Modeling and Simulation of the Military Intelligence Process

There is concern within U.S. space and intelligence organizations that the current Tasking, Processing, Exploitation, and Dissemination processes may be insufficient to support current and future Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance systems. As part of a larger intelligence process, more detailed analysis becomes critical to determine what portions need to be improved. This analysis can be accomplished by simulation, which is appropriate due to the complexity of the process and the ability to compare variations in the process. We construct a high level model of a generalized military intelligence process based in part on the Intelligence Cycle outlined in Joint Publications. Using the Arena process oriented simulation software, our modular simulation can be used for quick turn studies on changes to the process, specifically with respect to classical measures such as quality, quantity, and timeliness. A sample study using the basic framework of the intelligence process with statistical analysis is also conducted

HYDRA: multipurpose ship designs in engineering and education

The cornerstone of post-graduate naval architecture and marine engineering education at UCL is the Ship Design Exercise. This three-month full-time project sees students placed in small, multi-disciplinary teams and challenged with the concept design of a new vessel based on broad outline require-ments provided by the academic staff. This exercise exemplifies the use of design as an integrative teaching method, allowing engineering students to place their academic understanding of technical subjects in a whole-ship concept. This paper describes an innovative design – HYDRA – featuring a single core vessel capable of adaption during build to take on several military or civilian roles. This paper not only describes the technical aspects of the design solution itself, but also discusses the educational implications of setting students the challenge of designing ships to meet multiple, sometimes contradictory requirements. In addition to aligning well with some modern trends in ship design and construction, this type of problem is seen to offer potential benefits in engineering education. These benefits are discussed, in addition to the potential complications they bring to various aspects of the design exercise

The Advanced Technology Corvette - Railgun (ATK-R) Design Study - Future Weapons and Small Ship Power Systems

High-power electric weapons, such as the ElectroMagnetic RailGun (EMRG), laser and High Power Microwave devices are moving closer to practical utilisation by navies, and prototype EMRG systems are being tested at militarily useful energy levels. Previous work in the UCL Department of Mechanical Engineering includes; preliminary design studies for surface combatants with an all electric weapons outfit; and detailed marine engineering analysis, to PhD level, of the implications for future power and propulsion systems of these weapons. Design studies for electrically armed ships have generally examined large destroyer-sized surface combatants, with significant installed electrical power. This paper describes a concept design study for a small corvette-sized combatant, ATK-R, developed as the “minimum sized ship” capable of supporting an EMRG as its primary armament This paper describes the UCL ZEOLIT design tool, the ship design impacts and marine engineering integration of this future concept including the use of Energy Storage Systems (ESS) and the choice between power limited (Patrol vessel -like) and power dense (Fast attack craft –like) power and propulsion systems

An absence of a relationship between overt attention and emotional distortions to time: an eye-movement study

Emotional distortions to time are consistently reported in laboratory studies, however their underlying causes remain unclear. One suggestion is that emotion induced changes in attentional processes may contribute to emotional distortions to time. The current study tested this possibility by examining the relationship between eye-movement and perceptions of the duration of emotional events. Participants completed a verbal estimation task in which they estimated the duration of positively, negatively and neutrally valenced images from the International Affective Picture System images. Time to first fixation and dwell time were recorded throughout. The results showed no significant relationships between measures of eye-movement and measures of emotional distortion to time, despite the emotion manipulation successfully influencing the time before the participants first fixated on the to-be-timed stimulus. This suggests that for suprasecond intervals emotion induced changes in overt attention processing do not contribute towards emotional distortions to time

Assessment of threat and negativity bias in virtual reality

Negativity bias, i.e., tendency to respond strongly to negative stimuli, can be captured via behavioural and psychophysiological responses to potential threat. A virtual environment (VE) was created at room-scale wherein participants traversed a grid of ice blocks placed 200 m above the ground. Threat was manipulated by increasing the probability of encountering ice blocks that disintegrated and led to a virtual fall. Participants interacted with the ice blocks via sensors placed on their feet. Thirty-four people were recruited for the study, who were divided into High (HN) and Low (LN) Neuroticism groups. Movement data were recorded alongside skin conductance level and facial electromyography from the corrugator supercilii and zygomaticus major. Risk-averse behaviours, such as standing on ‘safe’ blocks and testing blocks prior to movement, increased when threat was highest. HN individuals exhibited more risk-averse behaviour than the LN group, especially in the presence of high threat. In addition, activation of the corrugator muscle was higher for HN individuals in the period following a movement to an ice block. These findings are discussed with respect to the use of room-scale VE as a protocol for emotion induction and measuring trait differences in negativity bias within VR

Memory for incidentally perceived social cues: Effects on person judgment

Dynamic face cues can be very salient, as when observing sudden shifts of gaze to a new location, or a change of expression from happy to angry. These highly salient social cues influence judgments of another person during the course of an interaction. However, other dynamic cues, such as pupil dilation, are much more subtle, affecting judgments of another person even without awareness. We asked whether such subtle, incidentally perceived, dynamic cues could be encoded in to memory and retrieved at a later time. The current study demonstrates that in some circumstances changes in pupil size in another person are indeed encoded into memory and influence judgments of that individual at a later time. Furthermore, these judgments interact with the perceived trustworthiness of the individual and the nature of the social context. The effect is somewhat variable, however, possibly reflecting individual differences and the inherent ambiguity of pupil dilation/constriction

A Positive Touch: C-tactile afferent targeted skin stimulation carries an appetitive motivational value.

The rewarding sensation of touch in affiliative interactions is hypothesised to be underpinned by an unmyelinated system of nerve fibres called C-tactile afferents (CTs). CTs are velocity tuned, responding optimally to slow, gentle touch, typical of a caress. Here we used evaluative conditioning to examine whether CT activation carries a positive affective value. A set of neutral faces were paired with robotically delivered touch to the forearm. With half the faces touch was delivered at a CT optimal velocity of 3cm/s (CT touch) and with the other half at a faster, Non-CT optimal velocity of 30cm/s (Control touch). Heart-rate and skin conductance responses (SCRs) were recorded throughout. Whilst rated equally approachable pre-conditioning, post-conditioning faces paired with CT touch were judged significantly more approachable than those paired with Control touch. CT touch also elicited significantly greater heart-rate deceleration and lower amplitude SCRs than Control touch. The results indicate CT touch carries a positive affective value, which can be acquired by socially relevant stimuli it is associated with

An interactive layout exploration and optimisation method for early stage ship design

This paper presents a novel, highly interactive genetic algorithm-based layout exploration and optimisation method for generating spatial configurations of ships in the early stages of the design process. The method draws upon the principles of design-driven architecturally centred ship design processes by enabling the naval architects to make important decisions in a hybrid design process. The method utilises a genetic algorithm-based optimisation tool to rapidly generate and evaluate a diverse set of general arrangement options. It is approached in stages where each stage comprises two steps (manual and automatic). The new genetic algorithm-based layout optimisation tool is demonstrated by being applied to an Offshore Patrol Vessel test case. The advantages and disadvantages of the proposed tool are discussed, as well as the current limitations of the overall approach and future work

Designing Future Ships for Significantly Lower Energy Consumption

The likelihood of both increases in, and volatility of, the cost of conventional fuel in the coming decades combined with more stringent emission regulations, means that ships in the future will have to be significantly more efficient and make use of alternative sources of energy. Considering the regulatory aspect, it has been claimed that, if the IMO were to reduce international shipping’s carbon dioxide emissions to those consistent with limiting anthropogenic climate change to 2 degrees of warming, then ships in 2050 would have to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by 75-90% compared to ships in 2012. To investigate what might be the appropriate mix of technologies and operational approaches for future ship designs the “Whole Ship Model” (WSM) was developed, which is a holistic ship design tool, primarily developed at UCL, that can generate many ship design options with different design, technology and fuel combinations. The Whole Ship model can be used to explore different arrangements and uses of energy efficiency measures on container ships, bulk carriers and tankers evaluating their performance over an operating profile. This paper will initially present some results from the Whole Ship Model, evaluating the potential performance of present-day ships and technologies and will then compare this to technically feasible future ship designs that use contemporary or near-term technology to achieve very high reductions in carbon dioxide emissions and energy consumption

A Study into the Validity of the Ship Design Spiral in Early Stage Ship Design

For many years the design spiral has been seen to be a convenient model of an acknowledged complex process. It has virtues particularly in recognising the interactive and, hopefully, converging nature of the process. However many find it unsatisfactory. One early criticism focused on its apparent assumption of a relatively smooth process to a balanced solution implied by most ship concept algorithms. The paper draws on a post-graduate design investigation using the UCL Design Building Block approach, which looked specifically at a nascent naval combatant design and the issues of size associated with “passing decks” and margins. Results from the study are seen to suggest there are distinct regions of cliffs and plateaux in plots of capability against design output, namely ship size and cost. These findings are discussed with regard to the insight they provide into the nature of such ship designs and different ways of representing the ship design process. The paper concludes that the ship design spiral is a misleading and unreliable representation of complex ship design at both the strategic and detailed iterative levels