The Use of Stochastic Value Models to Create Technology Roadmaps

Abstract

Since technology is rapidly advancing, systems engineers must now design for adaptability, such that the system can be updated with new components as they become available. Designing for adaptability typically requires analyzing and evaluating technologies at various stages of maturity to determine if they should be incorporated into the design. As such, technology roadmaps are a useful tool to identifying the change in a technology with time. Though traditional technology roadmaps are based on raw performance data, a technology roadmap based on value modeling would be more appropriate for system design. Value modeling is a technique used for evaluating different design decisions while focusing on the needs of the stakeholder. A qualitative model is built to determine what value measures are of concern to the stakeholder; a quantitative model is then built to convert raw performance data into a value score for evaluation. This process can be expanded to show the change in value score based on new technologies through the inclusion of uncertainty and the time domain. The SIPMath® Tool is Microsoft Excel provided a useful tool for building this model. A case study for different unmanned aerial vehicle batteries is presented to display this process.