Estimating Technology Readiness Level Coefficients

NASA and U. S. Department of Defense technology readiness level scales are in widespread use and provide inputs for a variety of systems engineering and project management functions. The common nine-level technology readiness level scales have ordinal coefficients that both limit their usefulness and introduce errors if mathematical operations are performed on the technology readiness level scale values (e.g., averaging). The analytic hierarchy process was used to estimate cardinal technology readiness level scale values. The average of the deviations between the ordinal coefficients (one through nine) and the analytic-hierarchy-process-estimated cardinal coefficients was 166%. A high-quality curve fit of the analytic-hierarchy-process-estimated coefficients was also developed (statistical coefficient of determination equal to 0.997), which permits the generation of noninteger technology readiness level values for use in mathematical operations.