battalion day. Dust emissions were sensitive to soil silt and average velocity. Critical road segments of PTA having greater potential for dust emissions were identified using ArcGIS 9.1, mostly on Redleg trail and Lava road.Critical road segments constituted nearly 2% of the roads at PTA and contributed about 42% of the total dust generated during the pre and post transformation exercises. Training after post transformation generated about 10 times more dust when compared to pre transformation

A Step Towards an Intelligent Digital Training Management System (I-DTMS)

The U.S. Army Digital Training Management System (DTMS) is a web-based system designed to create a single point of entry for units to schedule unit training, manage training resources, and create schedules and master calendars for training. Currently, the U.S. Army uses DTMS to manage unit training and help commanders at each step of the training management process from planning and preparing to execute and assessing the training plans. This research aims to add intelligent features to DTMS through augmenting it with an intelligent decision support system (ITPSS) that utilizes artificial intelligence techniques (case-based reasoning, in particular) to determine if training guidance (either annual training guidance or doctrinal template) was implemented correctly. The proposed system should also help company commanders to refine their unit training plans after reviewing previous similar unit training plans recommended or retrieved by the ITPSS. This research demonstrates how case-based reasoning could improve the training plan development and approval process in DTMS, and questionnaire results support this analysis. It is worth noting that the focus of this research is on the applicability and plausibility of the proposed decision system, not on developing an interface between DTMS and DSS

A Generic Expert Scheduling System Architecture and Toolkit: GUESS (Generically Used Expert Scheduling System)

Scheduling has become an increasingly important element in today's society and workplace. Within the NASA environment, scheduling is one of the most frequently performed and challenging functions. Towards meeting NASA's scheduling needs, a research version of a generic expert scheduling system architecture and toolkit has been developed. This final report describes the development and testing of GUESS (Generically Used Expert Scheduling System)

Data Transmission Scheduling For Distributed Simulation Using Packet A

Communication bandwidth and latency reduction techniques are developed for Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) protocols. Using logs from vignettes simulated by the OneSAF Testbed Baseline (OTB), a discrete event simulator based on the OMNeT++ modeling environment is developed to analyze the Protocol Data Unit (PDU) traffic over a wireless flying Local Area Network (LAN). Alternative PDU bundling and compression techniques are studied under various metrics including slack time, travel time, queue length, and collision rate. Based on these results, Packet Alloying, a technique for the optimized bundling of packets, is proposed and evaluated. Packet Alloying becomes more active when it is needed most: during negative spikes of transmission slack time. It produces aggregations that preserve the internal PDU format, allowing the resulting packets to be subjectable to further bundling and/or compression by conventional techniques. To optimize the selection of bundle delimitation, three online predictive strategies were developed: Neural-Network based, Always-Wait, and Always-Send. These were compared with three offline strategies defined as Type, Type-Length and Type-Length-Size. Applying Always-Wait to the studied vignette using the wireless links set to 64 Kbps, a reduction in the magnitude of negative slack time from -75 to -9 seconds for the worst spike was achieved, which represents a reduction of 88 %. Similarly, at 64 Kbps, Always-Wait reduced the average satellite queue length from 2,963 to 327 messages for a 89% reduction. From the analysis of negative slack-time spikes it was determined which PDU types are of highest priority. The router and satellite queues in the case study were modified accordingly using a priority-based transmission scheduler. The analysis of total travel times based of PDU types numerically shows the benefit obtained. The contributions of this dissertation include the formalization of a selective PDU bundling scheme, the proposal and study of different predictive algorithms for the next PDU, and priority-based optimization using Head-of-Line (HoL) service. These results demonstrate the validity of packet optimizations for distributed simulation environments and other possible applications such as TCP/IP transmissions

The development of a verification and validation (V&V) plan for a proposed tactical engagement simulation system for the AH-64D attack helicopter

Advances in weapon systems technology creates the potential for increased warfighting capability, These advances simultaneously create the need for effective simulation systems of these contemporary technologies, The credibility and capability of these weapons systems Models and Simulation (M&S)are evaluated by a Verification and Validation (V&V) process,typically performed during the system development and subsequentDevelopmental Testing (DT). The tactical effectiveness and suitability of the integrated system are then evaluated throughOperational Testing (OT). Historically, the tasks associated with DT and OT are performed by separate organizations in isolation.This thesis proposes a methodology for the Verification andValidation of the weapons systems models implicit in the AH-64DLongbow Apache Tactical Engagement Simulation (TES) System,addition, this thesis develops a V&V plan to evaluate the simulation provided by the integrated Longbow TES system, The Design of this plan provides for the simultaneous collection ofOT data to support system suitability evaluation. This will reduce future OT requirements, thus decreasing the time required for the acquisition cycle. This proposition of performing theTES V&V as a combination of DT (V&V) and OT supports the rapid prototyping philosophy which is useful in proving the concepts of new technology and complex systems