Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD., -- The Army announced earlier this year the winners of the Army Modeling & Simulation, referred to as M&S, Awards for Fiscal Year 2022. These achievements acknowledge the efforts made towards the Army and its Soldiers, specifically for M&S, that support the analytic foundation and accomplish the Army’s mission.
The importance of M&S utilization cannot be understated, as it enhances the information available for senior leader decisions. Representations done in a virtual space are the necessary key to the thorough analysis the DEVCOM Analysis Center, or DAC, is known for.
The theme for the Fiscal Year 2022 award was Enabling Army Priorities – People, Readiness and Modernization.
The Army M&S Award evaluation committee assessed 31 nominations, with six teams and five individuals in total receiving awards. Among these winners were two individuals and two teams from DAC. These DAC team members have been recognized for further building the Army’s analytic foundation and supporting the greater Army mission through their innovations.
The first, of which, being Dominic Chan from the Network and Communications team. Chan received the Individual Award in the Analysis Category for his exemplary performance in enhancing the Army’s ability to model and simulate networks in the combat simulation One Semi-Automated Forces, or OneSAF. After identifying gaps within combat simulations related to the lack of fidelity to sufficiently represent network traffic performance and its impact on operations, Chan supported a wide variety of efforts to help alleviate this gap in the OneSAF simulation for future capabilities.
Another individual awarded for his contributions, Ryan Barker, earned the Individual Award in the Training Category as a result of his valuable input and guidance as an Operations Research and Systems Analyst. Barker provided critical capabilities to the Army’s Training Community through the development of performance data usable in training exercises and tools, underpinned by physics-based methodologies. Barker explains that DAC is working with various communities to apply systems analysis throughout the acquisition life cycle to ensure consistent representation of systems performance. In an abstract from a previous Military Operations Research Society event, Barker explains that innovative DOD policies, advances in technologies and establishment of cloud infrastructures will continue to push further implementation of M&S as a service.
For the first of the two group winners, the team of Raquel Hudson, Matthew Schulz, Rachel Foster, Kate Sandora, Sarah Coard, and Jacob Ehlenberger were all part of the team that won the group award in the Test and Evaluation Category. Their mission, headed by Craig Barker, was to implement detailed human models for the evaluation of armored vehicle systems in Live Fire events.
The WIA-Man, or Warrior Injury Assessment Manikin, now has a virtual model developed by the team, called the Finite Element Model, or FEM. The WIA-Man FEM is a simulated representation of the physical WIA-Man anthropomorphic test device, which also happens to be the world's first test manikin with scientifically valid injury assessment capabilities. With the successful addition of this crucial physics-based model in their toolset, the Army and joint partners are now better equipped to accurately assess Soldier risks to underbody blast events.
Lastly, the Team Award in the Experimentation Category winners: Timothy Boyd, Jerod Bernicky, Raymond Caha, Daniel Gorski, Kyle King and Scott Pridgen were all acknowledged for their efforts towards the Army Experimentation Results Data Repository, or AERDR.
Spearheaded by Boyd, the team lead of the Performance Data Team, the team worked towards a centralized data archive that exists under the Microsoft Azure cloud. Through the AERDR, they demonstrated the ability to collect, manage, and store experimentation data and results for critical Army events and systems. The AERDR, which serves as a final location for experimentation results, raw data, and curated (reduced) data, was able to heavily support large experimentation events, such as Project Convergence and the Experimental Demonstration Gateway Event.
These DAC analysts, scientists, engineers, and professionals are dedicated to serve and establish DAC as the Army’s analytic foundation through curated data, verified methodologies and trusted analysis. By being recognized for their diligent and concerted efforts, these DAC team members are properly identified as being at the forefront of our Army’s goals for 2030 and beyond.
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