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4 Incorporating Cost into the Front End of the Radar Systems Engineering Process
Author(s) -
Church Douglas G.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
incose international symposium
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2334-5837
DOI - 10.1002/j.2334-5837.1999.tb00195.x
Subject(s) - systems engineering , visibility , radar , process (computing) , engineering design process , computer science , systems design , engineering , telecommunications , mechanical engineering , physics , optics , operating system
This paper describes an initiative to incorporate cost into the initial stages of the design process to get the best cost‐performance value in radar systems design. Tools were developed at Northrop Grumman to provide the design community visibility as to how performance requirements affect the hardware cost. Detailed hardware cost and systems performance models have been developed and applied to ongoing radar development programs at Northrop Grumman giving systems engineers and hardware designers tools they need to optimize their designs. This paper provides a summary of the approach, describes the tools that were developed, addresses lessons learned in implementing the process and gives examples of the type of trades that can be performed using the tools. The approach is easily extended to non‐radar system designs. The process described reduces the possibility of overlooking a better design solution and avoids major changes late in the development cycle.