Steve Swenson is the Director of Operations (Newport) for AEgis Technologies Group and the President of the New England Modeling and Simulation Consortium (NEMSC).

Last week, I found myself caught in another intersection; I’ve come to a dead stop “in the box.” I’m anxiously waiting for the unimaginative thought-police to order me to move along. But for the moment, I am enjoying the thrill of watching 4 lanes of linear traffic zip by me on all sides. Come to think about it, this has been the story of my life. Happily breaking the posted intellectual speed limits, I blow through a stop sign somewhere and find myself amidst angry linear motorists honking their horns and shouting expletives. But I like it.

I am a modeling and simulation guy.

I’ve been building virtual environments throughout my twenty-year career and almost exclusively for the defense and aerospace industries. I spent the early part of my career working with a team of engineers and scientists to develop a hardware-in-the-loop torpedo simulator. Our objective was to reduce the cost and improve the effectiveness of weapon development and testing by augmenting a shrinking number of live torpedo shots with a growing number of simulated ones. We used our stable of gigaflops to model the underwater hydrodynamic and acoustic environments and injected the resultant signals into a real weapon guidance and control unit. This was not easy but in the end, we saved millions of dollars, improved safety and gave weapons engineers a tool to do their jobs more effectively.

Last week, I was in Tucson at the American Conference on Pharmacometrics (ACoP). A research pharmacist friend of mine thought that I’d be interested in the event – “They’re modeling and simulation guys, too” he said. Honestly, I could maybe understand about every fourth or fifth word. But anytime someone said something that made it through my comprehension-filter -- interoperability, metadata, Monte Carlo method or Bayesian calculus – the words crashed into my ears like a cacophony of whiny horns from a dozen Japanese imports. The pharmaceutical industry, confronted by the rising price of clinical trials and a dwindling pipeline of new drugs, they’re turning to modeling and simulation to reduce costs and speed time to market. One speaker brought a tear to my eye when he said that each week of a clinical trial shaved off by modeling and simulation translated into $14M in savings! Viagra and the Navy’s V-22 Osprey really do have something in common – modeling and simulation.

Here in Rhode Island, modeling and simulation represents a critical capability for technology development and market growth. Rhode Island Hospital uses simulation to train emergency room doctors. The Naval Undersea Warfare Center uses modeling and simulation in virtually (pardon the pun) everything they do – from concept development to submarine mission analysis and training. Likewise, major defense systems contractors, such as Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems, view modeling and simulation as a critical enabling technology for robust systems engineering. The 3D Group for Interactive Visualization at the University of Rhode Island is employing modeling and simulation to explore the daily lives of the ancient Corinthians. URI’s Department of Ocean Engineering is modeling long wave propagation and runup in the ocean to gain insight into tsunamis. Marine Safety was the first maritime training organization in the U.S. to use ship simulators for pilot training. Johnson & Wales University is using a SecondLife virtual space to teach students about business. And Eyegloo has a specialty in SecondLife for their business clients. And of course, I would be remiss in not mentioning the New England Modeling and Simulation Consortium – incorporated here in Rhode Island – which is dedicated to “shining a light on New England Modeling and Simulation.” Modeling and simulation – at the intersections.

On April 14th, 500 scientists and engineers from around the world will descend upon the Providence Westin Hotel to discuss modeling and simulation interoperability at the Spring Simulation Interoperability Workshop. The theme for this conference is “Innovation at the Intersections”. George Ryan – Director, Test and Evaluation and Standards, Department of Homeland Security – will share how first responders are using modeling and simulation to plan and train. Jim Anderson – Professor of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences, Brown University – will discuss how he is using modeling and simulation to gain insight into the human brain. Nicole Yankelovich – Principal Investigator Collaborative Environments, Sun Microsystems Laboratories – will show how they are using virtual worlds and their massively multiplayer online game stack to foster collaboration and innovation among a distributed workforce. And on Wednesday of that week, Olivier de Weck – Professor, Aeronautics and Astronautics, MIT – will be discussing his work on the Interplanetary Supply Chain Network for space exploration. A City of Providence square mile of lovely, busy, incredibly fascinating intersections!