Warfighter as a System Digital Twin Research
Abstract
The warfighter is a complex, soft engineering system subjected to unusual and extreme loads that lead to reduced performance and inj ury. Digital Engineering is starting to be widely used in military systems for design, planning, and predictive maintenance. These benefits are not realized for the warfighter because there is no analogous human digital twin to inform design and use of equipment , vehicles, preventative medicine, and battlefield medical care. The proposed research in this white paper will focus in the develo pment and application of Digital Engineering and Digital Twin technologies as applied to warfighter protection, and the digital engi neering and virtual certification of future protective military equipment.Prognostication and Health Maintenance with a Human Digita l Twin: A dynamic virtual skin-in model of the warfighter (male and female) body based on biofidelic properties of tissues and org ans and response to injury. This project will focus on military hazards ofaccelerative, blunt, and blast forces. Creating a Digital Engineering strategy using biofidelic models will improve risk assessment, injury and incapacitation prediction; and enable agile d esign testing and criterion setting for personal protective equipment, platforms and casualty flow modeling; , warfighter integratio n with the vehicle digital twin, medical response planning, and technological feedback mechanism for human-machine interface. The pr oposed research will focus on the first of these three phases:1.Phase I- Warfighter Digital Engineering Standards and Best Practices : This work will be focused on defining the best engineering practices to verify and validate the various simulation human body mod els that can be used to define the Digital Warfighter, integration of the Digital Warfighter with the Digital Military Equipment ( P rotective gear, Safety Systems, Vehicles, etc.) and the Digital Threat Environment. This Digital Engineering environment will not on ly significantly reduce the time and associated costs to develop and certify future protective equipment but also increase the curre nt level of protection of the Warfighter by using more biofidelic human body models instead of dummy surrogates. A Pilot Program for a Future Vertical Lift Recovery Seat will be conducted to illustrate the Digital Engineering process from conceptual design to virt ual certification.2.Proposed Future Work Phase Phase II Digital-Physical Twin Standards and Infrastructure: Upon completion of Pha se I described on this proposal NIAR proposes the following Phase II. The work in this phase will be focused on defining standards f or the instrumentation, data exchange, data processing, data storage, and computing infrastructure required to link the Digital Twin with the Physical Twin. NIAR-WSU Advanced Virtual Engineering, Cybersecurity, and Virtual Reality laboratories will be used to setu p a Pilot Program to demonstrate the information technology infrastructure, advanced methods, as well as collaborative trusted syste ms that enforce protection of intellectual property, cybersecurity, and security classification.3.Proposed Future Work Phase III- Wa rfighter Digital Twin Applications and Future Workforce Training: Upon completion of Phase I and II described on this proposal NIAR proposes the following Phase III. Define procedures, and best practices for real world Warfighter Digital Twin applications (Virtual Military Equipment, Environment, and Threads). Develop tools and methods to define level 2 (Basic DT), level 3 (Adaptive DT), and l evel 4 (Intelligent DT) Warfighter Digital Twin real world applications. "Approved for Public Release
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Sep 03, 2021
- Source ID
- N000142112858
Entities
People
- Gerardo Olivares
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy
- Wichita State University