Reliable modeling and simulation (M&S) allows the undersea warfare community to understand torpedo performance in scenarios that could never be created in live testing, and do so for a fraction of the cost of an in-water test. The Navy hopes to use the Environment Centric Weapons Analysis Facility (ECWAF), a hardware-in-the-loop simulation, to predict torpedo effectiveness and supplement live operational testing. In order to trust the model’s results, the T&E community has applied rigorous statistical design of experiments techniques to both live and simulation testing. As part of ECWAF’s two-phased validation approach, we ran the M&S experiment with the legacy torpedo and developed an empirical emulator of the ECWAF using logistic regression. Comparing the emulator’s predictions to actual outcomes from live test events supported the test design for the upgraded torpedo. This talk overviews the ECWAF’s validation strategy, decisions that have put the ECWAF on a promising path, and the metrics used to quantify uncertainty.
Suggested Citation
Bartis, Elliot, and Steven Rabinowitz. A Validation Case Study: The Environment Centric Weapons Analysis Facility (ECWAF). IDA Document NS D-12081. Alexandria, VA: Institute for Defense Analyses, 2020.