CfLCD – Center for Life Cycle Design
Kennedy Space Center
Modeling and Simulation
How We Play Nice Across Time
and Space
Mike Conroy
mike.conroy@nasa.gov
What Do We Play?
CfLCD – Center for Life Cycle Design
• The Game is:
– Multi-Decade, Massive, Complex System Conception, Design,
Development and Operations
– Targeted towards a hostile and unforgiving environment
– With a gifted, diverse and distributed group of friends
• Some of which are not our traditional friends
– With the goal of getting as far off the planet as possible
• The Rules are:
– Physics / Teams / Process / Science / Story
– Time / Distance / Culture / Goals
Who Plays, What They Do
• Players:
CfLCD – Center for Life Cycle Design
– Government
• Needs – Large, Complex, Multi-Decadal Systems
– Industry
• Design – A lot of simulation based cooperation
• Development – A lot of simulation based cooperation
• Manufacturing – We have not done well here to date
– Academia
• Research – Create Trans-Domain Design and Development
Processes
• Education – Create Trans-Domain People
• Exemplar – Demonstrate the New Paradigm(s)
• The Overall Goal is better and more sustainable systems
Things We Do
CfLCD – Center for Life Cycle Design
• We Model
– We represent the thing we want to study
– With as much detail as is necessary for that study
• We Simulate
– We represent behavior of the thing(s) we want to study
– With as much detail as is necessary for that study
• We Decide
– We look at the things, and how they behave
– We determine the next step(s)
– We communicate the results with as much detail as necessary
• To a wider and wider community of interest and influence.
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CfLCD – Center for Life Cycle Design
GOALS!
OR, THINGS WE ALL WANT!
CfLCD – Center for Life Cycle Design
Things We Want
We All Want:
1. System Knowledge
Sooner
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CfLCD – Center for Life Cycle Design
Things We Want
We All Want:
1. System Knowledge
Sooner
2. Design Flexibility
Preserved
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CfLCD – Center for Life Cycle Design
Things We Want
We All Want:
1. System Knowledge
Sooner
2. Design Flexibility
Preserved
3. Resource Commitments
Delayed
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CfLCD – Center for Life Cycle Design
Simulation Helps
NASA / INCOSE System Engineering Phases
Pre
A
B
C
D
E
A
Simulation Based Concepts
Simulation Based Designs
Simulation Based Products
Sustainable Systems
And, along the way we create artifacts that we
can share, that increase understanding and allow
us to access additional expertise
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CfLCD – Center for Life Cycle Design
Multi-Decadal & Interdependent is Hard
Time (50 years)
Us
Our
Kids
Our
Grandkids
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We Have Done Complex and Integrated
CfLCD – Center for Life Cycle Design
Distributed HLA Simulations
With the data put into a Game
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We Have Done Rapid
Habitat Demonstration Unit
CfLCD – Center for Life Cycle Design
• Vision
– Develop, integrate, test, and evaluate a
Habitation prototype to better understand
mission architectures, requirements and
operational concepts
• Timeline
– Project Kick-off: June 2009
– Shell: October 2009 – April 2010
– Systems Integration: April – August 2010
Lunar Reference Concept (PEM)
• 10 Month Build, 4 Month Integration
– Field Test at Desert RATS September 2010
• Participation
- Jointly managed and built across 3 Time
Zones with subsystems from 7 Centers
- Teams brought what they had available for
outfitting
HDU Concept
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CfLCD – Center for Life Cycle Design
Concept Realization (15 Months to Field)
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Concurrent Design Lessons
CfLCD – Center for Life Cycle Design
• CAD integration rapidly grew to system simulation, then
concurrent development
– Concepts were matured in design sessions
• Concept developed, “model” updated, package base lined
• Design completed, “model” updated, systems built
• Multiple Centers, Teams, Projects, Time Zones and Budgets
• Success not just because of Simulation
– Leadership prioritized decisions such that time critical elements
were decided on first, even if only allocations
– Simulation Screen Shots became a key communication path
• Timely, Enhanced Understanding, Converged Ideas
• Was this supplier based design?
Concept
Design
Development
Done
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We Share Information & More People Play
CfLCD – Center for Life Cycle Design
From:
To:
To:
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And, More Than People Play
CfLCD – Center for Life Cycle Design
• The Game is a Spring Board into Human and Machine
Cooperation and Discovery
– Game Engines allow Humans and Intelligent Agents to share a
common space and time
– A link from this shared space and time to advanced analysis tools
allows humans to collaborate with increasingly sophisticated
information and agents
Opportunities
• Game Development
CfLCD – Center for Life Cycle Design
• Intelligent Agents
• Design Processes
• Design Automation
• Interface Standards
• Machine Cognition
• Human Cognition
• Information Lifecycles
• Centennial Data / Information
CfLCD – Center for Life Cycle Design
Thank you
mike.conroy@nasa.gov