400 Commonwealth Drive, Warrendale, PA 15096-0001 U.S.A. Tel: (724) 776-4841 Fax: (724) 776-5760 Web: www.sae.org SAE TECHNICAL PAPER SERIES 2002-01-3049 A Virtual Evaluation Suite for Military Ground Vehicle Dynamic Performance and Mobility Patrick Nuñez and Alexander Reid National Automotive Center, U.S. Ar my Tank-automotive and Armaments Command Randy Jones and Sally Shoop U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) International Truck and Bus Meeting and Exhibition Detroit, Michigan November 18-20, 2002Downloaded from SAE International by Univ of California Berkeley, Sunday, August 05, 2018All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,without the prior written permission of SAE. For permission and licensing requests contact: SAE Permissions 400 Commonwealth DriveWarrendale, PA 15096-0001-USAEmail: permissions@sae.orgFax: 724-772-4891Tel: 724-772-4028 For multiple print copies contact: SAE Customer ServiceTel: 877-606-7323 (inside USA and Canada)Tel: 724-776-4970 (outside USA)Fax: 724-776-1615Email: Customer Service@sae.org ISBN 0-7680-1109-4Copyright © 2002 SAE International Positions and opinions advanced in this paper are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of SAE. The author is solely responsible for the content of the paper. A process is available by which discussions will be printed with the pap er if it is publishe d in SAE Transactions. Persons wishing to submit papers to be considered for presentation or publication by SAE should send themanuscript or a 300 word abstract of a proposed manuscript to: Secretary, Engineering Meetings Board, SAE. Printed in USADownloaded from SAE International by Univ of California Berkeley, Sunday, August 05, 20182002-01-3049 A Virtual Evaluation Suite for Military Ground Vehicle Dy namic Performance and Mobility National Automotive Center (NAC), U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM) US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) ABSTRACT The U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) and the U.S. ArmyCorps of Engineers (USACE) are improving modelingand simulation technologies in order to predict the performance of Army ground platforms with a high degree of confidence. In order to provide a frameworkwithin which to evaluate the simulation technologies andprovide a measure of the progress of the effort, a suite of virtual test operating procedures are being implemented. This framework is called the Virtual Evaluation Suite (VES). It is applicable to the study of ground vehiclestability, handling, ride, mobility, and durability over allterrains under all weather conditions. Although developed in order to evaluate simulation technologies, the VES may be considered a simulation that could be used to exercise any ground platform model that meets the VES standard vehicle interface. Iffuture weapon system proposals include the delivery of a model of the proposed concept system, the VES couldbe used to evaluate the dynamic performance andmobility of the model by providing a full suite of tests entirely implemented through modeling and simulation. The role of modeling and simulation in concept vehicleevaluation is motivated in some detail in this paper along with an overview of the VES itself and a brief descriptionof a few issues related to virtual terrain. A list of relevantstandard test procedures and recommended practices is also included as an appendix. INTRODUCTION The purpose of the work described in this paper is toprovide a suite of virtual environments and simulated test procedures that may be used to evaluate virtualground systems. The intent is to have engineering-level analytical models of ground vehicles traverse high- resolution digital representations of common provinggrounds and typical operating environments. In addition to being used as a tool for the evalua