Challenges and Opportunities in Enhancing Department of Defense Ground Vehicle Capabilities Through Digital Transformation

Abstract

This paper presents valuable insights from in-depth interviews with Department of Defense stakeholders and a rigorous examination of existing guidelines, standards, and pertinent literature. The paper focuses on critical aspects of digital modeling, data utilization, and data-driven decision-making, focusing mainly on the U.S. Army’s ground vehicle applications addressing challenges and opportunities. Data-driven decision-making relies significantly on accurate digital twins, which are critical in preparing ground vehicles for their intended environments, especially in challenging environments like preparing vehicles for the Arctic. Thus, creating synergy between real-life applications and digital twins is crucial. However, the U.S. Army faces hurdles in obtaining comprehensive digital data from original equipment manufacturers, especially for older ground vehicle platforms, necessitating reverse engineering to address gaps. Challenges stem from the absence of standardized digital data practices, which triggers the need to establish a cohesive digital modeling framework. To this end, the paper proposes an Intelligent Front-End Framework. The proposed framework optimizes and integrates data management for defense applications and decision-making. To sum up, this paper emphasizes the significance of adopting digital technologies, optimizing and enabling data utilization, and addressing data challenges to enhance the operational readiness and effectiveness of the Department of Defense.