The Center for Army Analysis selected an Army Test and Evaluation team as its 2013 Modeling and Simulation Award recipient, recognizing the U.S. Army Operational Test Command team members in a ceremony earlier this month at West Fort Hood.

Brig. Gen. Scott Spellmon, OTC commander, praised the team for responding to the need to develop and execute a verification, validation and accreditation plan that would ensure Army Test and Evaluation Command’s intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability was robust, effective and user-friendly.

“This is a new category for 2013,” Spellmon said, “so not only is this team the big winner, they are the first team to win this award.”

Modeling and simulation, an integral tool in operational testing, uses models to develop data as a basis for technical or managerial decisions. The ATEC team earned top honors by improving the command’s Intelligence Modeling and Simulation for Evaluation Simulation and Scoring Subsystem, a complex, highly classified system that is critical for testing Army and Joint ISR systems.

ISSS emulates sensors, battlefield threats and information sources to provide a highly realistic representation of current and future environments in which the Army will fight. It is currently being used at Network Integration Evaluation 14.2 currently underway at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., and Fort Bliss.

“This is truly an ATEC award,” said Gayle Shull, director, OTC’s Test Technology Directorate. “The team comprises Department of the Army civilian employees and contractors from the Electronic Proving Ground, Fort Huachuca, Ariz., and OTC’s Methodology and Analysis Directorate and TTD.”