SBIR-STTR Award

The development of a validated campaign-level modeling tool for the assessment of theater airlift capability is the objective of this SBIR project. In Phase I, the requirements and current capabilities for theater airlift analysis in support of the government acquisition process will be assessed and a plan to overcome identified shortcomings will be developed. This effort will begin with the identification and documentation of the processes and interactions which must be simulated to effectively model theater airlift at the campaign-level. A comprehensive approach for analyzing theater airlift and its impact on warfighting effectiveness will then be defined and documented. Existing analytical tools and data sources will be surveyed to determine their applicability and suitability to support this theater airlift analysis process. A report of these findings will be produced along with recommendations for enhancements to existing models and/or new software development required to support a full analysis capability. The final product of Phase I will be a Phase II work plan to implement these recommendations.

The development of a validated campaign-level modeling tool for the assessment of theater airlift capability is the objective of this SBIR project. In Phase I, the requirements and current capabilities for theater airlift analysis in support of the government acquisition process were assessed and a plan to overcome identified shortcomings was developed. The US Air Force campaign-level simulation model THUNDER will be enhanced to meet these requirements in Phase II. This effort will begin with the definition and documentation of an implementation-independent airlift model appropriate for campaign-level analysis. Support for the basic airlift mission model will be designed and implemented in THUNDER. Options for additional enhancements in the areas of transportation request generation and propitiation, transportation asset scheduling, impacts of timely delivery of supplies and units on warfighting processes, and airlift-specific mission execution details will then be developed. Finally, selected enhancement options will be designed and implemented in THUNDER. The final product will be a documented version of THUNDER containing a verified and validated theater airlift model.