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2021-05-05

Raytheon Infuses Key Technologies into Modelling, Simulation

Off the coast of Hawaii, a Standard Missile-3 Block IIA interceptor launched from the guided missile destroyer USS John Finn rocketed outside Earth’s atmosphere and destroyed an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) target in November 2020.

The test, the first test of its kind in the physical world, was a roaring success — but not all of a surprise.

In the digital world, it had already happened – many, many times.

What had helped a great deal in the Intercept Test were the stupendous efforts by engineers at Raytheon Missiles & Defense who infused advanced technologies into modelling and simulation.

The SM-3 interceptor uses sheer force, rather than an explosive warhead, to destroy its target. Its “kill vehicle” hits threats with the force of a 10-tonne truck travelling 600 mph. This technique, referred to as “hit-to-kill,” has been likened to intercepting a bullet with another bullet.

Using artificial intelligence, machine learning, modelling and simulation, Raytheon engineers digitally put the interceptor through its paces time and again in the months leading to the November 2020 test.

“We knew we could do it long before we proved it,” said Wes Kremer, president of Raytheon Missiles & Defense, a Raytheon Technologies business. “That is the kind of powerful insight you gain from modelling and simulation.”

The simulations leading to the real-world test were just one way Raytheon Missiles & Defense is using artificial intelligence and machine learning to assess data from its own products, predict their performance in real-world scenarios and help customers make better purchasing decisions.

In the SM-3 test, the team gathered data from previous tests and fed them into a model and simulation.

“We do the high-fidelity predictions that tell us how the missile’s going to perform throughout flight, all the way down to the exact point on the target the interceptor will hit — and we were right,” pointed out Doug Fiehler, part of the Raytheon Missiles & Defense flight test team at the Missile Defense Integration and Operations Center at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Fact-finding Mission

The process starts with listening; a team from Raytheon Missiles & Defense meets with a customer to hear what they want.

“What we’re really after is having that discussion with the customers to get them to open up and say what they really need, what keeps them awake at night, and what we can do at Raytheon to help solve some of their problems,” explained Bob Fitzpatrick, vice president of Requirements and Capabilities at Raytheon Missiles & Defense.

Modelling involves examining those needs with a team of experts, what they call “the innovators,” to determine physics and design parameters that are then put into action with simulations.

Huge Advantages

Modelling and simulation have two huge advantages over building and assessing actual hardware: It’s much cheaper and faster, allowing the business to respond rapidly to any changes the customer requests.

“AI and machine learning are critical to the company’s modelling and simulation framework,” Fitzpatrick said. “Every new flight test and every new experiment looks a little different than the last one and that means there’s a lot of rapid learning happening for the company and its customers.”

For example, the hypersonic threat is evolving and it’s not entirely clear which weapons adversary nations have – or what they can do. Interestingly, modelling and simulation allows engineers to run thousands of variations to see what works best. The company likens the approach to a football coach studying old game tapes to see how different players with varying capabilities impact a game for better or worse and how they can adjust their response to exploit a team’s weakness or counter their strengths.

The company also runs multiple plays and manipulates various systems to determine the best way to respond.

In the words of Fitzpatrick: “No one can afford a perfect missile, no one can afford a perfect sensor, so you really must get them playing together in a synthetic battlefield and see how they tie together in order to maximise a customer’s investment to ensure they’re not overspending for perfection,”

This new generation of software helps ensure troops are ready — equipped with modern systems that are connected and can conduct a full range of operations.

“We cover the entire kill chain,” Fitzpatrick remarked, using a military term for all the systems in an operation such as an intercept or counterattack. “From sensing, communications, command and control, and launching a weapon of our own, we digitally simulate all of these interactions so we can quantify the effectiveness of our system of systems.”

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