Transformation Plans for Optimizing Military Vehicle Testing

Abstract

The U.S. Army Aberdeen Test Center is a leading Department of Defense developmental test center and test range. A majority of the testing conducted at the Aberdeen Test Center is automotive in nature. Due to recent conflicts around the world, the U.S. Armed Services need to field new armored systems rapidly. The rapid deployment of automotive systems has caused the Department of Defense test community and the Aberdeen Test Center in particular to reevaluate and redefine traditional test plans and practices in order to maximize the amount of valid and pertinent data obtained from shortened test schedules. As a result, this thesis studies new transformation plans to provide ways to optimize military test plans. These transformation plans take into account existing military vehicle data from multiple sources including the Aberdeen Test Center's automotive road courses. These transformation plans are not only useful for shortened military tests, but can also be easily employed in developing test plans for private industry customers as well as long term test projects. The benefits in all cases are the same: an optimized test plan for automotive endurance operations.