Verification and Validation Assessment of Rapid Availability Prototyping for Testing Operational Readiness

Through out the world, new techniques are developed to test and evaluate systems. The Department of Defense and the US Air Force conduct numerous studies into the reliability and maintainability of current and future weapons systems in an effort to understand the reliability, maintainability, and availability (RM&A) costs of these systems. Furthermore, they must verify RM&A characteristics of systems, which are still in the development phase. The Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center (AFOTEC) is responsible for testing new equipment to ensure their RM&A characteristics meet specifications. Rapid Availability Prototyping for Testing Operational Readiness (RAPTOR) is the software tool developed by HQ AFOTEC to enhance existing analysis capabilities. RAPTOR is a modeling framework allowing quick creation of RM&A models for many systems. DoD has made verification, validation, and accreditation (VV&A) of these simulation models an official requirement. This research outlines a generic VV&A plan that uses the appropriate tools and techniques to perform model verification, validation, and accreditation. This plan is then applied to RAPTOR 5.0 and a portion of verification and validation of RAPTOR is completed and recommendations for accreditation are made.Air Force Inst of Tech Wright-Patterson AFB OH School of Engineering and Management is the author of 'Verification and Validation Assessment of Rapid Availability Prototyping for Testing Operational Readiness', published 2001 under ISBN 9781423529330 and ISBN 1423529332.