A Systems Engineering Approach for Performance Surface Computational Architectures

The Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command (NAVMETOCCOM) produces operational image products referred to as performance surfaces. A performance surface is the projection of numerical values that reflect the performance of a system or phenomenon into a Geographic Coordinate System layer portraying a physical representation of the earth's atmosphere, surface, or ocean. That is, a performance surface is a graphic that indicates optimal performance through visual cues. To date, performance surface algorithms exist for Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) and Piracy, and future performance surfaces are anticipated. A characteristic of performance surfaces is their computational complexity, which can be either deterministic or stochastic in nature. The use of stochastic processes drives a significant computational burden based on the sheer volume of individual simulations that must be run and then combined to form a probabilistic prediction. To mitigate the difficulties imposed by large volume stochastic processes, NAVMETOCCOM chartered an Integrated Product Team (IPT) to characterize a suitable computational architecture for existing and future performance surfaces. The IPT was also tasked to document an engineering process by which emergent performance surfaces could implement suitable architectures. This engineering process used tailored DoD acquisition best practices that were agile and easily repeatable for use by future NAVMETOCCOM IPT efforts.