FUTURE VERTICAL LIFT: Engineers turned to digital engineering to release a model of the barrage relay radio model to the greater DOD community, which is being used by the aviation community in testing out Future Vertical Lift concepts. (Photo by Maj. Jeffrey Tolbert, 82nd Airborne Division)
PEO C3T tech expert explains how digital engineering can be used across the acquisition enterprise.
by Kathryn Bailey
Digital engineering is becoming increasingly essential to the DOD acquisition community, and for good cause. The requirement to modernize systems has never been greater as we prepare to support the data-centric Army of 2030 and the potential for large-scale combat operations against near-peer threats. In 2018, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering released the Digital Engineering Strategy, which provided guidelines on how to incorporate digital engineering into the system acquisition cycle to increase the speed of delivery and meet the challenges of future wars.
Digital engineering is a method used to modernize how we design, develop, deliver, appropriate and sustain our systems. The DOD defines digital engineering as an integrated digital approach that uses authoritative sources of system data and models in a continuum across disciplines to support life cycle activities from concept through disposal. In other words, rather than use a design-build-test methodology, digital engineering uses a model-analyze-build methodology. Basically, it’s a way to use technology to not only ensure a system will work as expected, but to compute a multitude of data to determine if the system meets full-cycle development criteria from well before contract actions all the way out to sustainment. While quantitative benefits are difficult to measure, data points emerging across DOD show a huge potential when using digital engineering in processes and decision-making.
Randy Young, deputy director of the Technical Management Division, Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications ‒ Tactical (PEO C3T), sat down for a question-and-answer session on July 19, to explain how their organization is implementing digital engineering practices now, and plans for the future, as the Army undergoes rapid modernization with a major shift in developing and delivering a transformative network across formations today and tomorrow.
MODEL-ANALYZE-BUILD: PEO C3T Mission Command uses digital engineering to mitigate issues early in the development cycle, using a model-analyze-build methodology to provide data needed for decision-making across disciplines to support life cycle activities of the system. (Photo by Sam Brooks, PEO C3T)
Bailey: Who uses digital engineering practices? Is this just for system engineers implementing modeling and simulation or computer aided design software?
Young: No, not at all. If we only target digital engineering at the technical level, we limit who benefits from this critical process. While modeling and simulation and traditional engineering tools are a big part of digital engineering, digital engineering should facilitate communications beyond technical across all disciplines by automating business practices, configuration management and capturing financial information relevant to the system.
PEO C3T uses a tiered approach (Figure 1) to help develop a digital engineering road map. The tiers start with functionality that provides value across the entire acquisition community and progresses to high-end, high-fidelity purpose-build engineering tools designed to answer very specific technical questions.
Bailey: How does modeling and simulation aide digital engineering?
Young: Digital engineering, supported by modeling, provides a digital picture of how the information flows throughout that system, allowing us to identify issues or challenges early on and subsequently identify solutions—even before it reaches a lab for testing. With many of today’s systems integrated into a system-of-systems design, often using commercial components, developers should use digital engineering to anticipate changes to the future environment. For example, if we introduce a different interface into a modeling and simulation program, we will find out how that new interface will impact the overall architecture. We may also ask how a certain capability will affect the network, and of course we must know how our decision will ultimately affect the warfighter.
Bailey: How can digital engineering help the development and test community if, despite all of the preliminary modeling and testing, Soldiers still have an issue with a system?
Young: Should we discover an issue down the road, we use the digital engineering tools to select that portion of the system and its interfaces to assess the problem. The tools allow us to isolate on the affected systems and to replicate the issue in a controlled environment. This enables the engineers to more rapidly define the root cause of the issue and define the solution.
Bailey: Could you elaborate on how digital engineering is used at the general user level?
Young: An example is using digital engineering to capture specifications that can be used to put into the contract for industry solicitation. The contract specialist then has the capability to trace equipment purchases throughout the contract life cycle. We can also use digital engineering in financial projections to quickly determine how much it will cost to supply an entire brigade with a system, which is a critical data point senior leaders require.
Bailey: How have you used digital engineering to save the Army time or money?
Young: We used digital engineering to help us determine how many Variable Height Antennas (VHAs) to procure as part of the Integrated Tactical Network’s first unit equipped fielding to the 82nd Airborne Division. The system, which features a tethered drone fitted with a 2-channel Leader Radio, extends line-of-sight communications. We built a simulation using high-end computational modeling software, where we simulated the VHA into the unit’s representative operational environments. The simulations allowed us to adjust the number of VHAs and assess whether Soldiers were able to maintain connectivity among the radios. The analysis provided senior leaders with a high confidence level in providing the capability required even with decreasing the number of VHAs fielded to the unit, resulting in significant cost savings to the Army. The unit operated the VHA over more than two years and agreed that our assessment was consistent with their observed real-world operational experience.
We currently use digital engineering on a daily basis to conduct integration testing. Prior to fielding new software, we perform integration testing that includes the impacts of tactical communications and networking. We integrate with Project Manager Tactical Network Emulation Testbed, which provides a digital representation of the network. Implementing these digital engineering capabilities significantly reduces the physical size and complexity of our integration environments, which not only allows us to utilize the expertise that resides in the individual project manager organizations and not have to duplicate that expertise in other organizations, but also reduces the length and focus of field testing.
Examples like these demonstrate how the acquisition community works with the operational community using digital engineering to come up with a scenario for informed decision-making.
Bailey: Is the information derived from the PEO C3T digital engineering approach available outside of the organization?
Young: Yes. Since we’re fielding technologies that many systems have to connect to, so this gives us tools in order to share information outside of our community, such as with the Army’s cross-functional teams and the joint community to aid in joint all-domain command-and-control decision-making. One example of this was to release a model of a barrage relay radio to the greater DOD community. It is being used by the aviation community in testing out Future Vertical Lift concepts.
Bailey: Will you adapt your digital engineering models to meet the current effort to unify the enterprise and tactical networks?
Young: Yes, digital engineering will be even more valuable as we move towards the Army’s unified network plan. Currently, we have many discrete individual component models that, like the networks, must come together to support one network design. We are already working across PEO C3T and PEO [Enterprise Information Systems] teams, where there are ongoing communications among the project manager organizations in the areas of software defined networking and cloud concepts.
Bailey: What are the next steps for your organization’s digital engineering efforts?
Young: As we refine our collection of tools, we will be able to tackle even more complex decisions, such as the current decision facing the Army to relegate all systems at battalion and below at the Sensitive But Unclassified-Encrypted, or SBU-E, classification level. The digital engineering tools could provide a visual to compare a unit’s capabilities operating under SECRET versus SBU-E. We are currently piloting this integrated solution, but for now, we are applying digital engineering across a variety of disparate tools and information sources to help with this decision. However, in the not-too-distant future, we see a digital engineering solution that take will days, versus weeks, to aid with operational environment-wide decisions such as these.
Bailey: In summary, what do you feel are the top benefits to incorporating digital engineering into the system development process?
Young: Digital engineering is a very effective method to make more informed decisions, whether technical or programmatic. Working across all disciplines provides us with the overall confidence in the accuracy and quality of the data, improved analysis of capabilities and systems, and the tools to rapidly trace the decision-making path to fielding. Ultimately, our goal is to rapidly and accurately field the most modern systems to our Soldiers as we prepare for the Army 2030 and beyond.
For more information, please contact pao-peoc3t@army.mil or visit www.peoc3t.army.mil.
KATHRYN BAILEY is a public communications specialist for Bowhead Business and Technologies Solutions, assigned to the Program Executive Office Command Control Communications – Tactical (PEO C3T), where she covers network modernization initiatives across the entire portfolio. She holds a B.A. in communications studies from the University of Maryland University College.
