Team 6: Data Farming in Netcentric Systems Test Planning

Abstract

There is a need to conduct testing in a complex joint mission environment across the acquisition life cycle to improve a program manager's ability to deliver joint capabilities to warfighters. For a joint mission environment with many interdependent systems, assessing individual system and system-of-systems (SoS) contributions to joint mission effectiveness becomes extremely challenging. A change in one system may have cascading effects across the mission environment and, furthermore, many of these systems may be at different points in development and acquisition. This complex adaptive SoS environment makes it nearly impossible to plan efficient tests using current test methods and capabilities. Cogent planning for the tests of these complex adaptive systems involves a very tedious, almost impossible, test planning process for determining what and how exactly to test. To do this efficiently, new test and evaluation (T&E) tools, methods, and processes are needed and data farming has been identified as one tool that may help in this process.