The J-MASS Marketplace: a new way for DoD to do business

It is current DoD policy to use commercial off-the-shelf software whenever it meets DoD requirements. The application of this policy to modeling and simulation has resulted in the concept of “The Joint Modeling and Simulation System (J-MASS) Marketplace.” J-MASS is designed as an Open Systems Architecture with the capability for the Simulation Support Environment (SSE) to be expanded by the addition of site specific software. In the “J-MASS Marketplace” industry will build commercial tools to work with J-MASS and individual organizations will license what they need for their particular site. The J-MASS SSE is a framework or backplane into which everything else plugs. A J-MASS product release would have the core capabilities, but the unique needs of various organizations would be satisfied by industry. This paper addresses how the J-MASS Marketplace could work and how compliance can be defined. It will outline opportunities for industry in both building software for the Marketplace and in defining the Marketplace concept     

基于DO-178C的机载软件质量保证与管理

DO-178C 作为机载软件适航可接受的符合性标准,明确要求机载软件综合过程中必须包含软件质量保证（SQA）过程。以机载软件的软件生命周期定义、过程和数据为基础,从目标、活动和符合性评审三个方面分析基于DO-178C 的软件质量保证过程的实施;结合软件项目质量管理技术和工具,从规划软件质量管理、管理软件质量和控制软件质量三个过程研究基于DO-178C 的软件质量管理方法并给出工程实践建议。结果表明：本文将软件质量保证与质量管理紧密结合,形成了适航要求的相关证据,提供了符合需求的民用机载软件,有效保证了机载软件的质量和持续改进措施。     

Proposal to TPS delivery in 4 months?

Decreasing the often lengthy Test Program Set (TPS) development time is a high priority for both DoD and commercial industry. A protracted test development time for a commercial product can make or break its success. It can impact time-to-market goals for a product, which in turn, can result in a loss of market share. Though the DoD world has different objectives, they, too, are concerned with long test development times which can increase costs and jeopardize a weapon system's mission readiness. The case study for this paper is a test system developed by BAE Systems in less than four months to meet a commercial customer's stringent schedule requirements. The factors that contributed to the success of this project are examined, as is their relevance to the DoD world. The desire is to apply relevant lessons learned from the commercial industry to DoD programs, yielding a decrease in TPS development time     

Advances in DoD's ATS Framework

The Automatic Test System (ATS) Executive Directorate (ED) is charged with developing objectives for the Department of Defense (DoD) ATS modernization. The DoD ATS Framework Working Group (FWG) was established by the ATS ED to create a Framework addressing these objectives. The FWG consists of two sub-groups: Management, that includes members from all of the DoD Services, and Technical. The Framework is made up of key elements and associated specifications and standards that form the open system architecture approach for DoD ATSs. In addition to creating and updating key element definitions, the FWG focuses on identifying commercial ATS related specifications that might satisfy the elements in the Framework. The standards specified in the DoD ATS Framework are documented in the DoD's Information Technology Standards Repository (DISR) and thereby become a mandatory requirement for all DoD ATS acquisitions. The Framework is also being specifically called out in DoD ATS requirements documents so that its standards are incorporated in future DoD ATS acquisitions, such as the Navy's eCASS.     

DESC field failure evaluation program-`a cradle to grave approach'

The Defense Electronics Supply Center's (DESC's) field failure evaluation program is described. The primary objective of the program is to take positive corrective action steps to assure that quality electronics parts are used in US Department of Defense (DoD) weapon systems. The process flow of field failures from their inception to final corrective action is discussed. To illustrate this, four case studies are presented in which lab testing and coordination with the supplier has resulted in positive corrective action, improving the quality and reliability of the electronic components in DoD weapon systems     

Surveillance through walls and other opaque materials

The Department of Defense (DoD) has funded a dazzling array of “high tech” solutions for many of the problems facing our military forces. Many of these “solutions” have been effective for long range mass destruction but have not been applicable for the close-in hand-to-hand combat that is on our streets. Our goal at the Hughes AET Center has been to convert “high tech” DoD capabilities into cost effective tools to help law enforcement agencies do their jobs better. Surveillance systems presently used by law enforcement officers make extensive use of television, infrared and other Line-of-Sight (LOS) surveillance systems. However, these systems cannot tell what is happening on the other side of a wall, behind bushes, around the corner, in the dark or through a dense fog. A new sensor has been developed that uses technology developed by the DoD for missile warhead fuzing. This small, light weight, low power “Radar” is based upon the fact that radio waves can penetrate nonmetallic materials. This new surveillance capability can help provide information about what is in a wall, ceiling or floor or on the other side of a door or concrete wall. Real field scenarios are used in this paper to show how this radar works and how field users can tell if someone is moving inside a building, even from remote locations     

Software architecture requirements for DoD automatic test systems

The DoD has achieved success with recent automatic test equipment (ATE) families, as evidenced by the navy's consolidated automated support system (CASS) and the army's integrated family of test equipment (IFTE) programs. However, as these systems age, the increased requirements for technology insertion due to instrument obsolescence and the demands of advanced electronics are becoming evident. Recent advances in test technology promise to yield reduced total ownership costs (TOC) for ATE which can incorporate the new technology. The DoD automatic test system (ATS) executive agent office (EAO) objective is to significantly reduce total ownership cost. Several objectives have been identified including use of synthetic instruments, support for legacy test product sets (TPSs), and more efficient ways of developing TPSs. The NxTest software architecture will meet the objectives by providing an open systems approach to the system software. This will allow for the incorporation of commercial applications in the TPS development and execution environments and support current advances in test technology     

Sole means navigation in US Navy aircraft

The current edition of the US Federal Radionavigation Plan, issued in 1984, presents a consolidated federal plane on the management of those radionavigation systems which are used by both the civilian and military sectors. It states the US Dept. of Defense (DoD) goal to phase out the use of TACAN, VOR/DME, OMEGA, LORAN C, and TRANSIT in military platforms and for Global Positioning System (GPS) to become the standard radionavigation system for DoD. This would eliminate all the current sole-means air navigation systems (TACAN and VOR/DME) aboard military aircraft. Instrument Flight Rule (IFR) operations within controlled airspace requires an operating sole-means air navigation system to be aboard the aircraft. The authors investigate the requirements for GPS certification as a sole means air navigation system in the US National Airspace System (NAS); discuss the implication for GPS user equipment (UE) hardware and software; describe the actual UE implementation; and discuss approaches for UE integration with flight instruments on US Navy aircraft     

It is software process, stupid: next millennium software qualitykey

The economic impacts of software in our economy are discussed. The current economic state has been attributed to the Information Technology which has not only generated a large number of jobs but also contributed to the productivity and quality of the operations in our digital economy. The next millennium will be digital and obviously software has a very important role to play in our personal, national, and international scenes. Software will be essential in all our products from Space Station and airplanes to automobiles, television, pagers, and cellular telephones, For any organization, for that matter, even nations to succeed in the digital millennium software will be very essential. One who develops software better, cheaper, and faster will become the leader with enormous economic advantage. The key to success in software development will depend upon the software processes used to build them. Many national and international organizations have developed models based on processes to improve quality, productivity and cycle time of software development. Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model (CMM) is one such model. CMM helps in assessing the software processes and their capabilities and continuously improve them to higher levels of maturity. Similarly, ISO 9000 and the related ISO 9001 for software quality are based on software processes. This paper will bring out the importance of software processes particularly in managing the quality of software based on national and international initiatives     

Selecting a programming language for your project

Since the mandate was dropped that the Ada language had to be used in all DoD projects, software managers have had more freedom to choose which programming language to use on their DoD projects. For most new DoD software projects that need a general purpose high-level language, Ada, C, or C++ are the main contenders, with increasing attention paid to the new language celebrity, Java. Furthermore, multilanguage systems seems to be getting increasingly popular. As a result, companies offer integrated multilanguage programming environments. Although each programming language has its own strengths and weaknesses, the reason for choosing a particular language may ultimately be based on factors having nothing to do with the technical merits of the language itself. Such factors may include the availability of compilers for the host/target, the maturity and efficiency of available compilers, the availability of programmers who already know the language, whether the language can easily interface with existing systems such as graphical user interfaces or data bases, the existence of legacy software written in a specific language, or how well the language fits in with adopted COTS products. A few common misconceptions that may affect the choice of a programming language are listed     

IVI comes of age: An overview of IVI specifications with current status

IVI stands for Interchangeable Virtual Instruments; the IVI Foundation was formed in 1997 and is a consortium founded to promote standard specifications for programmable test instruments. The foundation focuses on the needs of users who build high performance test systems. By building on existing industry standards, such as VXIplug&play driver concepts, the Foundation's goal is to deliver specifications that simplify interchangeability, provide better performance, and maintainable test programs. To date, only a few IVI drivers have been available. In the past year, the IVI Foundation finished a major revision of it's architecture and has released a blizzard of specifications, increasing its IVI Class specification by 80% and dramatically improving the consistency and quality of released drivers. The DoD has expressed major interest in IVI's success. With the recent successful completion of the current set of specifications, DoD is interested in becoming involved in defining the next set of Class Specifications. The NxTest Working Group lists IVI as a key technical element, and DoD has recently requested that the IVI Foundation consider Electro Optical equipment for their next set of Class Specifications; a Working Group has been formed to more clearly define this activity.     

Automated testing

Since the DoD was the leader in incorporating transistors, ICs and embedded processors, they also were on the forefront in developing automatic test equipment. The term automatic test equipment (ATE) encompasses all phases of computer controlled testing. It is based on the integration of instruments, computers and software. These systems generally include five basic elements: control, stimulus, measurement, switching and software. A special interface device or interface test adapter connects the unit under test (UUT) to the ATE. Test program software connects the ATE to the appropriate UUT test points, programs the input stimulus and monitors the output response     

Computerized Medical Devices: Trends, Problems, and Safety

Virtually all of the medical devices utilizing electronics will contain a micro or minicomputer by 1990. These devices accounted for $7 billion in U.S. sales in 1984. Their capabilities can provide the means for new or greatly improved medical procedures, and ensure greater patient safety. However, these benefits can easily be compromised if ``computer safety' is not practiced in the design, manufacturing, testing and clinical use of these devices. Along with a trend to wider usage, the number of recalls of medical devices due to computer-related problems has approximately doubled in the last five years. ``Computer-caused' problems are often not recognized or reported as such, resulting in an underestimation of the prevalence of this type of problem. Our study of technical factors causing problems in computerized devices revealed that software quality assurance (SQA), the quality of the ac power, and electromagnetic interference are primary factors. Selected design and QA techniques that are well-known in military-aerospace industries can be used to prevent the most prevalent problems occurring in computerized medical devices, without significantly affecting overall device manufacturing costs.     

Bridging the gap between ATLAS and C: an open-systems approach toTPS re-host

As the DoD focuses on commercialization and open-architecture standards, the need to migrate existing TPSs from proprietary ATLAS-based platforms to an Open Systems platform becomes more critical. This paper will focus on a solution which leverages COTS software tools and emerging industry standards and technologies to implement object-oriented database tools which enable the conversion of an ATLAS TPS to an ANSI C environment     

The defense acquisition system too late for the scalpel; bring outthe meat axe!

The problems discussed include that associated with the requirements process which leads to overspecification and an overly rigid approach to development, and a procurement system which is bloated and grossly inefficient. The bureaucracy in the DoD acquisition system has grown steadily from the 1960's to 1990's. Each problem encountered, and there have been serious ones, has resulted in the addition by the DoD or Congress of another wicket to get through, another set of unended peripheral tasks, another layer of checks, meetings, reports. Each addition was an intended improvement which in the long run has only made things worse. The DoD rightly asked for greater reliability and the reliability/maintainability/availability RMA, cult was born. Recommendations dealing with these problems are discussed     

国外机载设备ATS测试软件确认方法浅析

随着测试技术快速发展，机载设备ATS的复杂性和智能化不断提高，软硬件密切耦合，且测试软件的规模、复杂度及其在ATS的功能比重急剧上升，软件确认问题引起了美国军方的高度重视。首先介绍了国外机载设备ATS测试软件确认的背景，详细介绍了国外机载设备ATS测试软件确认的几种典型方法，包括软件的验证、配置管理、缺陷反馈和修改等方法，最后对我国机载设备ATS测试软件确认方法的研究和实施提出了建议。     

US Air Force EarthRadar for detection and discrimination of buriedunexploded ordnance

The US Air Force EarthRadar system is a multi-purpose sensor designed and constructed using "radar" principles. This technology was originally developed for the US Air Force to detect buried unexploded ordnance (UXO). Bakhtar Associates developed the US Air Force EarthRadar technology under the DoD SBIR program. The system is capable of detecting buried metallic and non-metallic objects, including glass vials. In addition, the manner in which system hardware, signal processing, and the integrated high resolution global positioning system (GPS) are configured makes it ideal for applications such as mapping subsurface geological features, locating cavities and collapse features, and identifying contaminated ground     

CALCM-the untold story of the weapon used to start the Gulf War

The Conventional Air Launched Cruise Missile (CALCM) was developed from the strategic ALCM, AGM-86, by integrating GPS navigation into the missile in place of terrain correlation (TERCOM). In addition, the nuclear warhead was replaced by conventional explosives. The CALCM was developed, tested, and fielded in a single year (mid-1986-mid-1987) by the Boeing Company where the author was then employed. Although the GPS technology used, a Rockwell single channel aided receiver, has been eclipsed by newer receivers with additional capabilities and newer technology, many innovative things were done in completing the CALCM integration: the external loading of almanac data along with other mission data, three satellite navigation capability, and the use of a single channel receiver in a dynamic flight environment. This effort demonstrated that GPS outputs can be integrated quickly into an existing weapon system using the traditional loosely coupled “cascaded filter” approach. Although this approach is not as ideal as a tightly coupled integration using raw GPS data, the use of cascaded filters resulted in a weapon that was able to be rapidly fielded. The Air Force had sufficient confidence in the missile, that after four years of operational testing, 35 of these missiles were targeted at key sites at the start of the Gulf War in 1991. This effort, which was declassified in 1992, resulted in the first weapon in the DoD inventory to be operational using GPS navigation. The effort deserves consideration as a model as to how GPS integration can be performed     

Spiral evolution applied to legacy avionics systems

The US Department of Defense (DoD), through the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), has determined that evolutionary acquisition is their strategy of choice for future software-intensive systems, and that the spiral development model (SDM) is the preferred method/process for software-intensive development life cycles. Electronic Systems Command (ESC) at Hanscom AFB, Massachusetts, has written a draft handbook on the use of Spiral Development for all future Command and Control (C2) systems, including reference to the DoD 5000 series and Air Force Program Directive 63-1, Acquisition System, which deploys this OSD mandate for future C2 systems. Barry Boehm's continued work on SDM which he conceived in the 1980s, is heavily biased toward development of new systems that are software-intensive, as noted in a workshop he gave at the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) in 2000.     

Embedded information system re-engineering

Currently fielded embedded information systems face readiness challenges imposed by evolving missions and extended service lifespans. The ability to overcome these challenges is constrained by such factors as shrinking budgets, limited computational capacity and diminished manufacturing sources effects that impact both hardware and software options. Wholesale redevelopment is often cost prohibitive, particularly since large portions of embedded applications continue to fulfil mission requirements. Solutions must preserve prior investments while providing efficient pathways for continued technology refresh. A technology solution for affordable modernization of legacy system software is being development. The Embedded Information System Re-engineering (EISR) project is developing an automation-assisted JOVIAL-to-C re-engineering capability that permits simultaneous modernization of both the structure and source language of legacy embedded applications. Engineers will be able to apply the proven labor-saving visualization and analysis features of modern CASE tools to legacy JOVIAL applications. EISR will thus allow the DoD to recapture previous investments in proven legacy algorithms and mission capabilities while permitting the full exploitation of COTS economies of scale. This paper describes in brief the goals and objectives of the EISR project, and provides the current status of the EISR capability.