Mayhem Project Pushes Boundaries with the help of U-M students
Leidos Moves Forward with Hypersonic Mayhem Program with the help of MBSE lab students
In 2023, Leidos partnered with the U-M Department of Aerospace Engineering’s Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) lab and systems engineering leadership education x88 course series to assist on Mayhem, an air-breathing hypersonic system awarded through the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). This partnership called on an esteemed group of students to work with Leidos on the architecture of Mayhem’s MBSE environment and help cultivate a workforce pipeline for students involved, allowing them to gain real-world experience through the MBSE lab and its partnership with Leidos.
Throughout the partnership on Mayhem, AFRL and Leidos looked towards pushing the boundary of using digital engineering while developing their hypersonic system. After previous partnerships with the MBSE lab at the University of Michigan, Leidos enlisted the lab as a consultant for work being done on the Mayhem program.
“The early success of the MBSE Lab caught the attention of several Industry leaders, such as Leidos, interested in advancing MBSE practices at the undergraduate level. That industry interest in our efforts led to the several lab sponsors we have today which gives the students in the x88 and lab space a world of opportunities,” commented Andre Jones, a former graduate student working on Mayhem in the MBSE lab and current systems engineer at Leidos.
Within the two year partnership, the students in the MBSE lab were directly assisting Leidos on different aspects of the program. The MBSE lab developed the risk management strategy for risk mitigation, supported various technical and classified presentations to the government and to all of the customers on the Mayhem program, assisted with software in the loop (SIL) verification tracking, developed digital architecture corresponding to the systems architecture, developed the MBSE Style Guide, assisted in characterizing interfaces, and in preparing documentation for critical team engineering reviews and for critical gateway reviews. Within the MBSE model itself, students also did foundational work in developing structural elements and subsystem behavioral elements of the Mayhem program as well.
Earlier this summer, Leidos announced that Mayhem completed two key milestones towards their hypersonic system development -– the conceptual design review and system requirements review. With these two milestones complete, Leidos presented their work towards Mayhem in a presentation titled “Industry and Academic Collaboration Advances MBSE During Hypersonic System Development” at the University Consortium for Applied Hypersonics (UCAH) Forum in Alexandria, VA.
Gathering undergraduate and graduate students’ involvement, the MBSE lab used digital engineering to ensure the design efforts help future hypersonic development. U-M students supported Leidos by assembling pieces of the MBSE environment, which Leidos deployed in the digital engineering ecosystem for the team working on Mayhem. Together, they were able to achieve a significant increase in capability over current hypersonic systems.
“AFRL emphasized the need for a rigorous MBSE approach throughout the Mayhem program, to which Leidos set out to perform as many systems engineering activities as possible using efficient MBSE methodologies. Leidos trusted the University of Michigan to help in the execution of building those methodologies, specifically the MBSE Style Guide which set the standard for modeling across Mayhem,” Jones continued.
Artie A. Mabbett, senior vice president and business area manager for the Leidos Innovations Center commented on the students’ involvement by stating, “The future of our industry requires a constant influx of diverse talent to bring innovative solutions to our toughest national security challenges. Leidos’ partnership with the University of Michigan MBSE lab and the Aerospace Department provides a unique pipeline of graduates with relevant applied skills to be impactful on day one!”
MBSE as a pipeline for students going into industry:
MBSE is the formalized application of modeling to support system requirements, design, analysis, verification and validation activities beginning in the conceptual design phase and continuing throughout development and later life cycle phases. The Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) lab and x88 course series within the University of Michigan Aerospace Engineering program was launched in September 2021 as a first-of-its-kind facility for Aerospace Engineering students, providing flexible product development and teaming space.
“No one seemed to think it could be done [MBSE in academia at the undergraduate level], we just started doing it and it has been really successful,” stated George Halow, aerospace engineering professor of practice at U-M and program director for the University’s MBSE lab.
Leidos has been a corporate sponsor of the MBSE Leadership Lab since 2021. Through this relationship, the company engages with active student-led engineering projects, providing industry feedback ranging from adaptive aircraft wheelchair accommodation designs to drones and space control projects.
“Leidos has been leading the way in our MBSE and systems engineering leadership program at Michigan Aerospace,” Halow commented in the previous announcement. “They show the critical industry need and are active participants in developing the next generation of leaders in this space. This is the future of our field, and we’re grateful for partners like Leidos who see the way forward.”
Undergraduate students going through the x88 course series are provided support and knowledge about various tools that can be used for modeling and project management. From these students, a selected few are then offered the additional opportunity of working on industry partnership projects alongside selected graduate students. Students who are assigned these partnerships, such as the Mayhem project with Leidos, are provided a direct pipeline from the project they are working to a potential career once graduating.
“You have this course series for the masses, and it trains our students in very relevant and desirable industry skills. There is a progression that some students are then hand selected to work on these projects, from there some of these selected students then receive offers to go and work at the companies in which they worked on the projects with once graduating,” explained Halow.
The Mayhem partnership with the MBSE lab at the University of Michigan saw three students receive internships with Leidos during the Summer of 2023. Returning from a successful internship in Huntsville, AL Jones highlighted how being a part of the MBSE efforts at U-M created a direct pipeline to working with Leidos once graduating. Morgan Serra, who played a large part in developing the x88 curriculum as a GSI under Professor Halow, also interned with Leidos within their National Security and Space Division, an example of another pipeline that had led her to joining the Leidos team full-time.
“Joining this course sequence is what allowed me to kind of step foot into the pipeline of working with the industry. And then, once you’re in the door, it just gets that much easier to get your name out there and have the industry aware of the great things that you’re doing as part of this group that’s executing MBSE and is making so much noise in academia. I think this opportunity to work full time with Leidos has really shown that because it’s been from the beginning that I’ve worked with them,” Jones said.
He continued on to state, “Working with Leidos has honestly been great, and that was easily one of the reasons why I wanted to work with them full-time. Within Leidos and the systems engineering teams that I’ve worked with, I don’t feel like a number. I feel like I’m a part of a team, and I’ve found my space.”
Jones has continued working on the Mayhem project with Leidos and co-presented their paper at the UCAH Forum in August. As he continues to pave the way for future graduates from the U-M MBSE program, he offers this advice to students who may be interested in pursuing a partnership project within the lab, “Halow once gave me this advice: x88 is an investment in your future. It’s going to take a lot to get it going now. It’s going to take a lot of time, effort and commitment, but it could work out that you wind up with a handful of opportunities waiting for you once you walk across that stage at graduation. For me, that was worth the investment.”