Contact: Robbie Ward
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Officials at Mississippi State University's Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems are anticipating the expansion of a $75 million partnership with the U.S. Army to improve the battlefield effectiveness of ground vehicles.
The five-year Simulation-Based Reliability and Safety program addresses 19 different issues related to ground vehicles' performance and safety. Ultimately, the project is designed to provide solutions that can both save lives of military personnel and improve the reliability of some very technologically advanced equipment.
After successful results based on the first-year research evaluations, the MSU-led consortium's achievements working with the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center have shown advances toward improving combat safety and effectiveness, said CAVS director Roger King.
As a result, the MSU Giles Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering said additional Department of Defense support may enable new industrial partners to join the consortium.
King said the SimBRS project currently includes six other research units that subcontract through MSU--the Michigan-based HBM nCode and Caelynx research laboratories, along with the universities of Notre Dame and Alaska, Fairbanks, and Western Michigan and Lawrence Technical universities.
"Our goal is to simulate battlefield situations and study their impact on ground vehicles and soldiers who operate them," explained King, also principal investigator for the project.
Project leaders recently presented evaluations of their results at MSU and at Warren, Mich., headquarters of the Tank Automotive Resea rch, Development and Engineering Center.
Most commonly referred to by the acronym TARDEC, the research facility is a unit of the Army's Research, Development and Engineering Command, the nation's premier laboratory for advanced military automotive technology.
King said the multi-institution research efforts represent a practical and effective way to streamline the funding and research processes to maximize the impact of each organization's projects.
"By working together, we can ensure that the scientists and the engineers get support they need without duplicating efforts," King said.
Matt Castanier, King's research colleague at TARDEC, agreed. Time spent at MSU meeting with engineers and researchers related to the project has helped him better appreciate the scope and quality of the project, he said.
"We are getting a lot of bang for our buck because a lot of these projects are built on years, decades of development," observed Castanier, TARDEC's acting team leader for computational methods.
NEWS EDITORS/DIRECTORS: For additional information, contact Dr. King at 662-325-2189 or rking@cavs.msstate.edu.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.