Simplified Topside Design and Assessment Tool
Navy SBIR FY2010.1


Sol No.: Navy SBIR FY2010.1
Topic No.: N101-051
Topic Title: Simplified Topside Design and Assessment Tool
Proposal No.: N101-051-0079
Firm: Delcross Technologies, LLC
3015 Village Office Place
Champaign, Illinois 61822
Contact: Matthew Miller
Phone: (217) 363-3396
Web Site: www.delcross.com
Abstract: The RCS of a ship is a key parameter for determining the range at which such ships can be detected and targeted by enemy forces. During the development of a new ship, the Navy spends a great deal of time studying the RCS for a wide variety of configurations. Navy engineers and analysts need to be able to quickly compute the RCS for a proposed ship design and compare the resulting RCS with other designs as well as the RCS budget allocated for the ship. Delcross Technologies proposes to develop a radar budget code that will allow analysts to rapidly assess the RCS of a ship for many different configurations. The tool will allow analysts to ingest CAD files for ship components and associated RCS data that can be articulated and manipulated through a sophisticated GUI. The prototype radar budget tool will be capable of performing coherent or noncoherent summations of RCS data files. The user will be able to set up the analysis through a GUI that includes 3D rendering, ocean interactions, plotting capabilities, and a hierarchical tree. A blockage check feature and the ability to specify theoretical material part treatments will be options available to the user.
Benefits: While the RTS code has proven to be a valuable simulation tool for the Navy, it is generally not practical to run it for the many configurations that are considered during the design phase of a new ship given run time considerations. As a result, a radar budget code that allows analysts to quickly consider many different configurations during preliminary ship design phases without sacrificing a great deal of accuracy would be very beneficial to ship designers. We believe that there is a significant commercial market for the proposed radar budget technology. Specifically, we see two opportunities for commercialization. First, we believe that there would be significant interest from several DoD contractors that perform RCS analysis for the government. For example, when contractors are bidding on a new ship design, they need to be able to rapidly compute the RCS for various designs to help with proposal writing and ultimately, designing the ship. To our knowledge, there are no commercially available and mature radar budget tools. As such, if engineers want to consider different designs, they must run the complete target using a CEM solver. We also see a potential market for the radar budget tool for commercial applications. For example, the auto industry has been researching collision avoidance radars for their vehicles for several years. The radar budget tool would allow automotive engineers to consider the RCS that they would see for a variety of scenarios including specific traffic scenarios and debris on the road.

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