Draper awards research contract

to Dr. Donna Rhodes

April 13, 2007

Dr. Donna Rhodes, ESD Senior Lecturer, was awarded a new research contract under the 2008 Draper University IR&D Program. The project "Dynamic Trade Space Exploration Method Applied to Systems of Systems" adds to the growing research portfolio of MIT ESD’s Systems Engineering Advancement Research Initiative (SEARI).

Rhodes, director of SEARI, will serve as principal investigator for the project working in collaboration with Dr. Adam Ross, an ESD Research Scientist. The research builds on Ross’s doctoral work which was funded by the Lean Aerospace Initiative, and will involve a significant level of collaboration with systems engineering experts from Draper Laboratory. The methodology developed by Ross provides a mechanism for architects and designers to dynamically explore tradespaces to accommodate changeability in the context of an extended stakeholder perceived value space, including both articulated and unarticulated value. In the doctoral work, supervised by Professor Daniel Hastings, the method was applied to single military and space systems. This research will extend the methodology for system of systems problems.

The project was one of seven new projects that Draper selected from over 140 submissions; an additional 15 projects were selected for continuation for 2008. The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory Inc. is a non-profit engineering research and development laboratory dedicated to serving the national interest in applied research, engineering development, advanced technical education, and technology transfer.