Engineer Research and Development CenterCold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory

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BUILDING STRONG®

Interagency Surface Dynamics Working GroupUSDA Southwest Watershed Research CenterTucson, AZMarch 1-3, 2011

Presenter: John EylanderU. S. Army ERDC/CRREL Hanover, NH, USA

BUILDING STRONG®

Monday AM Agenda• 08:30 - Welcome and Introductions (Dr. Moran & Dr. Harmon• 08:45 – 09:15 Meeting overview and goals (Eylander)• 09:15 – 09:45 Dr. Jeff Cetola & Mr. Chris Franks

Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA) Operational Land Surface Modeling overview at AFWA

• 09:45 – 10:30 Dr. Christa Peters-LidardNASA-Goddard Hydrological Sciences BranchThe Land Information System as a Research-to-Operations Tool

• 10:30 – 10:45 Break 

• 10::45 – 11:15 Gary McWilliams (via telecom)US Army Research LabReview of Joint Polar Satellite System and Defense Weather Satellite System

 • 11:15 – 12:00 Dr. Enrique Vivoni

Arizona State University Small catchment activities at Jornada and Santa Rita Experimental Range, and large-scale soil moisture network in Sonora

BUILDING STRONG®

Monday Afternoon Agenda • 12:00 – 13:00 Lunch

• 13:00 – 13:30 Mike Tischler (via telecom)USACE Topographic Engineering Center (Alexandria, VA)TEC soil property mapping update

• 13:30 – 14:00 Mike FollumUSACE ERDC Coastal & Hydraulics Lab (Vicksburg, MS)Use of remotely sensed data in hydrologic prediction

 • 14:00 – 14:30 Dr. George Mason

USACE ERDC Geotechnical and Structures Lab (Vicksburg, MS)

• 14:30 – 15:00 Hsu & GaoCenter for Hydrometeorology and Remote SensingUC Irvine

• 15:00 – 15:15 Break

BUILDING STRONG®

Monday Afternoon Agenda (cont’d)• 15:15 – 15:45 Jingfeng Wang & Rafael Bras

University of California at IrvineModeling Surface Energy Balance Using the MEP Method

• 15:45 – 16:15 Dr. Scott TylerUniv. of Nevada, Reno Desert Research InstituteDistributed Fiber Optic Sensing for Soil Moisture and Environmental Studies: NSF's Community User Facilty.

• 16:15 – 16:45 Dr. Jan HendrickxNew Mexico TechAssimilation of METRIC Evapotranspiration and soil moisture in a distributed hydrologic model

• 16:45 – 17:30 Open discussion & Wrap up

• 19:00 - Group Dinner @ Guadalajara Grill

BUILDING STRONG®

Goals– Increase organization ties between R&D and

OPS groups– Understand methods to support technology

transition– Explore ideas for increase interagency

research inititives– Increase technology transition rates– Create 2-way information flow among

agencies (wherever possible)

BUILDING STRONG®

Bridging the “Valley of Death”

• Understanding the gap between research and Operations communities

BUILDING STRONG®

Spanning the “Valley of Death”

• How do you “bridge the gap”– Know/document your functional TRL level– Understand the integration “process”– Take advantage of common “R&D to OPS”

software tools in your research• Land Information System (LIS)• Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model

– Collaborate!

BUILDING STRONG®

Technical Readiness Levels

• 3.1 - BASIC PRINCIPLES OBSERVED AND REPORTED: Transition from scientific research to applied research. Essential characteristics and behaviors of systems and architectures. Descriptive tools are mathematical formulations or algorithms.

• 3.2 - TECHNOLOGY CONCEPT AND/OR APPLICATION FORMULATED: Applied research. Theory and scientific principles are focused on specific application area to define the concept. Characteristics of the application are described. Analytical tools are developed for simulation or analysis of the application.

• 3.3 - ANALYTICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL CRITICAL FUNCTION AND/OR CHARACTERISTIC PROOF-OF- CONCEPT: Proof of concept validation. Active Research and Development (R&D) is initiated with analytical and laboratory studies. Demonstration of technical feasibility using breadboard or brassboard implementations that are exercised with representative data.

• 3.4 - COMPONENT/SUBSYSTEM VALIDATION IN LABORATORY ENVIRONMENT: Standalone prototyping implementation and test. Integration of technology elements. Experiments with full-scale problems or data sets.

BUILDING STRONG®

Technical Readiness Levels• 3.5 - SYSTEM/SUBSYSTEM/COMPONENT VALIDATION IN RELEVANT ENVIRONMENT:

Thorough testing of prototyping in representative environment. Basic technology elements integrated with reasonably realistic supporting elements. Prototyping implementations conform to target environment and interfaces.

• 3.6 - SYSTEM/SUBSYSTEM MODEL OR PROTOTYPING DEMONSTRATION IN A RELEVANT END-TO-END ENVIRONMENT (GROUND OR SPACE): Prototyping implementations on full-scale realistic problems. Partially integrated with existing systems. Limited documentation available. Engineering feasibility fully demonstrated in actual system application.

• 3.7 - SYSTEM PROTOTYPING DEMONSTRATION IN AN OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENT (GROUND OR SPACE): System prototyping demonstration in operational environment. System is at or near scale of the operational system, with most functions available for demonstration and test. Well integrated with collateral and ancillary systems. Limited documentation available.

• 3.8 - ACTUAL SYSTEM COMPLETED AND "MISSION QUALIFIED" THROUGH TEST AND DEMONSTRATION IN AN OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENT (GROUND OR SPACE): End of system development. Fully integrated with operational hardware and software systems. Most user documentation, training documentation, and maintenance documentation completed. All functionality tested in simulated and operational scenarios. Verification and Validation (V&V) completed.

BUILDING STRONG®

Technical Readiness Levels

• 3.9 - ACTUAL SYSTEM "MISSION PROVEN" THROUGH SUCCESSFUL MISSION OPERATIONS (GROUND OR SPACE): Fully integrated with operational hardware/software systems. Actual system has been thoroughly demonstrated and tested in its operational environment. All documentation completed. Successful operational experience. Sustaining engineering support in place.

BUILDING STRONG®

Research Software “Buy-Back”

• Research to OPS software technology transitions incur significant software redevelopment period– “Up-time” requirements– Database and infrastructure engineering– Data handling (input/output) issues– Error handling– Coding standards– Network requirements– Data format

• External/R&D groups generally not concerned with most OPS center software issues, leading to delays in tech transition

• Software buy-back process goal is to share same software environment

Basic R&D

Applied Research

Prototype Development

Integration Process

Research Buy-Back

BUILDING STRONG®

Research Network Enabling Concept

• Goal: Adapt “buy-back” processacross DoD weather &terrestrial science programs– Collaborative software tools– Collaborative research

environments– Shared software development

process– Reduced costs to basic/applied

research organizations– Faster rate of integration

LIS

Basic Research

Applied Research

Prototype Developmen

t

Integration & Test

Ops Integration

BUILDING STRONG®

New Concept: Science Logistics Management

• Goal: Manage technology transition between TRL’s and research funding programs – 6.1 -> 6.2 -> 6.3……. – TRL 1 –> TRL 2 -> TRL3– Army working to establish new management

structure to support weather/terrestrial science tech transition• future Air Force Weather involvement