| Significant advances have been made recently in applying probabilistic methods to aerospace vehicle concepts. Given the explosive changes in today's political, social, and technological climate, it makes practical sense to try and extrapolate these methods to the campaign analysis level. This would allow the assessment of rapidly changing threat environments as well as technological advancements, aiding today's decision makers. These decision makers use this information in three primary ways: resource allocation, requirements definition, and trade studies between system components.; In effect, these decision makers are looking for a way to quantify system effectiveness. Using traditional definitions, one can categorize an aerospace concept, such as an aircraft, as the system. Design and analysis conducted on the aircraft will result in system level Measures of Effectiveness. System effectiveness, therefore, becomes a function of only that aircraft's design variables and parameters. While this method of analysis can result in the design of a vehicle that is optimized to its own mission and performance requirements, the vehicle remains independent of its role for which it was created: the warfighting environment. It is therefore proposed that the system be redefined as the warfighting environment (campaign analysis) and the problem be considered to have a system of systems formulation.; A methodology for the assessment of military system effectiveness is proposed. Called POSSEM (PrObabilisitic System of System Effectiveness Methodology), the methodology describes the creation of an analysis pathway that links engineering level changes to campaign level measures of effectiveness. The methodology includes probabilistic analysis techniques in order to manage the inherent uncertainties in the problem, which are functions of human decision making, rapidly changing threats, and the incorporation of new technologies. An example problem is presented, in which aircraft susceptibility enhancements are added to a baseline aircraft, and the effects of these additions propagated to the campaign analysis level. |
