By David Ortiz
PBN Staff Writer
More than 500 computer scientists and engineers from around the world will travel to Providence on April 14 to take part in a conference on computer modeling and simulation.
Computer modeling-and-simulation specialists crunch myriad data to create virtual environments that can be used to forecast and monitor events.
A majority of participants at the five-day Spring Simulation Interoperability Workshop, which will be held at the Westin Providence hotel, will be computer-modeling specialists from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of Defense and private contractors, said Stephen J. Swenson, director of Newport operations for AEgis Technologies Group Inc.
But computer modeling and simulation is not only used in defense work. The technology is becoming increasingly central to a wide range of critical industries, Swenson said, including aerospace, health care, transportation, drug development and other biotechnology, and the study of climate change.
“Modeling and simulation is really … the common language that we all speak,” he said.
In Rhode Island, modeling and simulation is already widely used and is poised to grow as an industry, Swenson said. Rhode Island Hospital uses simulation to train emergency room doctors. The University of Rhode Island’s department of ocean engineering uses computer modeling and simulation to better understand and forecast tsunamis, hurricanes and other weather events associated with climate change. URI’s 3D Group for Interactive Visualization uses modeling and simulation to explore the daily lives of the ancient Corinthians.
Marine Safety International, which has an office in Middletown, was the first maritime training organization in the U.S. to use ship simulators for pilot training, according to Swenson. The Naval Undersea Warfare Center uses modeling and simulation in virtually everything they do – from concept development to submarine mission analysis and training, he said.
Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems and other local defense contractors rely daily on modeling and simulation to engineer new defense technologies, according to Swenson.
Swenson is the president of the New England Modeling and Simulation Consortium, an organization he created to work towards making New England a national hub for the industry with close ties to the federal agencies, along with such places as Orlando, Fla. and Hampton Roads, Va.
The consortium currently has about 65 corporate members, he said
“What we’re trying to do is raise New England’s capability in the national consciousness and take part in the national debate, but also to talk amongst ourselves about how we do modeling and simulation,” Swenson said.
The upcoming conference in Providence, which is organized by the Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization, a national industry organization, will overlap with a smaller conference of about 50 experts in human-behavior modeling and simulation – an emerging field that incorporates experimental psychology and computer modeling to predict how groups will behave under particular conditions and circumstances in wars and other situations.
The theme of the conference is “innovation at the intersections,” which Swenson described as an attempt by conference organizers to begin breaking down walls that prevent modeling and simulation experts in different industries from working together to advance the technology’s possibilities. In the past, innovation of modeling and technology has occurred unevenly, with experts developing new applications for military training, weather forecasting, and drug development, he said.
Plenary speakers at the conference will include James Anderson, a professor of cognitive and linguistic sciences at Brown University, a pioneering researcher of how brains and computers compute differently and similarly; George R. Ryan Jr., director of test and evaluation and standards for the Department of Homeland Security; and Nicole Yankelovich, an investigator in Sun Labs focusing on user-experience research. •
