Development of the Morphing Capability Assessment Tool
Abstract
Morphing technologies and vehicles are of interest to many people, including scientists and engineers from many disciplines and many nontechnical professionals. As morphing research and development (R&D) continues, ideas, concepts, and information have to be communicated effectively and R&D efforts have to be coordinated. Effective communication and coordinated R&D efforts within and across varied organizations means that information must be conveyed so that many people can readily and clearly understand the information and its impact. This need to communicate and to coordinate R&D efforts motivated the development of a morphing capability assessment framework. The morphing capability assessment framework presented in this report is a starting point to aid effective communication and to coordinate R&D efforts for morphing vehicles and morphing vehicle technologies. The framework attempts to establish a logical process to answer questions such as "Why is a morphing vehicle better than a conventional vehicle for a desired mission or set of missions?" and "What technologies are needed to realize a proposed morphing vehicle?" Starting with the definition of morphing, a capability assessment process that systematically considers the desired vehicle performance, the technologies and risks associated with achieving the desired performance through morphing, and a method to map progress toward more capable morphing vehicles are discussed. To facilitate an understanding of the proposed process, an example based on two aircraft -- one that has advanced morphing capabilities and one that does not -- is fully worked.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 2005
- Accession Number
- ADA442430
Entities
People
- Carlos E. Cesnik
- Christopher A. Martin
- Howard R. Last
- Janet M. Sater
- William S. Hong
Organizations
- Institute for Defense Analyses