Intelligent Tools Used in the Design of Navy Ships

The first step in implementing an intelligent ship is designing the ship intelligently. Naval ship design is becoming an interactive process where designers on different sites can work collaboratively and simultaneously, connected through virtual design environments. In this paper we introduce two such design environments. The first is an immersive, virtual reality environment enabling rapid design of ship space arrangements, exploration of Human System Integration issues, and reduced cost of test and evaluation through the use of modeling and simulation. The second is a systems engineering application capable of evaluating the benefit of spiral technology insertions, identifying areas for research and development investment, and evaluating the performance, risk, and affordability of proposed technologies in current and future ship systems, by conducting trade space analysis and optimization. Applications of these tools will be discussed.