NGIPS Early Design Space Assessment

Adaptation, refinement, and extension of prior highly successful ONR-funded early-stage design space exploration methods and tools are proposed in support of the Navy’s Next Generation Integrated Power Systems (NGIPS) transition to an electric naval force. This investigation will build on prior work in collaboration with and in support of ongoing Electric Ship Research and Development Consortium (ESRDC) NGIPS architecture studies. Proof-of-concept demonstration of the proposed simulation-based design optimization approach was accomplished under the ONR-funded Integrated Reconfigurable Intelligent System (IRIS) project. The primary objective is now to transition these design methods, metrics, and tools to the representative NGIPS systems under development by ESRDC. The prior work validated the approach using a modular notional set of electro-mechanical-thermal-fluid ship system models. In addition, the prior work provides important insights for improving early design space methods, metrics, and tools. In this effort, the PI’s experience with modeling, simulation, optimization, and design space exploration will contribute to ongoing ESRDC efforts. Input from the larger research community will lead to refined methods and metrics for quantitative assessment of system architectures. Existing computational tools will be extended for the quantitative assessment of representative NGIPS systems. The ability to make early design phase quantitative comparisons between alternative NGIPS architectures and technologies is essential to guide electric naval force from research to reality. Early quantitative assessment can reduce the required design time by eliminating unpromising design alternatives earlier in the design cycle. Early design space exploration can also focus research and development investments toward the technologies that are most likely to have significant ship impact. This proposal addresses methods, metrics, and tools for early-stage design exploration that are essential for the successful development and fleet introduction of NGIPS. Quantitative assessment using appropriate metrics and representative ship technical architectures establishes the relative advantages of various competing technologies within the NGIPS Roadmap. Furthermore performance with respect to various design reference missions, concepts of operation, control strategies, and threat scenarios can be assessed quantitatively. The PI’s dissertation research provided a proof-of-concept demonstration under the ONR IRIS project sponsored by Katherine Drew. This prior effort performed proof-of-concept early design space exploration and established a modular layered approach to the modeling and simulation of complex dynamically interdependent systems. The objective of the present proposal is to develop methods, metrics, and tools for early-stage design exploration that apply the techniques developed under the IRIS proof-of-concept effort to present problems. The proposed investigation will be conducted in collaboration with ongoing ESRDC research and, more specifically, provide assessments to guide upcoming demonstration projects. Coordination with ESRDC will be facilitated by a member of the ESRDC Board of Directors, Professor Ed Zivi at the U.S. Naval Academy. This investigation is organized into three thrusts. The first thrust is the study and refinement of metrics for measuring shipboard power system performance. The second thrust is the investigation of computational tools for early-stage assessment. The final thrust is the application of quantitative metrics and computational tools to the assessment of a representative medium-voltage dc power system.