Meetings evaluate progress of multimillion dollar program
July 21, 2009
STARKVILLE, Miss. — Researchers will gather at Mississippi State’s Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems July 21-22 to evaluate the progress of a $75 million partnership with the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC).
The meetings will review the research conducted during the first year of the five-year Simulation Based Reliability and Safety (SimBRS) program.
“TARDEC is responsible for all Department of Defense ground vehicles, so our goal is to simulate battlefield situations and study their impact on ground vehicles and the soldiers who operate them,” said Dr. Roger King, CAVS director and principal investigator for SimBRS.
Led by MSU, the SimBRS program is working to address 19-key issues relating to vehicle performance and safety. The goal is to provide solutions to improve ground vehicle and soldier survivability which will ultimately provide costs savings in the budget and more importantly, in lives.
“This program is in place to streamline the funding and research process to maximize the impact of our projects. By working together, we can ensure that the scientist and engineers get the support they need without duplicating efforts,” King said.
TARDEC’s acting team leader for computational methods, Dr. Matt Castanier added, “We want to make this program the place to go if you are in the Army and need simulation methodologies for reliability and safety. We’re making a program-of-excellence for the researchers and the Army so people in the field can easily collaborate with others who are doing cutting edge research.”
Currently the SimBRS project includes six other research units subcontracting through MSU. Among those are HBM nCode, Caelynx, the University of Notre Dame, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Western Michigan University, and Lawrence Technical University.
“Since becoming technical lead on this program a couple of months ago, I have spent time at MSU getting up-to-speed,” Castanier said. “I have been really impressed with the wealth of research projects. We are getting a lot of bang-for-our-buck at TARDEC because a lot of these projects are building on years, decades of development.”
The two-day meeting will feature 32 presentations outlining the progress and future of the SimBRS projects. Speakers will include researchers from MSU’s Bagley College of Engineering and numerous department within the College of Arts and Sciences, as well as the other universities and research units involved in the program.
TARDEC is a unit of the U.S. Army’s Research, Development and Engineering Command. With headquarters in Warren, Mich., it serves at the nation’s premier laboratory for advanced military automotive technology.
For more information about CAVS or the SimBRS program, visit www.cavs.msstate.edu or email Dr. Roger King.