Case Studies

Simulation Software for the Marines

Problem
Marines operate in all weather conditions, wet or dry, hot or cold. How well a Marine's uniform and equipment affect body temperature can be a matter of life or death in extreme conditions. Kansas State University (KSU), working with M2 Technologies (M2) and funded by the Marine Corps System Command (MCSC), are developing the ThermalSquad simulation to model body temperature of a Marine using a physiological model that accounts for environmental conditions, activity, and clothing. Without a simulation, live Marines would have to test the equipment in physically grueling extremes of heat, cold, and humidity. Moreover, the tests would need to guarantee repeatability without seriously injuring any of the test participants. The original simulation used textual inputs and produced tables of numbers as outputs. The output numbers can predict whether a Marine will collapse from heat exhaustion in the desert sun, or lose toes to frost bite. However, the output requires an expert knowledge of the physiological model to interpret. The inputs also required thermal modeling expertise to configure. Thus, the Marines have a critical need for a user interface that their experts in equipment testing can easily use.

Solution
CABEM is working with M2 and KSU to develop a Graphical User Interface(GUI) to make the ThermalSquad simulation accessible to the Marine Expeditionary Rifle Squad (MERS). Thus far, CABEM has contributed UI, creative graphics, and application design in integrating the GUI with KSU's existing simulation software. The first GUI version of ThermalSquad, released in October 2009, presents the user with a graphical depiction of the clothing and menus to create environmental and activity time lines. The time lines allow the Marines to simulate a wide variety of scenarios that factor in environmental conditions and specific Marine activities in simulation. As CABEM continues to work with M2 to advance the simulation project we have proposed the addition of summary statistics and 3D graphical output to help the user visualize temperatures throughout the body. Other future enhancements may include the creation of graphical tools to display and edit clothing models used in the simulation. Concurrently KSU continues to refine the body model and improve upon the fidelity of the simulation.