Current Search: modeling and simulation (x)
View All Items
- Title
- DEVELOPMEMNT OF A MODELING AND SIMULATION TRAINING NEEDS MODEL FOR SELECTED DEFENSE ACQUISITION WORKFORCE COMMUNITIES.
- Creator
-
PEH, LIK CHUN, PROCTOR, MICHAEL, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
The DoD Modeling and Simulation Steering Committee (M&S SC) identified Modeling and Simulation (M&S) as an educational objective for the Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (AT&L) workforce. Notably, past usages of M&S in system acquisitions for both DoD and commercial industry have demonstrated improvements in efficiency and effectiveness over traditional acquisition techniques. However, to achieve expected and consistent performance by this workforce in these new techniques, the M&S...
Show moreThe DoD Modeling and Simulation Steering Committee (M&S SC) identified Modeling and Simulation (M&S) as an educational objective for the Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (AT&L) workforce. Notably, past usages of M&S in system acquisitions for both DoD and commercial industry have demonstrated improvements in efficiency and effectiveness over traditional acquisition techniques. However, to achieve expected and consistent performance by this workforce in these new techniques, the M&S essential skill requirements for this workforce may be extensive. This research aims to validate the content and level of competency in selected M&S tools and technology necessary for consistent workforce performance. The notion here is to achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness in the acquisition process through thresholds of competency that must be resident in or available to the acquisition workforce. This research proposes a matrix of training objectives and levels of competency for portions of the AT&L workforce that was validated through survey by individuals who are leading experts in both M&S and acquisition. This effort combines rigorously defined learning objectives and parameters by academia with practical learning insights from the military and industry ground perspectives. The resultant Joint Learning Model aims to identify the workforce educational foundations necessary to achieve more widespread efficiency and effectiveness in current and future DoD acquisitions.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2008
- Identifier
- CFE0002110, ucf:47536
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0002110
- Title
- A Framework for Safety Training Using Virtual Reality Software.
- Creator
-
Riad, Rana, Rabelo, Luis, Lee, Gene, Ferreras, Ana, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Safety training is a vital component to the well-being of individuals in all industries. With technology advancing at the current pace, conventional training methods are no longer the most effective way to communicate information. There is a strong need for safety training that incorporates new methods and forms of communication to obtain higher levels of comprehension. Virtual reality systems offer a highly customizable and interactive form of delivering information to users. This research...
Show moreSafety training is a vital component to the well-being of individuals in all industries. With technology advancing at the current pace, conventional training methods are no longer the most effective way to communicate information. There is a strong need for safety training that incorporates new methods and forms of communication to obtain higher levels of comprehension. Virtual reality systems offer a highly customizable and interactive form of delivering information to users. This research addresses major gaps in the field of safety training using virtual reality systems and provides a design framework for creating a virtual safety-training system. A model for the virtual environment is designed and developed and the process and justification is described. The environment and an applied use case for this model is developed and verified using a sample of trainees that would use the model. This exploratory framework provides a significant contribution to the field of safety education through virtual reality systems and can be expanded with further research.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2015
- Identifier
- CFE0005698, ucf:50152
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005698
- Title
- EFFECTS OF CONTENT AUGMENTATION STRATEGIES IN AN INSTRUCTIONAL VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT.
- Creator
-
Hamilton, Roger, Kincaid, J. Peter, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Content augmentation strategies (CAS) are instructional methods which specify the overlaying of content objects by content augmentation objects in order to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of instruction. The goals of this research were to build a comprehensive framework around CASs, determine the experimental effects of CASs in an instructional virtual environment (VE), and make recommendations regarding the employment and further study of CASs in instructional virtual environments....
Show moreContent augmentation strategies (CAS) are instructional methods which specify the overlaying of content objects by content augmentation objects in order to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of instruction. The goals of this research were to build a comprehensive framework around CASs, determine the experimental effects of CASs in an instructional virtual environment (VE), and make recommendations regarding the employment and further study of CASs in instructional virtual environments. The VE experiment examined the effectiveness and efficiency impact of six different content augmentation strategies which overlayed different content augmentation objects onto four immersive VE scenarios. Sixty university students, 40 men and 20 women, executed three CAS-enhanced training missions and one no-CAS test mission. The task involved the recall and correct application of specific rules for three subtasks of a military helicopter landing zone scouting mission. The strategies included a no-strategy control condition, an arrow condition, an audio coaching condition, a text coaching condition, an arrow plus audio coaching condition, and an arrow plus text coaching condition. Statistical and decision analyses were conducted on the effectiveness and efficiency performance data. Statistically significant differences were found which supported the general superiority of the audio content augmentation strategy for these tasks. This dissertation may be the first use of a decision analysis approach for analyzing the results of behavioral data for instructional design decisions. The decision analysis approach used decision trees, simulation and optimization to obtain content augmentation strategy rankings. As this approach is normally used for course of action analysis and comparing alternative system configurations, the validity of this approach in this context has yet to be determined. The decision analysis approach obtained plausible and similar, but not identical recommendations to the statistical approach. The decision analysis approach may constitute a limited instantiation of a proposed optimal stimulus set instructional design model which conceptually framed the experiment. Training guideline recommendations, experimental procedure recommendations, and a comprehensive framework for future research are also presented.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2005
- Identifier
- CFE0000884, ucf:46638
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0000884
- Title
- GPU Ray Traced Rendering And Image Fusion Based Visualization Of Urban Terrain For Enhanced Situation Awareness.
- Creator
-
Sik, Lingling, Pattanaik, Sumanta, Kincaid, John, Proctor, Michael, Tappen, Marshall, Graniela Ortiz, Benito, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Urban activities involving planning, preparing for and responding to time critical situations often demands sound situational awareness of overall settings. Decision makers, who are tasked to respond effectively to emergencies, must be equipped with information on the details of what is happening, and must stay informed with updates as the event unfolds and remain attentive to the extent of impact the dynamics of the surrounding settings might have. Recent increases in the volumes of geo...
Show moreUrban activities involving planning, preparing for and responding to time critical situations often demands sound situational awareness of overall settings. Decision makers, who are tasked to respond effectively to emergencies, must be equipped with information on the details of what is happening, and must stay informed with updates as the event unfolds and remain attentive to the extent of impact the dynamics of the surrounding settings might have. Recent increases in the volumes of geo-spatial data such as satellite imageries, elevation maps, street-level photographs and real-time imageries from remote sensory devices affect the way decision makers make assessments in time-critical situations. When terrain related spatial information are presented accurately, timely, and are augmented with terrain analysis such as viewshed computations, enhanced situational understanding could be formed. Painting such enhanced situational pictures, however, demands efficient techniques to process and present volumes of geo-spatial data. Modern Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) have opened up a wide field of applications far beyond processing millions of polygons. This dissertation presents approaches that harness graphics rendering techniques and GPU programmability to visualize urban terrain with accuracy, viewshed analysis and real-time imageries. The GPU ray tracing and image fusion visualization techniques presented herein have the potential to aid in achieving enhanced urban situational awareness and understanding.Current state of the art polygon based terrain representations often use coarse representations for terrain features of less importance to improve rendering rate. This results in reduced geometrical accuracy for selective terrain features that are considered less critical to the visualization or simulation needs. Alternatively, to render highly accurate urban terrain, considerable computational effort is needed. A compromise between achieving real-time rendering rate and accurate terrain representations would have to be made. Likewise, computational tasks involved in terrain-related calculations such as viewshed analysis are highly computational intensive and are traditionally performed at a non-interactive rate. The first contribution of the research involves using GPU ray tracing, a rendering approach, conventionally not employed in the simulation community in favor of rasterization, to achieve accurate visualization and improved understanding of urban terrain. The efficiency of using GPU ray tracing is demonstrated in two areas, namely, in depicting complex, large scale terrain and in visualizing viewshed terrain effects at interactive rate. Another contribution entails designing a novel approach to create an efficient and real-time mapping system. The solution achieves updating and visualizing terrain textures using 2D geo-referenced imageries for enhanced situational awareness. Fusing myriad of multi-view 2D inputs spatially for a complex 3D urban scene typically involves a large number of computationally demanding tasks such as image registrations, mosaickings and texture mapping. Current state of the art solutions essentially belongs to two groups. Each strives to either provide near real-time situational pictures in 2D or off-line complex 3D reconstructions for subsequent usages. The solution proposed in this research relies on using prior constructed synthetic terrains as backdrops to be updated with real-time geo-referenced images. The solution achieves speed in fusing information in 3D. Mapping geo-referenced images spatially in 3D puts them into context. It aids in conveying spatial relationships among the data. Prototypes to evaluate the effectiveness of the aforementioned techniques are also implemented. The benefits of augmenting situational displays with viewshed analysis and real-time geo-referenced images in relation to enhancing the user's situational awareness are also evaluated. Preliminary results from user evaluation studies demonstrate the usefulness of the techniques in enhancing operators' performances, in relation to situational awareness and understanding.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2013
- Identifier
- CFE0005115, ucf:50757
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005115
- Title
- AUTOMATIC GENERATION OF SUPPLY CHAIN SIMULATION MODELS FROM SCOR BASED ONTOLOGIES.
- Creator
-
Cope, Dayana, Sepulveda, Jose, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
In today's economy of global markets, supply chain networks, supplier/customer relationship management and intense competition; decision makers are faced with a need to perform decision making using tools that do not accommodate the nature of the changing market. This research focuses on developing a methodology that addresses this need. The developed methodology provides supply chain decision makers with a tool to perform efficient decision making in stochastic, dynamic and distributed...
Show moreIn today's economy of global markets, supply chain networks, supplier/customer relationship management and intense competition; decision makers are faced with a need to perform decision making using tools that do not accommodate the nature of the changing market. This research focuses on developing a methodology that addresses this need. The developed methodology provides supply chain decision makers with a tool to perform efficient decision making in stochastic, dynamic and distributed supply chain environments. The integrated methodology allows for informed decision making in a fast, sharable and easy to use format. The methodology was implemented by developing a stand alone tool that allows users to define a supply chain simulation model using SCOR based ontologies. The ontology includes the supply chain knowledge and the knowledge required to build a simulation model of the supply chain system. A simulation model is generated automatically from the ontology to provide the flexibility to model at various levels of details changing the model structure on the fly. The methodology implementation is demonstrated and evaluated through a retail oriented case study. When comparing the implementation using the developed methodology vs. a "traditional" simulation methodology approach, a significant reduction in definition and execution time was observed.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2008
- Identifier
- CFE0002009, ucf:47625
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0002009
- Title
- EVALUATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF TRAINING SYSTEM APPROACHES FOR HIGHLY COMPLEX FLIGHT TRAINING.
- Creator
-
Bauer, Maria, Proctor, Michael, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
This research investigates the Training Effectiveness of a low-cost, PC-based training system when compared with two modes (motion and no motion) of a cab training system with large screen for various aviation flying tasks. While much research on this topic has been done in the past, advances in technology have significantly altered what is considered a "low-cost" "simulator." The technology advances have in effect increased the ability of a "low-cost" "simulator" to deliver desired...
Show moreThis research investigates the Training Effectiveness of a low-cost, PC-based training system when compared with two modes (motion and no motion) of a cab training system with large screen for various aviation flying tasks. While much research on this topic has been done in the past, advances in technology have significantly altered what is considered a "low-cost" "simulator." The technology advances have in effect increased the ability of a "low-cost" "simulator" to deliver desired experiences to the user. These "simulators" often are nothing more than PC training system, with only notional representations of the actual aircraft. This research considers the use of such training systems in training for a highly complex and dynamic task situation, that task being a search and rescue mission. A search and rescue mission is far more complex task than those studied for possible "low-cost" simulation substitution in the past. To address that aspect, one mode of the cab involves motion in two degrees of freedom. The results of this research advances the body of literature on the capability of "low-cost" simulation to deliver the experiences necessary to learn highly complex tasks associated with search and rescue as well as further clarify the extent to which a motion platform aides in flight training. This research utilizes available platforms provided by the US Army Research, Development and Engineering Command Simulation and Training Technology Center. Additionally, all the participants in the research are in training to be helicopter pilots. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three training configurations: a) Cab with motion turned ON, b) Cab with motion turned OFF and c) PC-based simulator. Training effectiveness is evaluated using measures for learning, task performance, and human factors. Statistically significant results are shown for the Cab with Motion and the Cab with No Motion configurations.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2005
- Identifier
- CFE0000754, ucf:46569
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0000754
- Title
- A GOVERNANCE REFERENCE MODEL FOR SERVICE-ORIENTED ARCHITECTURE-BASED COMMON DATA INITIALIZATION: A CASE STUDY OF MILITARY SIMULATION FEDERATION SYSTEMS.
- Creator
-
Lanman, Jeremy, Proctor, Michael, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Military simulation and command and control federations have become large, complex distributed systems that integrate with a variety of legacy and current simulations, and real command and control systems locally as well as globally. As these systems continue to become increasingly more complex so does the data that initializes them. This increased complexity has introduced a major problem in data initialization coordination which has been handled by many organizations in various ways....
Show moreMilitary simulation and command and control federations have become large, complex distributed systems that integrate with a variety of legacy and current simulations, and real command and control systems locally as well as globally. As these systems continue to become increasingly more complex so does the data that initializes them. This increased complexity has introduced a major problem in data initialization coordination which has been handled by many organizations in various ways. Service-oriented architecture (SOA) solutions have been introduced to promote easier data interoperability through the use of standards-based reusable services and common infrastructure. However, current SOA-based solutions do not incorporate formal governance techniques to drive the architecture in providing reliable, consistent, and timely information exchange. This dissertation identifies the need to establish governance for common data initialization service development oversight, presents current research and applicable solutions that address some aspects of SOA-based federation data service governance, and proposes a governance reference model for development of SOA-based common data initialization services in military simulation and command and control federations.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2010
- Identifier
- CFE0003392, ucf:48426
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0003392
- Title
- Information Propagation Algorithms for Consensus Formation in Decentralized Multi-Agent Systems.
- Creator
-
Hollander, Christopher, Wu, Annie, Shumaker, Randall, Wiegand, Rudolf, Turgut, Damla, Song, Zixia, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Consensus occurs within a multi-agent system when every agent is in agreement about the value of some particular state. For example, the color of an LED, the position or magnitude of a vector, a rendezvous location, the most recent state of data within a database, or the identity of a leader are all states that agents might need to agree on in order to execute their tasking.The task of the decentralized consensus problem for multi-agent systems is to design an algorithm that enables agents to...
Show moreConsensus occurs within a multi-agent system when every agent is in agreement about the value of some particular state. For example, the color of an LED, the position or magnitude of a vector, a rendezvous location, the most recent state of data within a database, or the identity of a leader are all states that agents might need to agree on in order to execute their tasking.The task of the decentralized consensus problem for multi-agent systems is to design an algorithm that enables agents to communicate and exchange information such that, in finite time, agents are able to form a consensus without the use of a centralized control mechanism. The primary goal of this research is to introduce and provide supporting evidence for Stochastic Local Observation/Gossip (SLOG) algorithms as a new class of solutions to the decentralized consensus problem for multi-agent systems that lack a centralized controller, with the additional constraints that agents act asynchronously, information is discrete, and all consensus options are equally preferable to all agents. Examples of where these constraints might apply include the spread of social norms and conventions in artificial populations, rendezvous among a set of specific locations, and task assignment.This goal is achieved through a combination of theory and experimentation. Information propagation process and an information propagation algorithm are derived by unifying the general structure of multiple existing solutions to the decentralized consensus problem. They are then used to define two classes of algorithms that spread information across a network and solve the decentralized consensus problem: buffered gossip algorithms and local observation algorithms. Buffered gossip algorithms generalize the behavior of many push-based solutions to the decentralized consensus problem. Local observation algorithms generalize the behavior of many pull-based solutions to the decentralized consensus problem. In the language of object oriented design, buffered gossip algorithms and local observation algorithms are abstract classes; information propagation processes are interfaces. SLOG algorithms combine the transmission mechanisms of buffered gossip algorithms and local observation algorithms into a single "hybrid" algorithm that is able to push and pull information within the local neighborhood. A common mathematical framework is constructed and used to determine the conditions under which each of these algorithms are guaranteed to produce a consensus, and thus solve the decentralized consensus problem. Finally, a series of simulation experiments are conducted to study the performance of SLOG algorithms. These experiments compare the average speed of consensus formation between buffered gossip algorithms, local observation algorithms, and SLOG algorithms over four distinct network topologies.Beyond the introduction of the SLOG algorithm, this research also contributes to the existing literature on the decentralized consensus problem by: specifying a theoretical framework that can be used to explore the consensus behavior of push-based and pull-based information propagation algorithms; using this framework to define buffered gossip algorithms and local observation algorithms as generalizations for existing solutions to the decentralized consensus problem; highlighting the similarities between consensus algorithms within control theory and opinion dynamics within computational sociology, and showing how these research areas can be successfully combined to create new and powerful algorithms; and providing an empirical comparison between multiple information propagation algorithms.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2015
- Identifier
- CFE0005629, ucf:50229
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005629
- Title
- The Profession of Modeling and Simulations: Unifying the Organization.
- Creator
-
Lord, John, Caulkins, Bruce, Truman, Barbara, Maraj, Crystal, Bockelman, Patricia, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
The organization of Modeling and Simulation (M(&)S) as a profession started in the early twenty-first century spurred by the advent of computers and the vast networking capabilities of contemporary computing. M(&)S is still in its infancy when compared to other disciplines, such as engineering, computer science and mathematics. However, the profession has experienced significant growth in part due to the varied use of M(&)S techniques and tools within almost every discipline.Professional...
Show moreThe organization of Modeling and Simulation (M(&)S) as a profession started in the early twenty-first century spurred by the advent of computers and the vast networking capabilities of contemporary computing. M(&)S is still in its infancy when compared to other disciplines, such as engineering, computer science and mathematics. However, the profession has experienced significant growth in part due to the varied use of M(&)S techniques and tools within almost every discipline.Professional organizations and academic programs supporting M(&)S across the country have started to materialize. In a short timeframe, the growth of these supporting organizations has outpaced their ability to stay unified as a discipline, aligned with standardized Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs) and with growing stakeholder needs.Consequently, there appear to be gaps in the M(&)S professional organization. Such as a lack of synchronization between the three primary stakeholder groups of the M(&)S profession: academia, government, and industry. The discipline's professional organization fails to recognize a single body of knowledge as an authoritative reference for M(&)S KSAs. Academic institutions do not have unanimity regarding targeted KSAs. Industry lacks the confidence to hire M(&)S professionals who have a core understanding of KSAs directly associated with the version of M(&)S used by each separate industry.This research study attempts to take a coordinated step forward in unifying the M(&)S discipline by assessing and prioritizing the current competencies and standards required of M(&)S professionals and identifying the needs and competencies valued by primary stakeholders. A survey instrument was developed in conjunction with Rebecca Leis' doctorate research. The instrument was distributed to M(&)S stakeholders to ascertain the breadth of the needed, valued, and required KSAs within the domain. The survey was evaluated by cross-referencing questions and tabulating responses. Results from this research suggest ways in which stakeholders can coordinate efforts in advancing the M(&)S professional organization and support a uniformed set of KSAs needed in academia, government, and industry now and in the future.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2019
- Identifier
- CFE0007489, ucf:52876
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007489
- Title
- ESTUARINE INFLUENCE ON TIDALLY DRIVEN CIRCULATION IN THE SOUTH ATLANTIC BIGHT.
- Creator
-
Bacopoulos, Peter, Hagen, Scott, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
A high-resolution, finite element-based, shallow water equation model is developed to simulate the tides in the South Atlantic Bight. The model is constructed to include all of the estuarine features along the southeastern United States seaboard: coastal inlets, rivers and tidal creeks, sounds and lagoons, intertidal zones including salt marshes and mangrove swamps, and the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. The estuaries are represented in the finite element mesh using triangular elements with...
Show moreA high-resolution, finite element-based, shallow water equation model is developed to simulate the tides in the South Atlantic Bight. The model is constructed to include all of the estuarine features along the southeastern United States seaboard: coastal inlets, rivers and tidal creeks, sounds and lagoons, intertidal zones including salt marshes and mangrove swamps, and the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. The estuaries are represented in the finite element mesh using triangular elements with side lengths on the order of tens of meters. Also incorporated into the model is a spatially distributed bottom friction parameterization, based on the various landcover and benthic characteristics in the domain. The motivation to use this comprehensive representation of the system was inspired by a desire to capably account for the full estuarine tidal physics. In this approach, no calibration is performed and the model is used as a tool to assess the physical processes it describes. Upon its development, the model is first validated by accurately simulating tidal hydrodynamics in the South Atlantic Bight including the described estuaries. Variants of the model are then constructed by selectively removing estuarine features from the domain. All model representations are subsequently applied in nearly identical simulations: the only differing factor between the simulations being the inland extent of the estuaries described. The solutions are compared with respect to including versus excluding the estuarine features of the domain. Where water surface elevations are shown to be unaffected by the estuarine features of the South Atlantic Bight, tidal velocities exhibit far more sensitivity. This effect is pronounced locally, with regional effects extending offshore. Further analysis is performed on cross-sectional flows recomposed locally and on tidal energetics diagnosed throughout the domain. It is discovered that the high frictional environment of the vast estuarine surface area plays a role in local and regional tidal circulation in the South Atlantic Bight.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2009
- Identifier
- CFE0002891, ucf:48028
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0002891
- Title
- Harmony: An Architecture for Network Centric Heterogeneous Terrain Database Re-Generation.
- Creator
-
Graniela Ortiz, Benito, Proctor, Michael, Gonzalez, Avelino, Wiegand, Rudolf, Goldiez, Brian, Cox, Robert, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
This research investigated an alternative modeling and simulation terrain database generation paradigm that rapidly harmonizes changes target formats throughout a distributed simulation system while accommodating bandwidth and processing time limitations. This dissertation proposes a (")distributed partial bi-directional terrain database re-generation(") paradigm, which envisions network based terrain database updates between reliable partners. The approach is very attractive as it reduces...
Show moreThis research investigated an alternative modeling and simulation terrain database generation paradigm that rapidly harmonizes changes target formats throughout a distributed simulation system while accommodating bandwidth and processing time limitations. This dissertation proposes a (")distributed partial bi-directional terrain database re-generation(") paradigm, which envisions network based terrain database updates between reliable partners. The approach is very attractive as it reduces the amount of processing and bandwidth required to distribute locally emergent changes throughout a distributed system by only updating the affected target format data elements. In the prototype theoretical architecture that implements the approach, agent theory and ontologies are used to interpret data changes in external target formats and implement the necessary transformations on a server internal terrain database generation system. These changes are then distributed to clients to achieve consistency between all correlated representations. Experimental findings with the prototype suggests smaller network utilization and processing times than conventional terrain database generation will experience while maintaining correlated heterogeneous terrain database representations overtime. This Bi-Directional Ontology-driven TDB Re-Generation Architecture has the potential to revolutionize the traditional terrain database generation pipeline paradigm.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2011
- Identifier
- CFE0004475, ucf:49315
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004475
- Title
- A New Multidimensional Psycho-Physical Framework for Modeling Car-Following in a Freeway Work Zone.
- Creator
-
Lochrane, Taylor, Al-Deek, Haitham, Radwan, Essam, Oloufa, Amr, Harb, Rami, Uddin, Nizam, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
As the United States continues to build and repair the ageing highway infrastructure, the bearing of freeway work zones will continue to impact the capacity. To predict the capacity of a freeway work zone, there are several tools available for engineers to evaluate these work zones but only microsimulation has the ability to simulate the driver behavior. One of the limitations of current car-following models is that they only account for one overall behavioral condition. This dissertation...
Show moreAs the United States continues to build and repair the ageing highway infrastructure, the bearing of freeway work zones will continue to impact the capacity. To predict the capacity of a freeway work zone, there are several tools available for engineers to evaluate these work zones but only microsimulation has the ability to simulate the driver behavior. One of the limitations of current car-following models is that they only account for one overall behavioral condition. This dissertation hypothesizes that drivers change their driving behavior as they drive through a freeway work zone compared to normal freeway conditions which has the potential to impact traffic operations and capacity of work zones. Psycho-physical car-following models are widely used in practice for simulating car-following. However, current simulation models may not fully capture car-following driver behavior specific to freeway work zones. This dissertation presents a new multidimensional psycho-physical framework for modeling car-following based on statistical evaluation of work zone and non-work zone driver behavior. This new framework is close in character to the Wiedemann model used in popular traffic simulation software such as VISSIM. This dissertation used two methodologies for collecting data: (1) a questionnaire to collect demographics and work zone behavior data and (2) a real-time vehicle data from a field experiment involving human participants. It is hypothesized that the parameters needed to calibrate the multidimensional framework for work zone driver behavior can be derived statistically by using data collected from runs of an Instrumented Research Vehicle (IRV) in a Living Laboratory (LL) along a roadway. The design of this LL included the development of an Instrumented Research Vehicle (IRV) to capture the natural car-following response of a driver when entering and passing through a freeway work zone. The development of a Connected Mobile Traffic Sensing (CMTS) system, which included state-of-the-art ITS technologies, supports the LL environment by providing the connectivity, interoperability and data processing of the natural, real-life setting. The IRV and CMTS system are tools designed to support the concept of a LL which facilitates the experimental environment to capture and calibrate natural driver behavior. The objective is to have these participants drive the instrumented vehicle and collect the relative distance and the relative velocity between the instrumented vehicle and the vehicle in the front of the instrumented vehicle. A Phase I pilot test was conducted with 10 participants to evaluate the experiment and make any adjustments prior to the full Phase II driver test. The Phase II driver test recruited a group of 64 participants to drive the IRV through an LL set up along a work zone on I-95 near Washington D.C. in order to validate this hypothesis In this dissertation, a new framework was applied and it demonstrated that there are four different categories of car-following behavior models each with different parameter distributions. The four categories are divided by traffic condition (congested vs. uncongested) and by roadway condition (work zone vs. non-work zone). The calibrated threshold values are presented for each of these four categories. By applying this new multidimensional framework, modeling of car-following behavior can enhance vehicle behavior in microsimulation modeling.This dissertation also explored driver behavior through combining vehicle data and survey techniques to augment the model calibrations to improve the understanding of car-following behavior in freeway work zones. The results identify a set of survey questions that can potentially guide the selection of parameters for car-fallowing models. The findings presented in this dissertation can be used to improve the performance of driver behavior models specific to work zones. This in return will more acutely forecast the impact a work zone design has on capacity during congestion.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2014
- Identifier
- CFE0005521, ucf:50326
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005521
- Title
- Modeling of Socio-Economic Factors and Adverse Events In an Active War Theater By Using a Cellular Automata Simulation Approach.
- Creator
-
Bozkurt, Halil, Karwowski, Waldemar, Lee, Gene, Thompson, William, Mikusinski, Piotr, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Department of Defense (DoD) implemented Human Social Cultural and Behavior (HSCB) program to meet the need to develop capability to understand, predict and shape human behavior among different cultures by developing a knowledge base, building models, and creating training capacity. This capability will allow decision makers to subordinate kinetic operations and promote non-kinetic operations to govern economic programs better in order to initiate efforts and development to address the...
Show moreDepartment of Defense (DoD) implemented Human Social Cultural and Behavior (HSCB) program to meet the need to develop capability to understand, predict and shape human behavior among different cultures by developing a knowledge base, building models, and creating training capacity. This capability will allow decision makers to subordinate kinetic operations and promote non-kinetic operations to govern economic programs better in order to initiate efforts and development to address the grievances among the displeased by adverse events. These non-kinetic operations include rebuilding indigenous institutions' bottom-up economic activity and constructing necessary infrastructure since the success in non-kinetic operations depends on understanding and using social and cultural landscape. This study aims to support decision makers by building a computational model to understand economic factors and their effect on adverse events.In this dissertation, the analysis demonstrates that the use of cellular automata has several significant contributions to support decision makers allocating development funds to stabilize regions with higher adverse event risks, and to better understand the complex socio-economic interactions with adverse events. Thus, this analysis was performed on a set of spatial data representing factors from social and economic data. In studying behavior using cellular automata, cells in the same neighborhood synchronously interact with each other to determine their next states, and small changes in iteration may yield to complex formations of adverse event risk after several iterations of time. The modeling methodology of cellular automata for social and economic analysis in this research was designed in two major implementation levels as follows: macro and micro-level. In the macro-level, the modeling framework integrates population, social, and economic sub-systems. The macro-level allows the model to use regionalized representations, while the micro-level analyses help to understand why the events have occurred. Macro-level subsystems support cellular automata rules to generate accurate predictions. Prediction capability of cellular automata is used to model the micro-level interactions between individual actors, which are represented by adverse events.The results of this dissertation demonstrate that cellular automata model is capable of evaluating socio-economic influences that result in changes in adverse events and identify location, time and impact of these events. Secondly, this research indicates that the socio-economic influences have different levels of impact on adverse events, defined by the number of people killed, wounded or hijacked. Thirdly, this research shows that the socio-economic, influences and adverse events that occurred in a given district have impacts on adverse events that occur in neighboring districts. The cellular automata modeling approach can be used to enhance the capability to understand and use human, social and behavioral factors by generating what-if scenarios to determine the impact of different infrastructure development projects to predict adverse events. Lastly, adverse events that could occur in upcoming years can be predicted to allow decision makers to deter these events or plan accordingly if these events do occur.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2013
- Identifier
- CFE0004820, ucf:49719
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004820
- Title
- MODELING AUTONOMOUS AGENTS IN MILITARY SIMULATIONS.
- Creator
-
Kaptan, Varol, Gelenbe, Erol, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Simulation is an important tool for prediction and assessment of the behavior of complex systems and situations. The importance of simulation has increased tremendously during the last few decades, mainly because the rapid pace of development in the field of electronics has turned the computer from a costly and obscure piece of equipment to a cheap ubiquitous tool which is now an integral part of our daily lives. While such technological improvements make it easier to analyze well-understood...
Show moreSimulation is an important tool for prediction and assessment of the behavior of complex systems and situations. The importance of simulation has increased tremendously during the last few decades, mainly because the rapid pace of development in the field of electronics has turned the computer from a costly and obscure piece of equipment to a cheap ubiquitous tool which is now an integral part of our daily lives. While such technological improvements make it easier to analyze well-understood deterministic systems, increase in speed and storage capacity alone are not enough when simulating situations where human beings and their behavior are an integral part of the system being studied. The problem with simulation of intelligent entities is that intelligence is still not well understood and it seems that the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has a long way to go before we get computers to think like humans. Behavior-based agent modeling has been proposed in mid-80's as one of the alternatives to the classical AI approach. While used mainly for the control of specialized robotic vehicles with very specific sensory capabilities and limited intelligence, we believe that a behavior-based approach to modeling generic autonomous agents in complex environments can provide promising results. To this end, we are investigating a behavior-based model for controlling groups of collaborating and competing agents in a geographic terrain. In this thesis, we are focusing on scenarios of military nature, where agents can move within the environment and adversaries can eliminate each other through use of weapons. Different aspects of agent behavior like navigation to a goal or staying in group formation, are implemented by distinct behavior modules and the final observed behavior for each agent is an emergent property of the combination of simple behaviors and their interaction with the environment. Our experiments show that while such an approach is quite efficient in terms of computational power, it has some major drawbacks. One of the problems is that reactive behavior-based navigation algorithms are not well suited for environments with complex mobility constraints where they tend to perform much worse than proper path planning. This problem represents an important research question, especially when it is considered that most of the modern military conflicts and operations occur in urban environments. One of the contributions of this thesis is a novel approach to reactive navigation where goals and terrain information are fused based on the idea of transforming a terrain with obstacles into a virtual obstacle-free terrain. Experimental results show that our approach can successfully combine the low run-time computational complexity of reactive methods with the high success rates of classical path planning. Another interesting research problem is how to deal with the unpredictable nature of emergent behavior. It is not uncommon to have situations where an outcome diverges significantly from the intended behavior of the agents due to highly complex nonlinear interactions with other agents or the environment itself. Chances of devising a formal way to predict and avoid such abnormalities are slim at best, mostly because such complex systems tend to be be chaotic in nature. Instead, we focus on detection of deviations through tracking group behavior which is a key component of the total situation awareness capability required by modern technology-oriented and network-centric warfare. We have designed a simple and efficient clustering algorithm for tracking of groups of agent suitable for both spatial and behavioral domain. We also show how to detect certain events of interest based on a temporal analysis of the evolution of discovered clusters.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2006
- Identifier
- CFE0001494, ucf:47099
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001494
- Title
- Thermodynamic Modeling and Transient Simulation of a Low-Pressure Heat Recovery Steam Generator Using Siemens T3000.
- Creator
-
Caesar, Andres, Das, Tuhin, Bhattacharya, Samik, Putnam, Shawn, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
With world energy consumption rising, and nonrenewable energy resources quickly depleting, it is essential to design more efficient power plants and thereby economically utilize fossil fuels. To that end, this work focuses on the thermodynamic modeling of steam power systems to enhance our understanding of their dynamic and transient behavior. This thesis discusses the physical phenomena behind a heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) and develops a mathematical description of its system...
Show moreWith world energy consumption rising, and nonrenewable energy resources quickly depleting, it is essential to design more efficient power plants and thereby economically utilize fossil fuels. To that end, this work focuses on the thermodynamic modeling of steam power systems to enhance our understanding of their dynamic and transient behavior. This thesis discusses the physical phenomena behind a heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) and develops a mathematical description of its system dynamics. The model is developed from fundamentals of fluid dynamics, phase change, heat transfer, conservation laws and unsteady flow energy equations. The resulting model captures coupled physical phenomena with acceptable accuracy while achieving fast, and potentially real-time, simulations. The computational HRSG model is constructed in the Siemens T3000 platform. This work establishes the dynamic modeling capability of T3000, which has traditionally been used for programming control algorithms. The validation objective of this project is to accurately simulate the transient response of an operational steam power system. Validation of the T3000 model is carried out by comparing simulation results to start-up data from the low-pressure system of a Siemens power plant while maintaining the same inlet conditions. Simulation results well correlate with plant data regarding transient behavior and equilibrium conditions. With a comprehensive HRSG model available, it will allow for further research to take place, and aid in the advancement of steam power system technology. Some future research areas include the extension to intermediate and high-pressure system simulations, combined simulation of all three pressure stages, and continued improvement of the boiler model. In addition to enabling model-based prediction and providing further insight, this effort will also lead to controller design for improved performance.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2018
- Identifier
- CFE0007562, ucf:52599
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007562
- Title
- A Methodology on Weapon Combat Effectiveness Analytics using Big Data and Live, Virtual, or/and Constructive Simulations.
- Creator
-
Jung, Won Il, Lee, Gene, Rabelo, Luis, Elshennawy, Ahmad, Ahmad, Ali, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
The Weapon Combat Effectiveness (WCE) analytics is very expensive, time-consuming, and dangerous in the real world because we have to create data from the real operations with a lot of people and weapons in the actual environment. The Modeling and Simulation (M(&)S) of many techniques is used for overcoming these limitations. Although the era of big data has emerged and achieved a great deal of success in a variety of fields, most WCE research using the Defense Modeling and Simulation (DM(&)S...
Show moreThe Weapon Combat Effectiveness (WCE) analytics is very expensive, time-consuming, and dangerous in the real world because we have to create data from the real operations with a lot of people and weapons in the actual environment. The Modeling and Simulation (M(&)S) of many techniques is used for overcoming these limitations. Although the era of big data has emerged and achieved a great deal of success in a variety of fields, most WCE research using the Defense Modeling and Simulation (DM(&)S) techniques were studied without the help of big data technologies and techniques. The existing research has not considered various factors affecting WCE. This is because current research has been restricted by only using constructive simulation, a single weapon system, and limited scenarios. Therefore, the WCE analytics using existing methodologies have also incorporated the same limitations, and therefore, cannot help but get biased results.To solve the above problem, this dissertation is to initially review and compose the basic knowledge for the new WCE analytics methodology using big data and DM(&)S to further serve as the stepping-stone of the future research for the interested researchers. Also, this dissertation presents the new methodology on WCE analytics using big data generated by Live, Virtual, or/and Constructive (LVC) simulations. This methodology can increase the fidelity of WCE analytics results by considering various factors. It can give opportunities for application of weapon acquisition, operations analytics and plan, and objective level development on each training factor for the weapon operators according to the selection of Measures of Effectiveness (MOEs) and Measures of Performance (MOPs), or impact factors, based on the analytics goal.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2018
- Identifier
- CFE0007025, ucf:52870
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007025
- Title
- An Agile Roadmap for Live, Virtual and Constructive-Integrating Training Architecture (LVC-ITA): A Case Study Using a Component based Integrated Simulation Engine.
- Creator
-
Park, Tae Woong, Lee, Gene, Rabelo, Luis, Elshennawy, Ahmad, Kincaid, John, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Conducting seamless Live Virtual Constructive (LVC) simulation remains the most challenging issue of Modeling and Simulation (M(&)S). There is a lack of interoperability, limited reuse and loose integration between the Live, Virtual and/or Constructive assets across multiple Standard Simulation Architectures (SSAs). There have been various theoretical research endeavors about solving these problems but their solutions resulted in complex and inflexible integration, long user-usage time and...
Show moreConducting seamless Live Virtual Constructive (LVC) simulation remains the most challenging issue of Modeling and Simulation (M(&)S). There is a lack of interoperability, limited reuse and loose integration between the Live, Virtual and/or Constructive assets across multiple Standard Simulation Architectures (SSAs). There have been various theoretical research endeavors about solving these problems but their solutions resulted in complex and inflexible integration, long user-usage time and high cost for LVC simulation. The goal of this research is to provide an Agile Roadmap for the Live Virtual Constructive-Integrating Training Architecture (LVC-ITA) that will address the above problems and introduce interoperable LVC simulation. Therefore, this research describes how the newest M(&)S technologies can be utilized for LVC simulation interoperability and integration. Then, we will examine the optimal procedure to develop an agile roadmap for the LVC-ITA.In addition, this research illustrated a case study using an Adaptive distributed parallel Simulation environment for Interoperable and reusable Model (AddSIM) that is a component based integrated simulation engine. The agile roadmap of the LVC-ITA that reflects the lessons learned from the case study will contribute to guide M(&)S communities to an efficient path to increase interaction of M(&)S simulation across systems.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2015
- Identifier
- CFE0005682, ucf:52867
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005682
- Title
- On Distributed Estimation for Resource Constrained Wireless Sensor Networks.
- Creator
-
Sani, Alireza, Vosoughi, Azadeh, Rahnavard, Nazanin, Wei, Lei, Atia, George, Chatterjee, Mainak, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
We study Distributed Estimation (DES) problem, where several agents observe a noisy version of an underlying unknown physical phenomena (which is not directly observable), and transmit a compressed version of their observations to a Fusion Center (FC), where collective data is fused to reconstruct the unknown. One of the most important applications of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is performing DES in a field to estimate an unknown signal source. In a WSN battery powered geographically...
Show moreWe study Distributed Estimation (DES) problem, where several agents observe a noisy version of an underlying unknown physical phenomena (which is not directly observable), and transmit a compressed version of their observations to a Fusion Center (FC), where collective data is fused to reconstruct the unknown. One of the most important applications of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is performing DES in a field to estimate an unknown signal source. In a WSN battery powered geographically distributed tiny sensors are tasked with collecting data from the field. Each sensor locally processes its noisy observation (local processing can include compression,dimension reduction, quantization, etc) and transmits the processed observation over communication channels to the FC, where the received data is used to form a global estimate of the unknown source such that the Mean Square Error (MSE) of the DES is minimized. The accuracy of DES depends on many factors such as intensity of observation noises in sensors, quantization errors in sensors, available power and bandwidth of the network, quality of communication channels between sensors and the FC, and the choice of fusion rule in the FC. Taking into account all of these contributing factors and implementing a DES system which minimizes the MSE and satisfies all constraints is a challenging task. In order to probe into different aspects of this challenging task we identify and formulate the following three problems and address them accordingly:1- Consider an inhomogeneous WSN where the sensors' observations is modeled linear with additive Gaussian noise. The communication channels between sensors and FC are orthogonal power and bandwidth-constrained erroneous wireless fading channels. The unknown to be estimated is a Gaussian vector. Sensors employ uniform multi-bit quantizers and BPSK modulation. Given this setup, we ask: what is the best fusion rule in the FC? what is the best transmit power and quantization rate (measured in bits per sensor) allocation schemes that minimize the MSE? In order to answer these questions, we derive some upper bounds on global MSE and through minimizing those bounds, we propose various resource allocation schemes for the problem, through which we investigate the effect of contributing factors on the MSE.2- Consider an inhomogeneous WSN with an FC which is tasked with estimating a scalar Gaussian unknown. The sensors are equipped with uniform multi-bit quantizers and the communication channels are modeled as Binary Symmetric Channels (BSC). In contrast to former problem the sensors experience independent multiplicative noises (in addition to additive noise). The natural question in this scenario is: how does multiplicative noise affect the DES system performance? how does it affect the resource allocation for sensors, with respect to the case where there is no multiplicative noise? We propose a linear fusion rule in the FC and derive the associated MSE in closed-form. We propose several rate allocation schemes with different levels of complexity which minimize the MSE. Implementing the proposed schemes lets us study the effect of multiplicative noise on DES system performance and its dynamics. We also derive Bayesian Cramer-Rao Lower Bound (BCRLB) and compare the MSE performance of our porposed methods against the bound.As a dual problem we also answer the question: what is the minimum required bandwidth of thenetwork to satisfy a predetermined target MSE?3- Assuming the framework of Bayesian DES of a Gaussian unknown with additive and multiplicative Gaussian noises involved, we answer the following question: Can multiplicative noise improve the DES performance in any case/scenario? the answer is yes, and we call the phenomena as 'enhancement mode' of multiplicative noise. Through deriving different lower bounds, such as BCRLB,Weiss-Weinstein Bound (WWB), Hybrid CRLB (HCRLB), Nayak Bound (NB), Yatarcos Bound (YB) on MSE, we identify and characterize the scenarios that the enhancement happens. We investigate two situations where variance of multiplicative noise is known and unknown. Wealso compare the performance of well-known estimators with the derived bounds, to ensure practicability of the mentioned enhancement modes.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2017
- Identifier
- CFE0006913, ucf:51698
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006913