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Air Force Institute of Technology
Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering
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Articles 1 - 30 of 910
Full-Text Articles in Engineering
The Characteristics Of Successful Military It Projects: A Cross-Country Empirical Study, Helene Berg, Jonathan D. Ritschel
The Characteristics Of Successful Military It Projects: A Cross-Country Empirical Study, Helene Berg, Jonathan D. Ritschel
Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
Domain Restriction Zones: An Evolution Of The Military Exclusion Zone, Cole M. Mooty, Robert A. Bettinger, Mark G. Reith
Domain Restriction Zones: An Evolution Of The Military Exclusion Zone, Cole M. Mooty, Robert A. Bettinger, Mark G. Reith
Faculty Publications
Since the early part of the twenty-first century, US adversaries have expanded their military capabilities within and their access to new warfighting domains. When faced with the growth of adversaries’ asymmetric capabilities, the means, tactics, and strategies previously used by the US military lose their proportional effectiveness. To avoid such degradation of capability, the operational concept of the military exclusion zone (MEZ) should be revised to suit the modern battlespace while also addressing the shifts in national policy that encourage diplomacy over military force. The concept and development of domain restriction zones (DRZs) increase the relevancy of traditional MEZs in …
Imparting Systems Engineering Experience Via Interactive Fiction Serious Games, Thomas C. Ford, David Long, Echo Ford *
Imparting Systems Engineering Experience Via Interactive Fiction Serious Games, Thomas C. Ford, David Long, Echo Ford *
Faculty Publications
Serious games for education are becoming increasing popular. Interactive fiction games are some of the most popular in app stores and are also beginning to be heavily used in education to teach analysis and decision-making. Noting that it is difficult for systems engineers to experience all necessary situations which prepare them for the role of a chief engineer, in this paper, we explore the use of interactive fiction serious games to impart systems engineering experience and to teach systems engineering principles. The results of a cognitive viability, qualitative viability, and replayability analysis of 14 systems engineering serious games developed in …
Effects Of Individual Strategies For Resource Access On Collaboratively Maintained Irrigation Infrastructure, Jordan L. Stern, Afreen Siddiqi, Paul N. Grogan
Effects Of Individual Strategies For Resource Access On Collaboratively Maintained Irrigation Infrastructure, Jordan L. Stern, Afreen Siddiqi, Paul N. Grogan
Faculty Publications
Built infrastructure for water and energy supply, transportation, and other such services underpins human well-being and socioeconomic development. A fundamental understanding of how infrastructure design and user strategies interact can guide important design decisions as well as policy formulation for ensuring long-term infrastructure viability in conjunction with improved individual user benefits. In this work, an agent based model (ABM) is developed to study this issue for the specific case of irrigation canals. Cooperatively maintained irrigation canals serve essential roles in sustaining agriculture-based economies in many regions. Canal system design can strongly affect benefits derived by distributed users, regional agricultural output, …
Ads-B Classification Using Multivariate Long Short-Term Memory–Fully Convolutional Networks And Data Reduction Techniques, Sarah Bolton *, Richard Dill, Michael R. Grimaila, Douglas Hodson
Ads-B Classification Using Multivariate Long Short-Term Memory–Fully Convolutional Networks And Data Reduction Techniques, Sarah Bolton *, Richard Dill, Michael R. Grimaila, Douglas Hodson
Faculty Publications
Researchers typically increase training data to improve neural net predictive capabilities, but this method is infeasible when data or compute resources are limited. This paper extends previous research that used long short-term memory–fully convolutional networks to identify aircraft engine types from publicly available automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) data. This research designs two experiments that vary the amount of training data samples and input features to determine the impact on the predictive power of the ADS-B classification model. The first experiment varies the number of training data observations from a limited feature set and results in 83.9% accuracy (within 10% of …
Machine Learning Prediction Of Dod Personal Property Shipment Costs, Tiffany Tucker [*], Torrey J. Wagner, Paul Auclair, Brent T. Langhals
Machine Learning Prediction Of Dod Personal Property Shipment Costs, Tiffany Tucker [*], Torrey J. Wagner, Paul Auclair, Brent T. Langhals
Faculty Publications
U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) personal property moves account for 15% of all domestic and international moves - accurate prediction of their cost could draw attention to outlier shipments and improve budget planning. In this work 136,140 shipments between 13 personal property shipment hubs from April 2022 through March 2023 with a total cost of $1.6B were analyzed. Shipment cost was predicted using recursive feature elimination on linear regression and XGBoost algorithms, as well as through neural network hyperparameter sweeps. Modeling was repeated after removing 28 features related to shipment hub location and branch of service to examine their influence …
Cooperative Wide Area Search Algorithm Analysis Using Sub-Region Techniques, Shawn Whitney
Cooperative Wide Area Search Algorithm Analysis Using Sub-Region Techniques, Shawn Whitney
Theses and Dissertations
Recent advances in small Unmmaned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) technology reinvigorates the need for additional research into Wide Area Search (WAS) algorithms for civilian and military applications. But due to the extremely large variability in UAV environments and design, Digital Engineering (DE) is utilized to reduce the time, cost, and energy required to advance this technology. DE also allows rapid design and evaluation of autonomous systems which utilize and support WAS algorithms. Modern WAS algorithms can be broadly classified into decision-based algorithms, statistical algorithms, and Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML) algorithms. This research continues on the work by Hatzinger and Gertsman …
Optimal Scheduling Of Aircraft Test And Evaluation Fleets To Balance Availability For Testing And Training, Sarah E. Hoops
Optimal Scheduling Of Aircraft Test And Evaluation Fleets To Balance Availability For Testing And Training, Sarah E. Hoops
Theses and Dissertations
The 96th Test Wing at Eglin Air Force Base manually schedules a fleet of approximately 26 aircraft to conduct a range of missions over a one-to-two year planning period. This study automates the scheduling process, does so in a manner that optimizes multiple planning goals related to aircraft availability for training, and provides the 96th Test Wing with a software tool for the implementation that can be used by operational analysts within the command. We formulate the scheduling problem as a multiobjective, nonlinear, binary integer math program that seeks to maximize both the lowest percent of time any aircraft is …
Project Selection In Facility And Infrastructure Maintenance Organizations, Bayram M. Kurbanov
Project Selection In Facility And Infrastructure Maintenance Organizations, Bayram M. Kurbanov
Theses and Dissertations
The current Air Force Civil Engineer Center (AFCEC) built infrastructure Facility Sustainment Restoration and Modernization (FSRM) portfolio management methodology results in an unbalanced project portfolio. The consequence of this unbalance is that majority of the funding goes towards buildings on the flightline and Facility Support Services activities do not get adequate funding which leads to further deterioration of those facilities. This research investigates whether decision support framework based on Value-Focused Thinking (VFT) process yields better project selection outcomes for facility and infrastructure maintenance organizations. To accomplish that, the investigation focuses on understanding current AFCEC decision support methodology, building an alternative …
Evaluating Performance Competencies In The Royal Saudi Air Force Engineering Directorate And Squadrons, Faisal A. Al Dawood
Evaluating Performance Competencies In The Royal Saudi Air Force Engineering Directorate And Squadrons, Faisal A. Al Dawood
Theses and Dissertations
The effectiveness of tasks performed by the directorate of aeronautical engineering and squadrons in RSAF directly impacts flight safety, which in turn influences the organization either positively or negatively. Therefore, improving engineers' competencies will improve the overall performance of the organization. The study refined and reconstructed a model, namely a T-shape competency model, to assess the engineers' competencies which revealed some management and competency-related deficiencies and concluded with managerial recommendations.
A Methodological Framework For Parametric Combat Analysis, Dustin L. Hayhurst Sr.
A Methodological Framework For Parametric Combat Analysis, Dustin L. Hayhurst Sr.
Theses and Dissertations
This work presents a taxonomic structure for understanding the tension between certain factors of stability for game-theoretic outcomes such as Nash optimality, Pareto optimality, and balance optimality and then applies such game-theoretic concepts to the advancement of strategic thought on spacepower. This work successfully adapts and applies combat modeling theory to the evaluation of cislunar space conflict. This work provides evidence that the reliability characteristics of small spacecraft share similarities to the reliability characteristics of large spacecraft. Using these novel foundational concepts, this dissertation develops and presents a parametric methodological framework capable of analyzing the efficacy of heterogeneous force compositions …
Value Focused Thinking Analysis Of C-Band Australia Radar Operations, Samuel Ray Grothman
Value Focused Thinking Analysis Of C-Band Australia Radar Operations, Samuel Ray Grothman
Theses and Dissertations
The radars used for Space Domain Awareness (SDA) are inherently all-weather, day/night sensors capable of around the clock operations. Despite this fact, some radars are operated for fewer than their maximum operating capabilities. The decision-making process for selecting the operating hours of a sensor has historically been based on only a few factors or just one. This research uses the techniques in Value Focused Thinking to develop an evaluation process to score possible alternatives and find the alternative with the most value for the decision maker. By investigating the value that is added by operating an SDA radar, it is …
Retention Prediction And Policy Optimization For United States Air Force Personnel Management, Joseph C. Hoecherl
Retention Prediction And Policy Optimization For United States Air Force Personnel Management, Joseph C. Hoecherl
Theses and Dissertations
Effective personnel management policies in the United States Air Force (USAF) require methods to predict the number of personnel who will remain in the USAF as well as to replenish personnel with different skillsets over time as they depart. To improve retention predictions, we develop and test traditional random forest models and feedforward neural networks as well as partially autoregressive forms of both, outperforming the benchmark on a test dataset by 62.8% and 34.8% for the neural network and the partially autoregressive neural network, respectively. We formulate the workforce replenishment problem as a Markov decision process for active duty enlisted …
Root-Cause Analysis Of Rsaf Maintenance-Related Flight Safety Mishaps, Heaf H. Alqahtani
Root-Cause Analysis Of Rsaf Maintenance-Related Flight Safety Mishaps, Heaf H. Alqahtani
Theses and Dissertations
Poor maintenance is a major factor in many aviation mishaps. This is due to the fact that some maintenance activities are carried out improperly or overlooked as a result of human error. It is important to acknowledge that maintenance mistakes are a visible sign of deeper organizational issues. Therefore, adequate solutions to maintenance issues must consider organizational influences. Despite efforts to reduce the accident rate within the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF), the RSAF suffers from an increasing trend in mishaps attributed to maintenance. Therefore, safety data was analyzed to examine trends. Additionally, the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System …
Artificial Neural Networks And Gradient Boosted Machines Used For Regression To Evaluate Gasification Processes: A Review, Owen Sedej, Eric Mbonimpa, Trevor Sleight, Jeremy M. Slagley
Artificial Neural Networks And Gradient Boosted Machines Used For Regression To Evaluate Gasification Processes: A Review, Owen Sedej, Eric Mbonimpa, Trevor Sleight, Jeremy M. Slagley
Faculty Publications
Waste-to-Energy technologies have the potential to dramatically improve both the natural and human environment. One type of waste-to-energy technology that has been successful is gasification. There are numerous types of gasification processes and in order to drive understanding and the optimization of these systems, traditional approaches like computational fluid dynamics software have been utilized to model these systems. The modern advent of machine learning models has allowed for accurate and computationally efficient predictions for gasification systems that are informed by numerous experimental and numerical solutions. Two types of machine learning models that have been widely used to solve for quantitative …
Beyond The High Ground: A Taxonomy For Earth-Moon System Operations, Adam P. Wilmer, Robert A. Bettinger
Beyond The High Ground: A Taxonomy For Earth-Moon System Operations, Adam P. Wilmer, Robert A. Bettinger
Faculty Publications
Situational and space domain awareness in the space domain can no longer be confined to that which is found in geosynchronous orbit. International activities—commercial and military—and threats to the planet itself exist and are increasing across the entire Earth-Moon system. This reality requires a new taxonomy to accurately classify space domain awareness missions and better apply resources to and development of the same. This work presents such a taxonomy for the classification of space domain awareness regions.
A Unified View Of A Human Digital Twin, Michael Miller, Emily Spatz
A Unified View Of A Human Digital Twin, Michael Miller, Emily Spatz
Faculty Publications
The term human digital twin has recently been applied in many domains, including medical and manufacturing. This term extends the digital twin concept, which has been illustrated to provide enhanced system performance as it combines system models and analyses with real-time measurements for an individual system to improve system maintenance. Human digital twins have the potential to change the practice of human system integration as these systems employ real-time sensing and feedback to tightly couple measurements of human performance, behavior, and environmental influences throughout a product’s life cycle to human models to improve system design and performance. However, as this …
A Model-Based Approach To Cubesat Propulsion And Payload Analysis, Madeline H. Johnson
A Model-Based Approach To Cubesat Propulsion And Payload Analysis, Madeline H. Johnson
Theses and Dissertations
Currently, there are only limited ways to increase mission success of CubeSats in terms of component and mission compatibility. The Payload Analysis Tool (PAT), developed by Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) students, combines the power of multiple tools to analyze payload compatibility on a single CubeSat bus. The PAT simulates a CubeSat mission with a variety of payloads to better understand how the payloads interact with the bus in terms of power, data rate, and memory, but it lacks a propulsion system. This thesis research advances the PAT by including a propulsion system which allows for increased mission time …
Reconciliation, Restoration And Reconstruction Of A Conflict Ridden Country, Muhammad S. Riaz
Reconciliation, Restoration And Reconstruction Of A Conflict Ridden Country, Muhammad S. Riaz
Theses and Dissertations
Conflict has sadly been a constant part of history. Winning a conflict and making a lasting peace are often not the same thing. While a peace treaty ends a conflict and often dictates terms from the winners’ perspective, it may not create a lasting peace. Short of unconditional surrender, modern conflict ends with a negotiated cessation of hostilities. Such accords may have some initial reconstruction agreements, but Reconciliation, Restoration and Reconstruction (RRR) is a long term process. This study maintains that to achieve a lasting peace: 1) The culture and beliefs of the conflict nation must be continuously considered and …
Developing A Model-Based Approach To Forecast A Competitor's System, Christopher A. Del Vecchio
Developing A Model-Based Approach To Forecast A Competitor's System, Christopher A. Del Vecchio
Theses and Dissertations
The purpose of this research is to develop a model-based approach to intelligence forecasting of a competitor’s system. This analysis currently uses a document-based practice to capture all knowledge of the forecast and its development. A framework of antithesis processes, or Anti-Processes, were derived from the systems engineering technical processes. This was then combined with analytical tradecraft from the field of competitive technical intelligence to build a SysML reference model, which was then applied to a small case study to enhance and refine the model. The Anti-Process framework and SysML reference model provide a rigorous, model-based approach to intelligence forecasts …
Narrative Analysis Of Open-Source Social Media Activity In The Indopacom Aor, Aaron K. Glenn
Narrative Analysis Of Open-Source Social Media Activity In The Indopacom Aor, Aaron K. Glenn
Theses and Dissertations
Emotion classification can be a powerful tool to derive narratives from social media data. Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN) can meet or exceed the performance of state-of-the-art traditional machine learning techniques using exclusively open-source data and models. Specifically, these results show that RNN variants can produce more than an 8% gain in accuracy in comparison to Logistic Regression and SVM techniques and a 15% gain over Random Forest when using FastText embeddings. This research found a statistical significance in the performance of a single layer Bi-directional Long Short-Term Memory (Bi-LSTM) model over a 2-layer stacked Bi-LSTM model. This research also found …
Optimal Aircraft Maneuvering Models For Cruise Missile Engagement: A Modeling And Computational Study, Izaiah G. Laduke
Optimal Aircraft Maneuvering Models For Cruise Missile Engagement: A Modeling And Computational Study, Izaiah G. Laduke
Theses and Dissertations
Given the increased threat and proliferation of adversary military capabilities, this research seeks to develop reasonably accurate and computationally tractable models to optimally maneuver aircraft to intercept cruise missile attacks. The research leveraged mathematical programming to model the problem, informed by constraints representing a system of (temporal) difference equations. The research began by comparing six models having alternative representations of velocity and acceleration constraints while analyzing situations with stationary targets. The Multiple Aircraft, Multiple Stationary Target Engagement Problem with Box Constraint Bounds (MAMSTEP-BC) Model yielded superior overall performance and was further analyzed through alternative mathematical programming model enhancements to create …
Airworthiness Decision Factors In The Us Air Force, Derek N. Dennis
Airworthiness Decision Factors In The Us Air Force, Derek N. Dennis
Theses and Dissertations
There are multiple airworthiness (AW) certification paths for aircraft platforms and their modifications. Specifically, military commercial derivative aircraft (MCDA) have a unique opportunity to pursue either FAA certification, military certification or a combination of both. Policy tells MCDA programs to pursue FAA certification to the maximum extent possible, however, the policy lacks clarity regarding where that extent ends. This concept of extent encompasses multiple factors and the choice of an AW basis is a complex decision. Under ideal conditions the decision maker, the program manager, has the experience and insight to support their decision, however, this is not always the …
Analysis Of The Perspective On Syrian Refugees By Neighboring Countries, Norma Ghanem
Analysis Of The Perspective On Syrian Refugees By Neighboring Countries, Norma Ghanem
Theses and Dissertations
Mass migration destabilizes neighboring states, opening the way for fragile state exploitation by enemies, including those that could undermine U.S. national interests. This study investigates an area of the Levant region, specifically countries neighboring Syria, and analyzes their perspective on Syrian refugees for the time frame of 1 June 2019 - 30 June 2020. This analysis may assist in forming policy and creating strategies to address refugee related issues, both domestic and international. There are three main questions addressed. The first inspects dominant refugee framing, the second explores sentiment (dis)similarity within each country and across countries, and the third investigates …
Networked Cooperative Autonomous Munitions Digital Twin Modeling Utilizing Model Based Systems Engineering, Christopher R. Reed
Networked Cooperative Autonomous Munitions Digital Twin Modeling Utilizing Model Based Systems Engineering, Christopher R. Reed
Theses and Dissertations
An example of a high-complexity system is a swarm of Networked Cooperative Autonomous Munitions (NCAM) that prioritize wide area search and multiple view target confirmation. First, this research discusses methods toward building behavioral models within a Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) tool. Then, this research presents the parallel modeling effort of NCAM in two environments: the MBSE model in Cameo Systems Modeler, and a physics-based model in the Advanced Framework for Simulation, Integration, and Modeling (AFSIM). Each digital model in its environment provides distinct benefits to the stakeholders of the design process, so the models must present consistent and parallel information. …
Geometric Generation Through The Merging Of Sysml, And Engineering Sketch Pad, Alexander J. Miesle
Geometric Generation Through The Merging Of Sysml, And Engineering Sketch Pad, Alexander J. Miesle
Theses and Dissertations
The United Stated Department of Defense (DoD) and Air Force (USAF) have placed increased emphasis on the utilization of modern systems engineering (SE) practices within the current and future acquisitions lifecycle. This call is driven by the current rate at which near-peer adversaries such as Russia and China are increasing their defense system capabilities and catching up or surpassing the Unites States in certain operational regions. To aid in the transition to a Digital Engineering and Digital Twin dominated acquisitions process, this thesis presents a method with which SysML and geometric tools can be linked within both new and existing …
Identifying Characteristics For Success Of Robotic Process Automations, Charles M. Unkrich
Identifying Characteristics For Success Of Robotic Process Automations, Charles M. Unkrich
Theses and Dissertations
In the pursuit of digital transformation, the Air Force creates digital airmen. Digital airmen are robotic process automations designed to eliminate the repetitive high-volume low-cognitive tasks that absorb so much of our Airmen's time. The automation product results in more time to focus on tasks that machines cannot sufficiently perform data analytics and improving the Air Force's informed decision-making. This research investigates the assessment of potential automation cases to ensure that we choose viable tasks for automation and applies multivariate analysis to determine which factors indicate successful projects. The data is insufficient to provide significant insights.
Predicting Tf33-Pw-100a Engine Failures Due To Oil Issues Using Survival Analyses, Anna M. Davis
Predicting Tf33-Pw-100a Engine Failures Due To Oil Issues Using Survival Analyses, Anna M. Davis
Theses and Dissertations
In 2007, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Sustainment pushed for the need to transition to a Condition Based Maintenance Plus (CBM ) initiative for weapon systems in the U.S. Department of Defense. The CBM initiative can help increase aircraft availability (AA) for the United States Air Force. There are many reasons where AA can be affected but one such issue is engine availability primarily due to oil issues. Within the CBM perspective, this study examines the risk of a jet engine failure due to an oil issue and attempts to predict an engines time until next …
An Exploratory Analysis Of Time Series Econometric Data For Retention Forecasting Using Deep Learning, John C. O'Donnell
An Exploratory Analysis Of Time Series Econometric Data For Retention Forecasting Using Deep Learning, John C. O'Donnell
Theses and Dissertations
Officer retention in the Air Force has been researched many times in an attempt to better predict the personnel needs of the Air Force for the future. There has been previous work done in regards to specific AFSCs and how their retention compares to specific yet similar private sector jobs. This study considers different econometric time series statistics as a feature space and an average Air Force officer separation rate as the response variable for the multivariate time series analysis deep learning techniques. The econometric indicators used in this study are New Business Formations, New Durable Good Orders, and the …
Multiagent Routing Problem With Dynamic Target Arrivals Solved Via Approximate Dynamic Programming, Andrew E. Mogan
Multiagent Routing Problem With Dynamic Target Arrivals Solved Via Approximate Dynamic Programming, Andrew E. Mogan
Theses and Dissertations
This research formulates and solves the multiagent routing problem with dynamic target arrivals (MRP-DTA), a stochastic system wherein a team of autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (AUAVs) executes a strike coordination and reconnaissance (SCAR) mission against a notional adversary. Dynamic target arrivals that occur during the mission present the team of AUAVs with a sequential decision-making process which we model via a Markov Decision Process (MDP). To combat the curse of dimensionality, we construct and implement a hybrid approximate dynamic programming (ADP) algorithmic framework that employs a parametric cost function approximation (CFA) which augments a direct lookahead (DLA) model via a …