Software Architecture Evolution

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-12-01

system’s major components occurring via a Java Message Service message bus [69]. This architecture was designed to promote loose coupling of soft- ware...play reconfiguration of the system. The components were Java -based and platform-independent; the interfaces by which they communicated were based on...The MPCS database, a MySQL database used for storing telemetry as well as some other information, such as logs and commanding data [68]. This

A Successful Component Architecture for Interoperable and Evolvable Ground Data Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Smith, Danford S.; Bristow, John O.; Wilmot, Jonathan

2006-01-01

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) has adopted an open architecture approach for satellite control centers and is now realizing benefits beyond those originally envisioned. The Goddard Mission Services Evolution Center (GMSEC) architecture utilizes standardized interfaces and a middleware software bus to allow functional components to be easily integrated. This paper presents the GMSEC architectural goals and concepts, the capabilities enabled and the benefits realized by adopting this framework approach. NASA experiences with applying the GMSEC architecture on multiple missions are discussed. The paper concludes with a summary of lessons learned, future directions for GMSEC and the possible applications beyond NASA GSFC.

Recent Developments in Hardware-in-the-Loop Formation Navigation and Control

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mitchell, Jason W.; Luquette, Richard J.

2005-01-01

The Formation Flying Test-Bed (FFTB) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) provides a hardware-in-the-loop test environment for formation navigation and control. The facility is evolving as a modular, hybrid, dynamic simulation facility for end-tc-end guidance, navigation, and control (GN&C) design and analysis of formation flying spacecraft. The core capabilities of the FFTB, as a platform for testing critical hardware and software algorithms in-the-loop, are reviewed with a focus on many recent improvements. Two significant upgrades to the FFTB are a message-oriented middleware (MOM) architecture, and a software crosslink for inter-spacecraft ranging. The MOM architecture provides a common messaging bus for software agents, easing integration, arid supporting the GSFC Mission Services Evolution Center (GMSEC) architecture via software bridge. Additionally, the FFTB s hardware capabilities are expanding. Recently, two Low-Power Transceivers (LPTs) with ranging capability have been introduced into the FFTB. The LPT crosslinks will be connected to a modified Crosslink Channel Simulator (CCS), which applies realistic space-environment effects to the Radio Frequency (RF) signals produced by the LPTs.

Space Telecommunications Radio System Software Architecture Concepts and Analysis

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Handler, Louis M.; Hall, Charles S.; Briones, Janette C.; Blaser, Tammy M.

2008-01-01

The Space Telecommunications Radio System (STRS) project investigated various Software Defined Radio (SDR) architectures for Space. An STRS architecture has been selected that separates the STRS operating environment from its various waveforms and also abstracts any specialized hardware to limit its effect on the operating environment. The design supports software evolution where new functionality is incorporated into the radio. Radio hardware functionality has been moving from hardware based ASICs into firmware and software based processors such as FPGAs, DSPs and General Purpose Processors (GPPs). Use cases capture the requirements of a system by describing how the system should interact with the users or other systems (the actors) to achieve a specific goal. The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is used to illustrate the Use Cases in a variety of ways. The Top Level Use Case diagram shows groupings of the use cases and how the actors are involved. The state diagrams depict the various states that a system or object may be in and the transitions between those states. The sequence diagrams show the main flow of activity as described in the use cases.

Thermal Control System Automation Project (TCSAP)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Boyer, Roger L.

1991-01-01

Information is given in viewgraph form on the Space Station Freedom (SSF) Thermal Control System Automation Project (TCSAP). Topics covered include the assembly of the External Thermal Control System (ETCS); the ETCS functional schematic; the baseline Fault Detection, Isolation, and Recovery (FDIR), including the development of a knowledge based system (KBS) for application of rule based reasoning to the SSF ETCS; TCSAP software architecture; the High Fidelity Simulator architecture; the TCSAP Runtime Object Database (RODB) data flow; KBS functional architecture and logic flow; TCSAP growth and evolution; and TCSAP relationships.

A Proven Ground System Architecture for Promoting Collaboration and Common Solutions at NASA

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Smith, Danford

2005-01-01

Requirement: Improve how NASA develops and maintains ground data systems for dozens of missions, with a couple new missions always in the development phase. Decided in 2001 on enhanced message-bus architecture. Users offered choices for major components. They plug and play because key interfaces are all the same. Can support COTS, heritage, and new software. Even the middleware can be switched. Project name: GMSEC. Goddard Mission Services Evolution Center.

Sensor Open System Architecture (SOSA) evolution for collaborative standards development

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Collier, Charles Patrick; Lipkin, Ilya; Davidson, Steven A.; Baldwin, Rusty; Orlovsky, Michael C.; Ibrahim, Tim

2017-04-01

The Sensor Open System Architecture (SOSA) is a C4ISR-focused technical and economic collaborative effort between the Air Force, Navy, Army, the Department of Defense (DoD), Industry, and other Governmental agencies to develop (and incorporate) a technical Open Systems Architecture standard in order to maximize C4ISR sub-system, system, and platform affordability, re-configurability, and hardware/software/firmware re-use. The SOSA effort will effectively create an operational and technical framework for the integration of disparate payloads into C4ISR systems; with a focus on the development of a modular decomposition (defining functions and behaviors) and associated key interfaces (physical and logical) for common multi-purpose architecture for radar, EO/IR, SIGINT, EW, and Communications. SOSA addresses hardware, software, and mechanical/electrical interfaces. The modular decomposition will produce a set of re-useable components, interfaces, and sub-systems that engender reusable capabilities. This, in effect, creates a realistic and affordable ecosystem enabling mission effectiveness through systematic re-use of all available re-composed hardware, software, and electrical/mechanical base components and interfaces. To this end, SOSA will leverage existing standards as much as possible and evolve the SOSA architecture through modification, reuse, and enhancements to achieve C4ISR goals. This paper will present accomplishments over the first year of SOSA initiative.

Health care professional workstation: software system construction using DSSA scenario-based engineering process.

PubMed

Hufnagel, S; Harbison, K; Silva, J; Mettala, E

1994-01-01

This paper describes a new method for the evolutionary determination of user requirements and system specifications called scenario-based engineering process (SEP). Health care professional workstations are critical components of large scale health care system architectures. We suggest that domain-specific software architectures (DSSAs) be used to specify standard interfaces and protocols for reusable software components throughout those architectures, including workstations. We encourage the use of engineering principles and abstraction mechanisms. Engineering principles are flexible guidelines, adaptable to particular situations. Abstraction mechanisms are simplifications for management of complexity. We recommend object-oriented design principles, graphical structural specifications, and formal components' behavioral specifications. We give an ambulatory care scenario and associated models to demonstrate SEP. The scenario uses health care terminology and gives patients' and health care providers' system views. Our goal is to have a threefold benefit. (i) Scenario view abstractions provide consistent interdisciplinary communications. (ii) Hierarchical object-oriented structures provide useful abstractions for reuse, understandability, and long term evolution. (iii) SEP and health care DSSA integration into computer aided software engineering (CASE) environments. These environments should support rapid construction and certification of individualized systems, from reuse libraries.

GERICOS: A Generic Framework for the Development of On-Board Software

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Plasson, P.; Cuomo, C.; Gabriel, G.; Gauthier, N.; Gueguen, L.; Malac-Allain, L.

2016-08-01

This paper presents an overview of the GERICOS framework (GEneRIC Onboard Software), its architecture, its various layers and its future evolutions. The GERICOS framework, developed and qualified by LESIA, offers a set of generic, reusable and customizable software components for the rapid development of payload flight software. The GERICOS framework has a layered structure. The first layer (GERICOS::CORE) implements the concept of active objects and forms an abstraction layer over the top of real-time kernels. The second layer (GERICOS::BLOCKS) offers a set of reusable software components for building flight software based on generic solutions to recurrent functionalities. The third layer (GERICOS::DRIVERS) implements software drivers for several COTS IP cores of the LEON processor ecosystem.

Surveillance and reconnaissance ground system architecture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Devambez, Francois

2001-12-01

Modern conflicts induces various modes of deployment, due to the type of conflict, the type of mission, and phase of conflict. It is then impossible to define fixed architecture systems for surveillance ground segments. Thales has developed a structure for a ground segment based on the operational functions required, and on the definition of modules and networks. Theses modules are software and hardware modules, including communications and networks. This ground segment is called MGS (Modular Ground Segment), and is intended for use in airborne reconnaissance systems, surveillance systems, and U.A.V. systems. Main parameters for the definition of a modular ground image exploitation system are : Compliance with various operational configurations, Easy adaptation to the evolution of theses configurations, Interoperability with NATO and multinational forces, Security, Multi-sensors, multi-platforms capabilities, Technical modularity, Evolutivity Reduction of life cycle cost The general performances of the MGS are presented : type of sensors, acquisition process, exploitation of images, report generation, data base management, dissemination, interface with C4I. The MGS is then described as a set of hardware and software modules, and their organization to build numerous operational configurations. Architectures are from minimal configuration intended for a mono-sensor image exploitation system, to a full image intelligence center, for a multilevel exploitation of multi-sensor.

Bellerophon

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Lingerfelt, Eric J; Messer, II, Otis E

2017-01-02

The Bellerophon software system supports CHIMERA, a production-level HPC application that simulates the evolution of core-collapse supernovae. Bellerophon enables CHIMERA's geographically dispersed team of collaborators to perform job monitoring and real-time data analysis from multiple supercomputing resources, including platforms at OLCF, NERSC, and NICS. Its multi-tier architecture provides an encapsulated, end-to-end software solution that enables the CHIMERA team to quickly and easily access highly customizable animated and static views of results from anywhere in the world via a cross-platform desktop application.

Understanding the Role of Licenses and Evolution in Open Architecture Software Ecosystems

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-11-29

to a penalty for failing to comply with a collection of information if it does not display a currently valid OMB control number. 1. REPORT DATE 29...OA, since the (possibly empty) set of available license rights for an OA system depends on: (a) how and why OSS and open APIs are located within the...other compo- nents whose licenses may conflict with them or fail to match [2, 15]; the system integrator can decide to insert software shims using

EON: software for long time simulations of atomic scale systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chill, Samuel T.; Welborn, Matthew; Terrell, Rye; Zhang, Liang; Berthet, Jean-Claude; Pedersen, Andreas; Jónsson, Hannes; Henkelman, Graeme

2014-07-01

The EON software is designed for simulations of the state-to-state evolution of atomic scale systems over timescales greatly exceeding that of direct classical dynamics. States are defined as collections of atomic configurations from which a minimization of the potential energy gives the same inherent structure. The time evolution is assumed to be governed by rare events, where transitions between states are uncorrelated and infrequent compared with the timescale of atomic vibrations. Several methods for calculating the state-to-state evolution have been implemented in EON, including parallel replica dynamics, hyperdynamics and adaptive kinetic Monte Carlo. Global optimization methods, including simulated annealing, basin hopping and minima hopping are also implemented. The software has a client/server architecture where the computationally intensive evaluations of the interatomic interactions are calculated on the client-side and the state-to-state evolution is managed by the server. The client supports optimization for different computer architectures to maximize computational efficiency. The server is written in Python so that developers have access to the high-level functionality without delving into the computationally intensive components. Communication between the server and clients is abstracted so that calculations can be deployed on a single machine, clusters using a queuing system, large parallel computers using a message passing interface, or within a distributed computing environment. A generic interface to the evaluation of the interatomic interactions is defined so that empirical potentials, such as in LAMMPS, and density functional theory as implemented in VASP and GPAW can be used interchangeably. Examples are given to demonstrate the range of systems that can be modeled, including surface diffusion and island ripening of adsorbed atoms on metal surfaces, molecular diffusion on the surface of ice and global structural optimization of nanoparticles.

Software-Based Safety Systems in Space - Learning from other Domains

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Klicker, M.; Putzer, H.

2012-01-01

Increasing complexity and new emerging capabilities for manned and unmanned missions have been the hallmark of the past decades of space exploration. One of the drivers in this process was the ever increasing use of software and software-intensive systems to implement system functions necessary to the capabilities needed. The course of technological evolution suggests that this development will continue well into the future with a number of challenges for the safety community some of which shall be discussed in this paper. The current state of the art reveals a number of problems with developing and assessing safety critical software which explains the reluctance of the space community to rely on software-based safety measures to mitigate hazards. Among others, usually lack of trustworthy evidence of software integrity in all foreseeable situations and the difficulties to integrate software in the traditional safety analysis framework are cited. Experience from other domains and recent developments in modern software development methodologies and verification techniques are analysed for the suitability for space systems and an avionics architectural framework (see STANAG 4626) for the implementation of safety critical software is proposed. This is shown to create among other features the possibility of numerous degradation modes enhancing overall system safety and interoperability of computerized space systems. It also potentially simplifies international cooperation on a technical level by introducing a higher degree of compatibility. As software safety cannot be tested or argued into a system in hindsight, the development process and especially the architecture chosen are essential to establish safety properties for the software used to implement safety functions. The core of the safety argument revolves around the separation of different functions and software modules from each other by minimal coupling of functions and credible separation mechanisms in the architecture combined with rigorous development methodologies for the software itself.

Autonomic Computing for Spacecraft Ground Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Li, Zhenping; Savkli, Cetin; Jones, Lori

2007-01-01

Autonomic computing for spacecraft ground systems increases the system reliability and reduces the cost of spacecraft operations and software maintenance. In this paper, we present an autonomic computing solution for spacecraft ground systems at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), which consists of an open standard for a message oriented architecture referred to as the GMSEC architecture (Goddard Mission Services Evolution Center), and an autonomic computing tool, the Criteria Action Table (CAT). This solution has been used in many upgraded ground systems for NASA 's missions, and provides a framework for developing solutions with higher autonomic maturity.

A microprocessor card software server to support the Quebec health microprocessor card project.

PubMed

Durant, P; Bérubé, J; Lavoie, G; Gamache, A; Ardouin, P; Papillon, M J; Fortin, J P

1995-01-01

The Quebec Health Smart Card Project is advocating the use of a memory card software server[1] (SCAM) to implement a portable medical record (PMR) on a smart card. The PMR is viewed as an object that can be manipulated by SCAM's services. In fact, we can talk about a pseudo-object-oriented approach. This software architecture provides a flexible and evolutive way to manage and optimize the PMR. SCAM is a generic software server; it can manage smart cards as well as optical (laser) cards or other types of memory cards. But, in the specific case of the Quebec Health Card Project, SCAM is used to provide services between physicians' or pharmacists' software and IBM smart card technology. We propose to expose the concepts and techniques used to provide a generic environment to deal with smart cards (and more generally with memory cards), to obtain a dynamic an evolutive PMR, to raise the system global security level and the data integrity, to optimize significantly the management of the PMR, and to provide statistic information about the use of the PMR.

A Reference Architecture for Space Information Management

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mattmann, Chris A.; Crichton, Daniel J.; Hughes, J. Steven; Ramirez, Paul M.; Berrios, Daniel C.

2006-01-01

We describe a reference architecture for space information management systems that elegantly overcomes the rigid design of common information systems in many domains. The reference architecture consists of a set of flexible, reusable, independent models and software components that function in unison, but remain separately managed entities. The main guiding principle of the reference architecture is to separate the various models of information (e.g., data, metadata, etc.) from implemented system code, allowing each to evolve independently. System modularity, systems interoperability, and dynamic evolution of information system components are the primary benefits of the design of the architecture. The architecture requires the use of information models that are substantially more advanced than those used by the vast majority of information systems. These models are more expressive and can be more easily modularized, distributed and maintained than simpler models e.g., configuration files and data dictionaries. Our current work focuses on formalizing the architecture within a CCSDS Green Book and evaluating the architecture within the context of the C3I initiative.

Software Architecture for Big Data Systems

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-03-27

Software Architecture: Trends and New Directions #SEIswArch © 2014 Carnegie Mellon University Software Architecture for Big Data Systems...AND SUBTITLE Software Architecture for Big Data Systems 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER 6. AUTHOR(S) 5d. PROJECT...ih - . Software Architecture: Trends and New Directions #SEIswArch © 2014 Carnegie Mellon University WHAT IS BIG DATA ? FROM A SOFTWARE

Rapid Development of Custom Software Architecture Design Environments

DTIC Science & Technology

1999-08-01

the tools themselves. This dissertation describes a new approach to capturing and using architectural design expertise in software architecture design environments...A language and tools are presented for capturing and encapsulating software architecture design expertise within a conceptual framework...of architectural styles and design rules. The design expertise thus captured is supported with an incrementally configurable software architecture

Robust Software Architecture for Robots

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Aghazanian, Hrand; Baumgartner, Eric; Garrett, Michael

2009-01-01

Robust Real-Time Reconfigurable Robotics Software Architecture (R4SA) is the name of both a software architecture and software that embodies the architecture. The architecture was conceived in the spirit of current practice in designing modular, hard, realtime aerospace systems. The architecture facilitates the integration of new sensory, motor, and control software modules into the software of a given robotic system. R4SA was developed for initial application aboard exploratory mobile robots on Mars, but is adaptable to terrestrial robotic systems, real-time embedded computing systems in general, and robotic toys.

Methodical Design of Software Architecture Using an Architecture Design Assistant (ArchE)

DTIC Science & Technology

2005-04-01

PA 15213-3890 Methodical Design of Software Architecture Using an Architecture Design Assistant (ArchE) Felix Bachmann and Mark Klein Software...DATES COVERED 00-00-2005 to 00-00-2005 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE Methodical Design of Software Architecture Using an Architecture Design Assistant...important for architecture design – quality requirements and constraints are most important Here’s some evidence: If the only concern is

Managing Risk in Safety Critical Operations - Lessons Learned from Space Operations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gonzalez, Steven A.

2002-01-01

The Mission Control Center (MCC) at Johnson Space Center (JSC) has a rich legacy of supporting Human Space Flight operations throughout the Apollo, Shuttle and International Space Station eras. Through the evolution of ground operations and the Mission Control Center facility, NASA has gained a wealth of experience of what it takes to manage the risk in Safety Critical Operations, especially when human life is at risk. The focus of the presentation will be on the processes (training, operational rigor, team dynamics) that enable the JSC/MCC team to be so successful. The presentation will also share the evolution of the Mission Control Center architecture and how the evolution was introduced while managing the risk to the programs supported by the team. The details of the MCC architecture (e.g., the specific software, hardware or tools used in the facility) will not be shared at the conference since it would not give any additional insight as to how risk is managed in Space Operations.

Evolution of cooperative behavior in simulation agents

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stroud, Phillip D.

1998-03-01

A simulated automobile factory paint shop is used as a testbed for exploring the emulation of human decision-making behavior. A discrete-events simulation of the paint shop as a collection of interacting Java actors is described. An evolutionary cognitive architecture is under development for building software actors to emulate humans in simulations of human- dominated complex systems. In this paper, the cognitive architecture is extended by implementing a persistent population of trial behaviors with an incremental fitness valuation update strategy, and by allowing a group of cognitive actors to share information. A proof-of-principle demonstration is presented.

Software for minimalistic data management in large camera trap studies

PubMed Central

Krishnappa, Yathin S.; Turner, Wendy C.

2014-01-01

The use of camera traps is now widespread and their importance in wildlife studies well understood. Camera trap studies can produce millions of photographs and there is a need for software to help manage photographs efficiently. In this paper, we describe a software system that was built to successfully manage a large behavioral camera trap study that produced more than a million photographs. We describe the software architecture and the design decisions that shaped the evolution of the program over the study’s three year period. The software system has the ability to automatically extract metadata from images, and add customized metadata to the images in a standardized format. The software system can be installed as a standalone application on popular operating systems. It is minimalistic, scalable and extendable so that it can be used by small teams or individual researchers for a broad variety of camera trap studies. PMID:25110471

A Custom Approach for a Flexible, Real-Time and Reliable Software Defined Utility.

PubMed

Zaballos, Agustín; Navarro, Joan; Martín De Pozuelo, Ramon

2018-02-28

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have enabled the evolution of traditional electric power distribution networks towards a new paradigm referred to as the smart grid. However, the different elements that compose the ICT plane of a smart grid are usually conceived as isolated systems that typically result in rigid hardware architectures, which are hard to interoperate, manage and adapt to new situations. In the recent years, software-defined systems that take advantage of software and high-speed data network infrastructures have emerged as a promising alternative to classic ad hoc approaches in terms of integration, automation, real-time reconfiguration and resource reusability. The purpose of this paper is to propose the usage of software-defined utilities (SDUs) to address the latent deployment and management limitations of smart grids. More specifically, the implementation of a smart grid's data storage and management system prototype by means of SDUs is introduced, which exhibits the feasibility of this alternative approach. This system features a hybrid cloud architecture able to meet the data storage requirements of electric utilities and adapt itself to their ever-evolving needs. Conducted experimentations endorse the feasibility of this solution and encourage practitioners to point their efforts in this direction.

A Custom Approach for a Flexible, Real-Time and Reliable Software Defined Utility

PubMed Central

2018-01-01

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have enabled the evolution of traditional electric power distribution networks towards a new paradigm referred to as the smart grid. However, the different elements that compose the ICT plane of a smart grid are usually conceived as isolated systems that typically result in rigid hardware architectures, which are hard to interoperate, manage and adapt to new situations. In the recent years, software-defined systems that take advantage of software and high-speed data network infrastructures have emerged as a promising alternative to classic ad hoc approaches in terms of integration, automation, real-time reconfiguration and resource reusability. The purpose of this paper is to propose the usage of software-defined utilities (SDUs) to address the latent deployment and management limitations of smart grids. More specifically, the implementation of a smart grid’s data storage and management system prototype by means of SDUs is introduced, which exhibits the feasibility of this alternative approach. This system features a hybrid cloud architecture able to meet the data storage requirements of electric utilities and adapt itself to their ever-evolving needs. Conducted experimentations endorse the feasibility of this solution and encourage practitioners to point their efforts in this direction. PMID:29495599

Open Architecture Standard for NASA's Software-Defined Space Telecommunications Radio Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Reinhart, Richard C.; Johnson, Sandra K.; Kacpura, Thomas J.; Hall, Charles S.; Smith, Carl R.; Liebetreu, John

2008-01-01

NASA is developing an architecture standard for software-defined radios used in space- and ground-based platforms to enable commonality among radio developments to enhance capability and services while reducing mission and programmatic risk. Transceivers (or transponders) with functionality primarily defined in software (e.g., firmware) have the ability to change their functional behavior through software alone. This radio architecture standard offers value by employing common waveform software interfaces, method of instantiation, operation, and testing among different compliant hardware and software products. These common interfaces within the architecture abstract application software from the underlying hardware to enable technology insertion independently at either the software or hardware layer. This paper presents the initial Space Telecommunications Radio System (STRS) Architecture for NASA missions to provide the desired software abstraction and flexibility while minimizing the resources necessary to support the architecture.

Evolution of the SOFIA tracking control system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fiebig, Norbert; Jakob, Holger; Pfüller, Enrico; Röser, Hans-Peter; Wiedemann, Manuel; Wolf, Jürgen

2014-07-01

The airborne observatory SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) is undergoing a modernization of its tracking system. This included new, highly sensitive tracking cameras, control computers, filter wheels and other equipment, as well as a major redesign of the control software. The experiences along the migration path from an aged 19" VMbus based control system to the application of modern industrial PCs, from VxWorks real-time operating system to embedded Linux and a state of the art software architecture are presented. Further, the concept is presented to operate the new camera also as a scientific instrument, in parallel to tracking.

Software architecture of INO340 telescope control system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ravanmehr, Reza; Khosroshahi, Habib

2016-08-01

The software architecture plays an important role in distributed control system of astronomical projects because many subsystems and components must work together in a consistent and reliable way. We have utilized a customized architecture design approach based on "4+1 view model" in order to design INOCS software architecture. In this paper, after reviewing the top level INOCS architecture, we present the software architecture model of INOCS inspired by "4+1 model", for this purpose we provide logical, process, development, physical, and scenario views of our architecture using different UML diagrams and other illustrative visual charts. Each view presents INOCS software architecture from a different perspective. We finish the paper by science data operation of INO340 and the concluding remarks.

Software Architecture Evaluation in Global Software Development Projects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Salger, Frank

Due to ever increasing system complexity, comprehensive methods for software architecture evaluation become more and more important. This is further stressed in global software development (GSD), where the software architecture acts as a central knowledge and coordination mechanism. However, existing methods for architecture evaluation do not take characteristics of GSD into account. In this paper we discuss what aspects are specific for architecture evaluations in GSD. Our experiences from GSD projects at Capgemini sd&m indicate, that architecture evaluations differ in how rigorously one has to assess modularization, architecturally relevant processes, knowledge transfer and process alignment. From our project experiences, we derive nine good practices, the compliance to which should be checked in architecture evaluations in GSD. As an example, we discuss how far the standard architecture evaluation method used at Capgemini sd&m already considers the GSD-specific good practices, and outline what extensions are necessary to achieve a comprehensive architecture evaluation framework for GSD.

Extensive Evaluation of Using a Game Project in a Software Architecture Course

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wang, Alf Inge

2011-01-01

This article describes an extensive evaluation of introducing a game project to a software architecture course. In this project, university students have to construct and design a type of software architecture, evaluate the architecture, implement an application based on the architecture, and test this implementation. In previous years, the domain…

Software Defined Radio Architecture Contributions to Next Generation Space Communications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kacpura, Thomas J.; Eddy, Wesley M.; Smith, Carl R.; Liebetreu, John

2015-01-01

Space communications architecture concepts, comprising the elements of the system, the interactions among them, and the principles that govern their development, are essential factors in developing National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) future exploration and science missions. Accordingly, vital architectural attributes encompass flexibility, the extensibility to insert future capabilities, and to enable evolution to provide interoperability with other current and future systems. Space communications architectures and technologies for this century must satisfy a growing set of requirements, including those for Earth sensing, collaborative observation missions, robotic scientific missions, human missions for exploration of the Moon and Mars where surface activities require supporting communications, and in-space observatories for observing the earth, as well as other star systems and the universe. An advanced, integrated, communications infrastructure will enable the reliable, multipoint, high-data-rate capabilities needed on demand to provide continuous, maximum coverage for areas of concentrated activity. Importantly, the cost/value proposition of the future architecture must be an integral part of its design; an affordable and sustainable architecture is indispensable within anticipated future budget environments. Effective architecture design informs decision makers with insight into the capabilities needed to efficiently satisfy the demanding space-communication requirements of future missions and formulate appropriate requirements. A driving requirement for the architecture is the extensibility to address new requirements and provide low-cost on-ramps for new capabilities insertion, ensuring graceful growth as new functionality and new technologies are infused into the network infrastructure. In addition to extensibility, another key architectural attribute of the space communication equipment's interoperability with other NASA communications systems, as well as those communications and navigation systems operated by international space agencies and civilian and government agencies. In this paper, we review the philosophies, technologies, architectural attributes, mission services, and communications capabilities that form the structure of candidate next-generation integrated communication architectures for space communications and navigation. A key area that this paper explores is from the development and operation of the software defined radio for the NASA Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) Testbed currently on the International Space Station (ISS). Evaluating the lessons learned from development and operation feed back into the communications architecture. Leveraging the reconfigurability provides a change in the way that operations are done and must be considered. Quantifying the impact on the NASA Space Telecommunications Radio System (STRS) software defined radio architecture provides feedback to keep the standard useful and up to date. NASA is not the only customer of these radios. Software defined radios are developed for other applications, and taking advantage of these developments promotes an architecture that is cost effective and sustainable. Developments in the following areas such as an updated operating environment, higher data rates, networking and security can be leveraged. The ability to sustain an architecture that uses radios for multiple markets can lower costs and keep new technology infused.

Evolution of a Reconfigurable Processing Platform for a Next Generation Space Software Defined Radio

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kacpura, Thomas J.; Downey, Joseph A.; Anderson, Keffery R.; Baldwin, Keith

2014-01-01

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)Harris Ka-Band Software Defined Radio (SDR) is the first, fully reprogrammable space-qualified SDR operating in the Ka-Band frequency range. Providing exceptionally higher data communication rates than previously possible, this SDR offers in-orbit reconfiguration, multi-waveform operation, and fast deployment due to its highly modular hardware and software architecture. Currently in operation on the International Space Station (ISS), this new paradigm of reconfigurable technology is enabling experimenters to investigate navigation and networking in the space environment.The modular SDR and the NASA developed Space Telecommunications Radio System (STRS) architecture standard are the basis for Harris reusable, digital signal processing space platform trademarked as AppSTAR. As a result, two new space radio products are a synthetic aperture radar payload and an Automatic Detection Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) receiver. In addition, Harris is currently developing many new products similar to the Ka-Band software defined radio for other applications. For NASAs next generation flight Ka-Band radio development, leveraging these advancements could lead to a more robust and more capable software defined radio.The space environment has special considerations different from terrestrial applications that must be considered for any system operated in space. Each space mission has unique requirements that can make these systems unique. These unique requirements can make products that are expensive and limited in reuse. Space systems put a premium on size, weight and power. A key trade is the amount of reconfigurability in a space system. The more reconfigurable the hardware platform, the easier it is to adapt to the platform to the next mission, and this reduces the amount of non-recurring engineering costs. However, the more reconfigurable platforms often use more spacecraft resources. Software has similar considerations to hardware. Having an architecture standard promotes reuse of software and firmware. Space platforms have limited processor capability, which makes the trade on the amount of amount of flexibility paramount.

Achieving Better Buying Power through Acquisition of Open Architecture Software Systems for Web-Based and Mobile Devices

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-05-01

Achieving Better Buying Power through Acquisition of Open Architecture Software Systems for Web-Based and Mobile Devices Walt Scacchi and Thomas...2015 to 00-00-2015 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE Achieving Better Buying Power through Acquisition of Open Architecture Software Systems for Web-Based and...architecture (OA) software systems  Emerging challenges in achieving Better Buying Power (BBP) via OA software systems for Web- based and Mobile devices

Proceedings of the Second Software Architecture Technology User Network (SATURN) Workshop

DTIC Science & Technology

2006-08-01

Proceedings of the Second Software Architecture Technology User Network (SATURN) Workshop Robert L. Nord August 2006 TECHNICAL REPORT CMU...SEI-2006-TR-010 ESC-TR-2006-010 Software Architecture Technology Initiative Unlimited distribution subject to the copyright. This report was...Participants 3 3 Presentations 5 3.1 SATURN Opening Presentation: Future Directions of the Software Architecture Technology Initiative 5 3.2 Keynote

Guidance and Navigation Software Architecture Design for the Autonomous Multi-Agent Physically Interacting Spacecraft (AMPHIS) Test Bed

DTIC Science & Technology

2006-12-01

NAVIGATION SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE DESIGN FOR THE AUTONOMOUS MULTI-AGENT PHYSICALLY INTERACTING SPACECRAFT (AMPHIS) TEST BED by Blake D. Eikenberry...Engineer Degree 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE Guidance and Navigation Software Architecture Design for the Autonomous Multi- Agent Physically Interacting...iii Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited GUIDANCE AND NAVIGATION SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE DESIGN FOR THE AUTONOMOUS MULTI

System Software Framework for System of Systems Avionics

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ferguson, Roscoe C.; Peterson, Benjamin L; Thompson, Hiram C.

2005-01-01

Project Constellation implements NASA's vision for space exploration to expand human presence in our solar system. The engineering focus of this project is developing a system of systems architecture. This architecture allows for the incremental development of the overall program. Systems can be built and connected in a "Lego style" manner to generate configurations supporting various mission objectives. The development of the avionics or control systems of such a massive project will result in concurrent engineering. Also, each system will have software and the need to communicate with other (possibly heterogeneous) systems. Fortunately, this design problem has already been solved during the creation and evolution of systems such as the Internet and the Department of Defense's successful effort to standardize distributed simulation (now IEEE 1516). The solution relies on the use of a standard layered software framework and a communication protocol. A standard framework and communication protocol is suggested for the development and maintenance of Project Constellation systems. The ARINC 653 standard is a great start for such a common software framework. This paper proposes a common system software framework that uses the Real Time Publish/Subscribe protocol for framework-to-framework communication to extend ARINC 653. It is highly recommended that such a framework be established before development. This is important for the success of concurrent engineering. The framework provides an infrastructure for general system services and is designed for flexibility to support a spiral development effort.

Six pitfalls in firewall deployment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wilner, Bruce

1996-03-01

This note describes six key pitfalls in the deployment of popular commercial firewalls. The term `deployment' is intended to include the architecture of the firewall software itself, the integration of the firewall with the operating system platform, and the interconnection of the complete hardware/software combination within its target environment. After reviewing the evolution of Internet firewalls against the backdrop of classical trusted systems development, specific flaws and oversights in the familiar commercial deployments are analyzed in some detail. While significantly costlier solutions are available that address some of these problems, the analysis is applicable to the overwhelming majority of firewalls in use at both commercial and Government installations.

Ariane 5-ALF: Evolution of the Ariane 5 Data Handling System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Notebaert, O.; Stransky, Arnaud; Corin, Hans; Hult, Torbjorn; Bonnerot, Georges-Albert

2004-06-01

In the coming years, the Ariane 5 On-Board-Computer (OBC) will handle missions and performances enhancements together with the need for significantly reducing costs and the replacement of obsolescent components. The OBC evolution is naturally driven by these factors, but also needs to consider the SW system compliance. Indeed, it would be a major concern that the necessary change of the underlying HW should imply new development of the flight software, mission database and ground control system.The Ariane 5 SW uses ADA language, which enables verifiable definition of the interfaces and provides a standardized level of the real-time behavior. To enforce portability, it has a layered architecture that clearly separates application SW and data from the lower level software. In addition, the on-board mission data is managed thanks to the extraction of an image of the systems database located in a structured memory area (the exchange memory). Used for all interchanges between the system application software and the launcher's subsystems and peripherals, the exchange memory is the virtual view of the Ariane 5 system from the flight SW standpoint. Thanks to these early architectural and structural choices, portability on future hardware is theoretically guaranteed, whenever the exchange memory data structures and the service layer interfaces remains stable. The ALF working group has defined and manufactured a mock-up that fulfils these architectural constraints with a completely new on-board computer featuring improvements such as the microprocessor replacement as well as an advanced integrated I/O controller for access to the system data bus. Lower level SW has been prototyped on this new hardware in order to fulfill the same level of services as the current one while completely hiding the underlying HW/SW implementation to the rest of the system. Functional and performance evaluation of this platform consolidated at system level will show the potential benefits and the limits of such approach.

Space Telecommunications Radio System (STRS) Architecture Standard. Release 1.02.1

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Reinhart, Richard C.; Kacpura, Thomas J.; Handler, Louis M.; Hall, C. Steve; Mortensen, Dale J.; Johnson, Sandra K.; Briones, Janette C.; Nappier, Jennifer M.; Downey, Joseph A.; Lux, James P.

2012-01-01

This document contains the NASA architecture standard for software defined radios used in space- and ground-based platforms to enable commonality among radio developments to enhance capability and services while reducing mission and programmatic risk. Transceivers (or transponders) with functionality primarily defined in software (e.g., firmware) have the ability to change their functional behavior through software alone. This radio architecture standard offers value by employing common waveform software interfaces, method of instantiation, operation, and testing among different compliant hardware and software products. These common interfaces within the architecture abstract application software from the underlying hardware to enable technology insertion independently at either the software or hardware layer.

Dynamic Weather Routes Architecture Overview

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Eslami, Hassan; Eshow, Michelle

2014-01-01

Dynamic Weather Routes Architecture Overview, presents the high level software architecture of DWR, based on the CTAS software framework and the Direct-To automation tool. The document also covers external and internal data flows, required dataset, changes to the Direct-To software for DWR, collection of software statistics, and the code structure.

The Evolution of Software and Its Impact on Complex System Design in Robotic Spacecraft Embedded Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Butler, Roy

2013-01-01

The growth in computer hardware performance, coupled with reduced energy requirements, has led to a rapid expansion of the resources available to software systems, driving them towards greater logical abstraction, flexibility, and complexity. This shift in focus from compacting functionality into a limited field towards developing layered, multi-state architectures in a grand field has both driven and been driven by the history of embedded processor design in the robotic spacecraft industry.The combinatorial growth of interprocess conditions is accompanied by benefits (concurrent development, situational autonomy, and evolution of goals) and drawbacks (late integration, non-deterministic interactions, and multifaceted anomalies) in achieving mission success, as illustrated by the case of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Approaches to optimizing the benefits while mitigating the drawbacks have taken the form of the formalization of requirements, modular design practices, extensive system simulation, and spacecraft data trend analysis. The growth of hardware capability and software complexity can be expected to continue, with future directions including stackable commodity subsystems, computer-generated algorithms, runtime reconfigurable processors, and greater autonomy.

SOA: A Quality Attribute Perspective

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-06-23

in software engineering from CMU. 6June 2011 Twitter #seiwebinar © 2011 Carnegie Mellon University Agenda Service -Oriented Architecture and... Software Architecture: Review Service -Orientation and Quality Attributes Summary and Future Challenges 7June 2011 Twitter #seiwebinar © 2011...Architecture and Software Architecture: Review Service -Orientation and Quality Attributes Summary and Future Challenges Review 10June 2011 Twitter

Quality Attributes for Mission Flight Software: A Reference for Architects

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wilmot, Jonathan; Fesq, Lorraine; Dvorak, Dan

2016-01-01

In the international standards for architecture descriptions in systems and software engineering (ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010), "concern" is a primary concept that often manifests itself in relation to the quality attributes or "ilities" that a system is expected to exhibit - qualities such as reliability, security and modifiability. One of the main uses of an architecture description is to serve as a basis for analyzing how well the architecture achieves its quality attributes, and that requires architects to be as precise as possible about what they mean in claiming, for example, that an architecture supports "modifiability." This paper describes a table, generated by NASA's Software Architecture Review Board, which lists fourteen key quality attributes, identifies different important aspects of each quality attribute and considers each aspect in terms of requirements, rationale, evidence, and tactics to achieve the aspect. This quality attribute table is intended to serve as a guide to software architects, software developers, and software architecture reviewers in the domain of mission-critical real-time embedded systems, such as space mission flight software.

Software Defined Radio Standard Architecture and its Application to NASA Space Missions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Andro, Monty; Reinhart, Richard C.

2006-01-01

A software defined radio (SDR) architecture used in space-based platforms proposes to standardize certain aspects of radio development such as interface definitions, functional control and execution, and application software and firmware development. NASA has charted a team to develop an open software defined radio hardware and software architecture to support NASA missions and determine the viability of an Agency-wide Standard. A draft concept of the proposed standard has been released and discussed among organizations in the SDR community. Appropriate leveraging of the JTRS SCA, OMG's SWRadio Architecture and other aspects are considered. A standard radio architecture offers potential value by employing common waveform software instantiation, operation, testing and software maintenance. While software defined radios offer greater flexibility, they also poses challenges to the radio development for the space environment in terms of size, mass and power consumption and available technology. An SDR architecture for space must recognize and address the constraints of space flight hardware, and systems along with flight heritage and culture. NASA is actively participating in the development of technology and standards related to software defined radios. As NASA considers a standard radio architecture for space communications, input and coordination from government agencies, the industry, academia, and standards bodies is key to a successful architecture. The unique aspects of space require thorough investigation of relevant terrestrial technologies properly adapted to space. The talk will describe NASA's current effort to investigate SDR applications to space missions and a brief overview of a candidate architecture under consideration for space based platforms.

[Interview Questions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Smith, Dan

2007-01-01

The Goddard Mission Services Evolution Center, or GMSEC, was started in 2001 to create a new standard approach for managing GSFC missions. Standardized approaches in the past involved selecting and then integrating the most appropriate set of functional tools. Assumptions were made that "one size fits all" and that tool changes would not be necessary for many years. GMSEC took a very different approach and has proven to be very successful. The core of the GMSEC architecture consists of a publish/subscribe message bus, standardized message formats, and an Applications Programming Interface (API). The API supports multiple operating systems, programming languages and messaging middleware products. We use a GMSEC-developed free middleware for low-cost development. A high capacity, robust middleware is used for operations and a messaging system with a very small memory footprint is used for on-board flight software. Software components can use the standard message formats or develop adapters to convert from their native formats to the GMSEC formats. We do not want vendors to modify their core products. Over 50 software components are now available for use with the GMSEC architecture. Most available commercial telemetry and command systems, including the GMV hifly Satellite Control System, have been adapted to run in the GMSEC labs.

Space Telecommunications Radio Architecture (STRS)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Reinhart, Richard C.

2006-01-01

A software defined radio (SDR) architecture used in space-based platforms proposes to standardize certain aspects of radio development such as interface definitions, functional control and execution, and application software and firmware development. NASA has charted a team to develop an open software defined radio hardware and software architecture to support NASA missions and determine the viability of an Agency-wide Standard. A draft concept of the proposed standard has been released and discussed among organizations in the SDR community. Appropriate leveraging of the JTRS SCA, OMG's SWRadio Architecture and other aspects are considered. A standard radio architecture offers potential value by employing common waveform software instantiation, operation, testing and software maintenance. While software defined radios offer greater flexibility, they also poses challenges to the radio development for the space environment in terms of size, mass and power consumption and available technology. An SDR architecture for space must recognize and address the constraints of space flight hardware, and systems along with flight heritage and culture. NASA is actively participating in the development of technology and standards related to software defined radios. As NASA considers a standard radio architecture for space communications, input and coordination from government agencies, the industry, academia, and standards bodies is key to a successful architecture. The unique aspects of space require thorough investigation of relevant terrestrial technologies properly adapted to space. The talk will describe NASA s current effort to investigate SDR applications to space missions and a brief overview of a candidate architecture under consideration for space based platforms.

Space Telecommunications Radio Architecture (STRS): Technical Overview

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Reinhart, Richard C.

2006-01-01

A software defined radio (SDR) architecture used in space-based platforms proposes to standardize certain aspects of radio development such as interface definitions, functional control and execution, and application software and firmware development. NASA has charted a team to develop an open software defined radio hardware and software architecture to support NASA missions and determine the viability of an Agency-wide Standard. A draft concept of the proposed standard has been released and discussed among organizations in the SDR community. Appropriate leveraging of the JTRS SCA, OMG s SWRadio Architecture and other aspects are considered. A standard radio architecture offers potential value by employing common waveform software instantiation, operation, testing and software maintenance. While software defined radios offer greater flexibility, they also poses challenges to the radio development for the space environment in terms of size, mass and power consumption and available technology. An SDR architecture for space must recognize and address the constraints of space flight hardware, and systems along with flight heritage and culture. NASA is actively participating in the development of technology and standards related to software defined radios. As NASA considers a standard radio architecture for space communications, input and coordination from government agencies, the industry, academia, and standards bodies is key to a successful architecture. The unique aspects of space require thorough investigation of relevant terrestrial technologies properly adapted to space. The talk will describe NASA's current effort to investigate SDR applications to space missions and a brief overview of a candidate architecture under consideration for space based platforms.

Compositional Specification of Software Architecture

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Penix, John; Lau, Sonie (Technical Monitor)

1998-01-01

This paper describes our experience using parameterized algebraic specifications to model properties of software architectures. The goal is to model the decomposition of requirements independent of the style used to implement the architecture. We begin by providing an overview of the role of architecture specification in software development. We then describe how architecture specifications are build up from component and connector specifications and give an overview of insights gained from a case study used to validate the method.

Deep Space Network information system architecture study

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Beswick, C. A.; Markley, R. W. (Editor); Atkinson, D. J.; Cooper, L. P.; Tausworthe, R. C.; Masline, R. C.; Jenkins, J. S.; Crowe, R. A.; Thomas, J. L.; Stoloff, M. J.

1992-01-01

The purpose of this article is to describe an architecture for the DSN information system in the years 2000-2010 and to provide guidelines for its evolution during the 1990's. The study scope is defined to be from the front-end areas at the antennas to the end users (spacecraft teams, principal investigators, archival storage systems, and non-NASA partners). The architectural vision provides guidance for major DSN implementation efforts during the next decade. A strong motivation for the study is an expected dramatic improvement in information-systems technologies--i.e., computer processing, automation technology (including knowledge-based systems), networking and data transport, software and hardware engineering, and human-interface technology. The proposed Ground Information System has the following major features: unified architecture from the front-end area to the end user; open-systems standards to achieve interoperability; DSN production of level 0 data; delivery of level 0 data from the Deep Space Communications Complex, if desired; dedicated telemetry processors for each receiver; security against unauthorized access and errors; and highly automated monitor and control.

Study of a unified hardware and software fault-tolerant architecture

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lala, Jaynarayan; Alger, Linda; Friend, Steven; Greeley, Gregory; Sacco, Stephen; Adams, Stuart

1989-01-01

A unified architectural concept, called the Fault Tolerant Processor Attached Processor (FTP-AP), that can tolerate hardware as well as software faults is proposed for applications requiring ultrareliable computation capability. An emulation of the FTP-AP architecture, consisting of a breadboard Motorola 68010-based quadruply redundant Fault Tolerant Processor, four VAX 750s as attached processors, and four versions of a transport aircraft yaw damper control law, is used as a testbed in the AIRLAB to examine a number of critical issues. Solutions of several basic problems associated with N-Version software are proposed and implemented on the testbed. This includes a confidence voter to resolve coincident errors in N-Version software. A reliability model of N-Version software that is based upon the recent understanding of software failure mechanisms is also developed. The basic FTP-AP architectural concept appears suitable for hosting N-Version application software while at the same time tolerating hardware failures. Architectural enhancements for greater efficiency, software reliability modeling, and N-Version issues that merit further research are identified.

An Architecture, System Engineering, and Acquisition Approach for Space System Software Resiliency

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Phillips, Dewanne Marie

Software intensive space systems can harbor defects and vulnerabilities that may enable external adversaries or malicious insiders to disrupt or disable system functions, risking mission compromise or loss. Mitigating this risk demands a sustained focus on the security and resiliency of the system architecture including software, hardware, and other components. Robust software engineering practices contribute to the foundation of a resilient system so that the system "can take a hit to a critical component and recover in a known, bounded, and generally acceptable period of time". Software resiliency must be a priority and addressed early in the life cycle development to contribute a secure and dependable space system. Those who develop, implement, and operate software intensive space systems must determine the factors and systems engineering practices to address when investing in software resiliency. This dissertation offers methodical approaches for improving space system resiliency through software architecture design, system engineering, increased software security, thereby reducing the risk of latent software defects and vulnerabilities. By providing greater attention to the early life cycle phases of development, we can alter the engineering process to help detect, eliminate, and avoid vulnerabilities before space systems are delivered. To achieve this objective, this dissertation will identify knowledge, techniques, and tools that engineers and managers can utilize to help them recognize how vulnerabilities are produced and discovered so that they can learn to circumvent them in future efforts. We conducted a systematic review of existing architectural practices, standards, security and coding practices, various threats, defects, and vulnerabilities that impact space systems from hundreds of relevant publications and interviews of subject matter experts. We expanded on the system-level body of knowledge for resiliency and identified a new software architecture framework and acquisition methodology to improve the resiliency of space systems from a software perspective with an emphasis on the early phases of the systems engineering life cycle. This methodology involves seven steps: 1) Define technical resiliency requirements, 1a) Identify standards/policy for software resiliency, 2) Develop a request for proposal (RFP)/statement of work (SOW) for resilient space systems software, 3) Define software resiliency goals for space systems, 4) Establish software resiliency quality attributes, 5) Perform architectural tradeoffs and identify risks, 6) Conduct architecture assessments as part of the procurement process, and 7) Ascertain space system software architecture resiliency metrics. Data illustrates that software vulnerabilities can lead to opportunities for malicious cyber activities, which could degrade the space mission capability for the user community. Reducing the number of vulnerabilities by improving architecture and software system engineering practices can contribute to making space systems more resilient. Since cyber-attacks are enabled by shortfalls in software, robust software engineering practices and an architectural design are foundational to resiliency, which is a quality that allows the system to "take a hit to a critical component and recover in a known, bounded, and generally acceptable period of time". To achieve software resiliency for space systems, acquirers and suppliers must identify relevant factors and systems engineering practices to apply across the lifecycle, in software requirements analysis, architecture development, design, implementation, verification and validation, and maintenance phases.

Study of application of space telescope science operations software for SIRTF use

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dignam, F.; Stetson, E.; Allendoerfer, W.

1985-01-01

The design and development of the Space Telescope Science Operations Ground System (ST SOGS) was evaluated to compile a history of lessons learned that would benefit NASA's Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF). Forty-nine specific recommendations resulted and were categorized as follows: (1) requirements: a discussion of the content, timeliness and proper allocation of the system and segment requirements and the resulting impact on SOGS development; (2) science instruments: a consideration of the impact of the Science Instrument design and data streams on SOGS software; and (3) contract phasing: an analysis of the impact of beginning the various ST program segments at different times. Approximately half of the software design and source code might be useable for SIRTF. Transportability of this software requires, at minimum, a compatible DEC VAX-based architecture and VMS operating system, system support software similar to that developed for SOGS, and continued evolution of the SIRTF operations concept and requirements such that they remain compatible with ST SOGS operation.

The Importance of Architecture in DoD Software

DTIC Science & Technology

1991-07-01

01282 92 1 14 060 M91-35 The Importance of Architecture in DOD Software S ACCesion For- * DTIC "r,’L- .S Dr. Barry M. Horowitz July 1991 D;.t ibto...resource utilization: architecture determines how the system sustains , 06 operations when parts of the system fail. The architecture also determines...software maintainers to ensure that we deliver to them whatever is necessary for them Medium to sustain and use the architecture . Fault Rate 37% Getting

Flying the ST-5 Constellation with "Plug and Play" Autonomy Components and the GMSEC Bus

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shendock, Bob; Witt, Ken; Stanley, Jason; Mandl, Dan; Coyle, Steve

2006-01-01

The Space Technology 5 (ST5) Project, part of NASA's New Millennium Program, will consist of a constellation of three micro-satellites. This viewgraph document presents the components that will allow it to operate in an autonomous mode. The ST-5 constellation will use the GSFC Mission Services Evolution Center (GMSEC) architecture to enable cost effective model based operations. The ST-5 mission will demonstrate several principles of self managing software components.

NASA's SDR Standard: Space Telecommunications Radio System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Reinhart, Richard C.; Johnson, Sandra K.

2007-01-01

A software defined radio (SDR) architecture used in space-based platforms proposes to standardize certain aspects of radio development such as interface definitions, functional control and execution, and application software and firmware development. NASA has charted a team to develop an open software defined radio hardware and software architecture to support NASA missions and determine the viability of an Agency-wide Standard. A draft concept of the proposed standard has been released and discussed among organizations in the SDR community. Appropriate leveraging of the JTRS SCA, OMG s SWRadio Architecture and other aspects are considered. A standard radio architecture offers potential value by employing common waveform software instantiation, operation, testing and software maintenance. While software defined radios offer greater flexibility, they also poses challenges to the radio development for the space environment in terms of size, mass and power consumption and available technology. An SDR architecture for space must recognize and address the constraints of space flight hardware, and systems along with flight heritage and culture. NASA is actively participating in the development of technology and standards related to software defined radios. As NASA considers a standard radio architecture for space communications, input and coordination from government agencies, the industry, academia, and standards bodies is key to a successful architecture. The unique aspects of space require thorough investigation of relevant terrestrial technologies properly adapted to space. The talk will describe NASA s current effort to investigate SDR applications to space missions and a brief overview of a candidate architecture under consideration for space based platforms.

Architecture independent environment for developing engineering software on MIMD computers

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Valimohamed, Karim A.; Lopez, L. A.

1990-01-01

Engineers are constantly faced with solving problems of increasing complexity and detail. Multiple Instruction stream Multiple Data stream (MIMD) computers have been developed to overcome the performance limitations of serial computers. The hardware architectures of MIMD computers vary considerably and are much more sophisticated than serial computers. Developing large scale software for a variety of MIMD computers is difficult and expensive. There is a need to provide tools that facilitate programming these machines. First, the issues that must be considered to develop those tools are examined. The two main areas of concern were architecture independence and data management. Architecture independent software facilitates software portability and improves the longevity and utility of the software product. It provides some form of insurance for the investment of time and effort that goes into developing the software. The management of data is a crucial aspect of solving large engineering problems. It must be considered in light of the new hardware organizations that are available. Second, the functional design and implementation of a software environment that facilitates developing architecture independent software for large engineering applications are described. The topics of discussion include: a description of the model that supports the development of architecture independent software; identifying and exploiting concurrency within the application program; data coherence; engineering data base and memory management.

Engineering intelligent tutoring systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Warren, Kimberly C.; Goodman, Bradley A.

1993-01-01

We have defined an object-oriented software architecture for Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS's) to facilitate the rapid development, testing, and fielding of ITS's. This software architecture partitions the functionality of the ITS into a collection of software components with well-defined interfaces and execution concept. The architecture was designed to isolate advanced technology components, partition domain dependencies, take advantage of the increased availability of commercial software packages, and reduce the risks involved in acquiring ITS's. A key component of the architecture, the Executive, is a publish and subscribe message handling component that coordinates all communication between ITS components.

Software architecture and engineering for patient records: current and future.

PubMed

Weng, Chunhua; Levine, Betty A; Mun, Seong K

2009-05-01

During the "The National Forum on the Future of the Defense Health Information System," a track focusing on "Systems Architecture and Software Engineering" included eight presenters. These presenters identified three key areas of interest in this field, which include the need for open enterprise architecture and a federated database design, net centrality based on service-oriented architecture, and the need for focus on software usability and reusability. The eight panelists provided recommendations related to the suitability of service-oriented architecture and the enabling technologies of grid computing and Web 2.0 for building health services research centers and federated data warehouses to facilitate large-scale collaborative health care and research. Finally, they discussed the need to leverage industry best practices for software engineering to facilitate rapid software development, testing, and deployment.

Reliability Engineering for Service Oriented Architectures

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-02-01

Common Object Request Broker Architecture Ecosystem In software , an ecosystem is a set of applications and/or services that grad- ually build up over time...Enterprise Service Bus Foreign In an SOA context: Any SOA, service or software which the owners of the calling software do not have control of, either...SOA Service Oriented Architecture SRE Software Reliability Engineering System Mode Many systems exhibit different modes of operation. E.g. the cockpit

Plug-In Tutor Agents: Still Pluggin'

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ritter, Steven

2016-01-01

"An Architecture for Plug-in Tutor Agents" (Ritter and Koedinger 1996) proposed a software architecture designed around the idea that tutors could be built as plug-ins for existing software applications. Looking back on the paper now, we can see that certain assumptions about the future of software architecture did not come to be, making…

Software architecture standard for simulation virtual machine, version 2.0

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sturtevant, Robert; Wessale, William

1994-01-01

The Simulation Virtual Machine (SBM) is an Ada architecture which eases the effort involved in the real-time software maintenance and sustaining engineering. The Software Architecture Standard defines the infrastructure which all the simulation models are built from. SVM was developed for and used in the Space Station Verification and Training Facility.

Enhancing Architecture-Implementation Conformance with Change Management and Support for Behavioral Mapping

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zheng, Yongjie

2012-01-01

Software architecture plays an increasingly important role in complex software development. Its further application, however, is challenged by the fact that software architecture, over time, is often found not conformant to its implementation. This is usually caused by frequent development changes made to both artifacts. Against this background,…

ModSAF Software Architecture Design and Overview Document

DTIC Science & Technology

1993-12-20

ADVANCED DISTRIBUTED SIMULATIONTECHNOLOGY AD-A282 740 ModSAF SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE DESIGN AND OVERVIEW DOCUMENT Ver 1.0 - 20 December 1993 D T...AND SUBTITLE 5. FUNDING NUMBERS MOdSAF SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE DESIGN AND OVERVIEW DOCUMENT C N61339-91-D-O00, Delivery Order (0021), ModSAF (CDRL A004) 6

MISSION: Mission and Safety Critical Support Environment. Executive overview

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mckay, Charles; Atkinson, Colin

1992-01-01

For mission and safety critical systems it is necessary to: improve definition, evolution and sustenance techniques; lower development and maintenance costs; support safe, timely and affordable system modifications; and support fault tolerance and survivability. The goal of the MISSION project is to lay the foundation for a new generation of integrated systems software providing a unified infrastructure for mission and safety critical applications and systems. This will involve the definition of a common, modular target architecture and a supporting infrastructure.

Technical Reference Suite Addressing Challenges of Providing Assurance for Fault Management Architectural Design

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Fitz, Rhonda; Whitman, Gerek

2016-01-01

Research into complexities of software systems Fault Management (FM) and how architectural design decisions affect safety, preservation of assets, and maintenance of desired system functionality has coalesced into a technical reference (TR) suite that advances the provision of safety and mission assurance. The NASA Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) Program, with Software Assurance Research Program support, extracted FM architectures across the IV&V portfolio to evaluate robustness, assess visibility for validation and test, and define software assurance methods applied to the architectures and designs. This investigation spanned IV&V projects with seven different primary developers, a wide range of sizes and complexities, and encompassed Deep Space Robotic, Human Spaceflight, and Earth Orbiter mission FM architectures. The initiative continues with an expansion of the TR suite to include Launch Vehicles, adding the benefit of investigating differences intrinsic to model-based FM architectures and insight into complexities of FM within an Agile software development environment, in order to improve awareness of how nontraditional processes affect FM architectural design and system health management. The identification of particular FM architectures, visibility, and associated IV&V techniques provides a TR suite that enables greater assurance that critical software systems will adequately protect against faults and respond to adverse conditions. Additionally, the role FM has with regard to strengthened security requirements, with potential to advance overall asset protection of flight software systems, is being addressed with the development of an adverse conditions database encompassing flight software vulnerabilities. Capitalizing on the established framework, this TR suite provides assurance capability for a variety of FM architectures and varied development approaches. Research results are being disseminated across NASA, other agencies, and the software community. This paper discusses the findings and TR suite informing the FM domain in best practices for FM architectural design, visibility observations, and methods employed for IV&V and mission assurance.

Comparing genomes to computer operating systems in terms of the topology and evolution of their regulatory control networks

PubMed Central

Yan, Koon-Kiu; Fang, Gang; Bhardwaj, Nitin; Alexander, Roger P.; Gerstein, Mark

2010-01-01

The genome has often been called the operating system (OS) for a living organism. A computer OS is described by a regulatory control network termed the call graph, which is analogous to the transcriptional regulatory network in a cell. To apply our firsthand knowledge of the architecture of software systems to understand cellular design principles, we present a comparison between the transcriptional regulatory network of a well-studied bacterium (Escherichia coli) and the call graph of a canonical OS (Linux) in terms of topology and evolution. We show that both networks have a fundamentally hierarchical layout, but there is a key difference: The transcriptional regulatory network possesses a few global regulators at the top and many targets at the bottom; conversely, the call graph has many regulators controlling a small set of generic functions. This top-heavy organization leads to highly overlapping functional modules in the call graph, in contrast to the relatively independent modules in the regulatory network. We further develop a way to measure evolutionary rates comparably between the two networks and explain this difference in terms of network evolution. The process of biological evolution via random mutation and subsequent selection tightly constrains the evolution of regulatory network hubs. The call graph, however, exhibits rapid evolution of its highly connected generic components, made possible by designers’ continual fine-tuning. These findings stem from the design principles of the two systems: robustness for biological systems and cost effectiveness (reuse) for software systems. PMID:20439753

Comparing genomes to computer operating systems in terms of the topology and evolution of their regulatory control networks.

PubMed

Yan, Koon-Kiu; Fang, Gang; Bhardwaj, Nitin; Alexander, Roger P; Gerstein, Mark

2010-05-18

The genome has often been called the operating system (OS) for a living organism. A computer OS is described by a regulatory control network termed the call graph, which is analogous to the transcriptional regulatory network in a cell. To apply our firsthand knowledge of the architecture of software systems to understand cellular design principles, we present a comparison between the transcriptional regulatory network of a well-studied bacterium (Escherichia coli) and the call graph of a canonical OS (Linux) in terms of topology and evolution. We show that both networks have a fundamentally hierarchical layout, but there is a key difference: The transcriptional regulatory network possesses a few global regulators at the top and many targets at the bottom; conversely, the call graph has many regulators controlling a small set of generic functions. This top-heavy organization leads to highly overlapping functional modules in the call graph, in contrast to the relatively independent modules in the regulatory network. We further develop a way to measure evolutionary rates comparably between the two networks and explain this difference in terms of network evolution. The process of biological evolution via random mutation and subsequent selection tightly constrains the evolution of regulatory network hubs. The call graph, however, exhibits rapid evolution of its highly connected generic components, made possible by designers' continual fine-tuning. These findings stem from the design principles of the two systems: robustness for biological systems and cost effectiveness (reuse) for software systems.

Lessons learned in creating spacecraft computer systems: Implications for using Ada (R) for the space station

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Tomayko, James E.

1986-01-01

Twenty-five years of spacecraft onboard computer development have resulted in a better understanding of the requirements for effective, efficient, and fault tolerant flight computer systems. Lessons from eight flight programs (Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, Shuttle, Mariner, Voyager, and Galileo) and three reserach programs (digital fly-by-wire, STAR, and the Unified Data System) are useful in projecting the computer hardware configuration of the Space Station and the ways in which the Ada programming language will enhance the development of the necessary software. The evolution of hardware technology, fault protection methods, and software architectures used in space flight in order to provide insight into the pending development of such items for the Space Station are reviewed.

influx_s: increasing numerical stability and precision for metabolic flux analysis in isotope labelling experiments.

PubMed

Sokol, Serguei; Millard, Pierre; Portais, Jean-Charles

2012-03-01

The problem of stationary metabolic flux analysis based on isotope labelling experiments first appeared in the early 1950s and was basically solved in early 2000s. Several algorithms and software packages are available for this problem. However, the generic stochastic algorithms (simulated annealing or evolution algorithms) currently used in these software require a lot of time to achieve acceptable precision. For deterministic algorithms, a common drawback is the lack of convergence stability for ill-conditioned systems or when started from a random point. In this article, we present a new deterministic algorithm with significantly increased numerical stability and accuracy of flux estimation compared with commonly used algorithms. It requires relatively short CPU time (from several seconds to several minutes with a standard PC architecture) to estimate fluxes in the central carbon metabolism network of Escherichia coli. The software package influx_s implementing this algorithm is distributed under an OpenSource licence at http://metasys.insa-toulouse.fr/software/influx/. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Deep Space Network information system architecture study

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Beswick, C. A.; Markley, R. W. (Editor); Atkinson, D. J.; Cooper, L. P.; Tausworthe, R. C.; Masline, R. C.; Jenkins, J. S.; Crowe, R. A.; Thomas, J. L.; Stoloff, M. J.

1992-01-01

The purpose of this article is to describe an architecture for the Deep Space Network (DSN) information system in the years 2000-2010 and to provide guidelines for its evolution during the 1990s. The study scope is defined to be from the front-end areas at the antennas to the end users (spacecraft teams, principal investigators, archival storage systems, and non-NASA partners). The architectural vision provides guidance for major DSN implementation efforts during the next decade. A strong motivation for the study is an expected dramatic improvement in information-systems technologies, such as the following: computer processing, automation technology (including knowledge-based systems), networking and data transport, software and hardware engineering, and human-interface technology. The proposed Ground Information System has the following major features: unified architecture from the front-end area to the end user; open-systems standards to achieve interoperability; DSN production of level 0 data; delivery of level 0 data from the Deep Space Communications Complex, if desired; dedicated telemetry processors for each receiver; security against unauthorized access and errors; and highly automated monitor and control.

Technical Reference Suite Addressing Challenges of Providing Assurance for Fault Management Architectural Design

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Fitz, Rhonda; Whitman, Gerek

2016-01-01

Research into complexities of software systems Fault Management (FM) and how architectural design decisions affect safety, preservation of assets, and maintenance of desired system functionality has coalesced into a technical reference (TR) suite that advances the provision of safety and mission assurance. The NASA Independent Verification and Validation (IVV) Program, with Software Assurance Research Program support, extracted FM architectures across the IVV portfolio to evaluate robustness, assess visibility for validation and test, and define software assurance methods applied to the architectures and designs. This investigation spanned IVV projects with seven different primary developers, a wide range of sizes and complexities, and encompassed Deep Space Robotic, Human Spaceflight, and Earth Orbiter mission FM architectures. The initiative continues with an expansion of the TR suite to include Launch Vehicles, adding the benefit of investigating differences intrinsic to model-based FM architectures and insight into complexities of FM within an Agile software development environment, in order to improve awareness of how nontraditional processes affect FM architectural design and system health management.

Advanced information processing system: Input/output network management software

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Nagle, Gail; Alger, Linda; Kemp, Alexander

1988-01-01

The purpose of this document is to provide the software requirements and specifications for the Input/Output Network Management Services for the Advanced Information Processing System. This introduction and overview section is provided to briefly outline the overall architecture and software requirements of the AIPS system before discussing the details of the design requirements and specifications of the AIPS I/O Network Management software. A brief overview of the AIPS architecture followed by a more detailed description of the network architecture.

The Evolution of the DARWIN System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Walton, Joan D.; Filman, Robert E.; Korsmeyer, David J.; Norvig, Peter (Technical Monitor)

1999-01-01

DARWIN is a web-based system for presenting the results of wind-tunnel testing and computational model analyses to aerospace designers. DARWIN captures the data, maintains the information, and manages derived knowledge (e.g. visualizations, etc.) of large quantities of aerospace data. In addition, it provides tools and an environment for distributed collaborative engineering. We are currently constructing the third version of the DARWIN software system. DARWN's development history has, in some sense, tracked the development of web applications. The 1995 DARWIN reflected the latest web technologies--CGI scripts, Java applets and a three-layer architecture--available at that time. The 1997 version of DARWIN expanded on this base, making extensive use of a plethora of web technologies, including Java/JavaScript and Dynamic HTML. While more powerful, this multiplicity has proven to be a maintenance and development headache. The year 2000 version of DARWIN will provide a more stable and uniform foundation environment, composed primarily of Java mechanisms. In this paper, we discuss this evolution, comparing the strengths and weaknesses of the various architectural approaches and describing the lessons learned about building complex web applications.

ESPC Common Model Architecture

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-09-30

1 DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A. Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. ESPC Common Model Architecture Earth System Modeling...Operational Prediction Capability (NUOPC) was established between NOAA and Navy to develop common software architecture for easy and efficient...development under a common model architecture and other software-related standards in this project. OBJECTIVES NUOPC proposes to accelerate

Multimedia courseware in an open-systems environment: a DoD strategy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Welsch, Lawrence A.

1991-03-01

The federal government is about to invest billions of dollars to develop multimedia training materials for delivery on computer-based interactive training systems. Acquisition of a variety of computers and peripheral devices hosting various operating systems and suites of authoring system software will be necessary to facilitate the development of this courseware. There is no single source that will satisfy all needs. Although high-performance, low-cost interactive training hardware is available, the products have proprietary software interfaces. Because the interfaces are proprietary, expensive reprogramming is usually required to adapt such software products to other platforms. This costly reprogramming could be eliminated by adopting standard software interfaces. DoD's Portable Courseware Project (PORTCO) is typical of projects worldwide that require standard software interfaces. This paper articulates the strategy whereby PORTCO leverages the open systems movement and the new realities of information technology. These realities encompass changes in the pace at which new technology becomes available, changes in organizational goals and philosophy, new roles of vendors and users, changes in the procurement process, and acceleration toward open system environments. The PORTCO strategy is applicable to all projects and systems that require open systems to achieve mission objectives. The federal goal is to facilitate the creation of an environment in which high quality portable courseware is available as commercial off-the-shelf products and is competitively supplied by a variety of vendors. In order to achieve this goal a system architecture incorporating standards to meet the users' needs must be established. The Request for Architecture (RFA) developed cooperatively by DoD and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will generate the PORTCO systems architecture. This architecture must freely integrate the courseware and authoring software from the lower levels of machine architecture and systems service implementation. In addition, the systems architecture will establish how the application-specific technologies relate to other technologies. Further, a computer-based interactive training applications profile must be developed. This profile, along with the systems architecture derived as a result of the RFA, provides the basis for identifying the needed standards. NIST will then accelerate the development of these standards using, but not restricted to, existing standards activities within established standards forums. The federal multimedia courseware effort has adopted the Interactive Multimedia Association (INA) Recommended Practices for Interactive Video Portability as the baseline for the migration of computer-based interactive training systems to an open systems environment based upon international standards. The PORTCO strategy includes an evolutionary migration to a standards-based, Open System Environments (OSE). An important aspect of this migration strategy is to move to open systems via stepwise evolution rather than via quantum leaps. Another area of concern is that of infrastructure issues, such as maintaining and supporting the technologies required for computer-based interactive training. The federal multimedia initiative will use the RFA-based architecture to differentiate between those technologies that can be maintained and supported by existing infrastructure mechanisms and those that require new mechanisms. Existing infrastructure mechanisms will be used and where infrastructure mechanisms do not exist, the approach will be to place high priority on establishing the appropriate mechanisms. Establishing an infrastructure mechanism is a nontrivial task requiring sustained investment of resources.

Software synthesis using generic architectures

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bhansali, Sanjay

1993-01-01

A framework for synthesizing software systems based on abstracting software system designs and the design process is described. The result of such an abstraction process is a generic architecture and the process knowledge for customizing the architecture. The customization process knowledge is used to assist a designer in customizing the architecture as opposed to completely automating the design of systems. Our approach using an implemented example of a generic tracking architecture which was customized in two different domains is illustrated. How the designs produced using KASE compare to the original designs of the two systems, and current work and plans for extending KASE to other application areas are described.

Developing Enterprise Architectures to Address the Enterprise Dilemma of Deciding What Should Be Sustained versus What Should Be Changed

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Harrell, J. Michael

2011-01-01

Enterprise architecture is a relatively new concept that arose in the latter half of the twentieth century as a means of managing the information technology resources within the enterprise. Borrowing from the disciplines of brick and mortar architecture, software engineering, software architecture, and systems engineering, the enterprise…

Integrating Software-Architecture-Centric Methods into the Rational Unified Process

DTIC Science & Technology

2004-07-01

Architecture Design ...................................................................................... 19...QAW in a life- cycle context. One issue that needs to be addressed is how scenarios produced in a QAW can be used by a software architecture design method...implementation testing. 18 CMU/SEI-2004-TR-011 CMU/SEI-2004-TR-011 19 4 Architecture Design The Attribute-Driven Design (ADD) method

Architectural Analysis of Systems Based on the Publisher-Subscriber Style

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ganesun, Dharmalingam; Lindvall, Mikael; Ruley, Lamont; Wiegand, Robert; Ly, Vuong; Tsui, Tina

2010-01-01

Architectural styles impose constraints on both the topology and the interaction behavior of involved parties. In this paper, we propose an approach for analyzing implemented systems based on the publisher-subscriber architectural style. From the style definition, we derive a set of reusable questions and show that some of them can be answered statically whereas others are best answered using dynamic analysis. The paper explains how the results of static analysis can be used to orchestrate dynamic analysis. The proposed method was successfully applied on the NASA's Goddard Mission Services Evolution Center (GMSEC) software product line. The results show that the GMSEC has a) a novel reusable vendor-independent middleware abstraction layer that allows the NASA's missions to configure the middleware of interest without changing the publishers' or subscribers' source code, and b) some high priority bugs due to behavioral discrepancies, which were eluded during testing and code reviews, among different implementations of the same APIs for different vendors.

Executive control systems in the engineering design environment. M.S. Thesis

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hurst, P. W.

1985-01-01

An executive control system (ECS) is a software structure for unifying various applications codes into a comprehensive system. It provides a library of applications, a uniform access method through a cental user interface, and a data management facility. A survey of twenty-four executive control systems designed to unify various CAD/CAE applications for use in diverse engineering design environments within government and industry was conducted. The goals of this research were to establish system requirements to survey state-of-the-art architectural design approaches, and to provide an overview of the historical evolution of these systems. Foundations for design are presented and include environmental settings, system requirements, major architectural components, and a system classification scheme based on knowledge of the supported engineering domain(s). An overview of the design approaches used in developing the major architectural components of an ECS is presented with examples taken from the surveyed systems. Attention is drawn to four major areas of ECS development: interdisciplinary usage; standardization; knowledge utilization; and computer science technology transfer.

SCA Waveform Development for Space Telemetry

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mortensen, Dale J.; Kifle, Multi; Hall, C. Steve; Quinn, Todd M.

2004-01-01

The NASA Glenn Research Center is investigating and developing suitable reconfigurable radio architectures for future NASA missions. This effort is examining software-based open-architectures for space based transceivers, as well as common hardware platform architectures. The Joint Tactical Radio System's (JTRS) Software Communications Architecture (SCA) is a candidate for the software approach, but may need modifications or adaptations for use in space. An in-house SCA compliant waveform development focuses on increasing understanding of software defined radio architectures and more specifically the JTRS SCA. Space requirements put a premium on size, mass, and power. This waveform development effort is key to evaluating tradeoffs with the SCA for space applications. Existing NASA telemetry links, as well as Space Exploration Initiative scenarios, are the basis for defining the waveform requirements. Modeling and simulations are being developed to determine signal processing requirements associated with a waveform and a mission-specific computational burden. Implementation of the waveform on a laboratory software defined radio platform is proceeding in an iterative fashion. Parallel top-down and bottom-up design approaches are employed.

Software defined radio (SDR) architecture for concurrent multi-satellite communications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Maheshwarappa, Mamatha R.

SDRs have emerged as a viable approach for space communications over the last decade by delivering low-cost hardware and flexible software solutions. The flexibility introduced by the SDR concept not only allows the realisation of concurrent multiple standards on one platform, but also promises to ease the implementation of one communication standard on differing SDR platforms by signal porting. This technology would facilitate implementing reconfigurable nodes for parallel satellite reception in Mobile/Deployable Ground Segments and Distributed Satellite Systems (DSS) for amateur radio/university satellite operations. This work outlines the recent advances in embedded technologies that can enable new communication architectures for concurrent multi-satellite or satellite-to-ground missions where multi-link challenges are associated. This research proposes a novel concept to run advanced parallelised SDR back-end technologies in a Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) embedded system that can support multi-signal processing for multi-satellite scenarios simultaneously. The initial SDR implementation could support only one receiver chain due to system saturation. However, the design was optimised to facilitate multiple signals within the limited resources available on an embedded system at any given time. This was achieved by providing a VHDL solution to the existing Python and C/C++ programming languages along with parallelisation so as to accelerate performance whilst maintaining the flexibility. The improvement in the performance was validated at every stage through profiling. Various cases of concurrent multiple signals with different standards such as frequency (with Doppler effect) and symbol rates were simulated in order to validate the novel architecture proposed in this research. Also, the architecture allows the system to be reconfigurable by providing the opportunity to change the communication standards in soft real-time. The chosen COTS solution provides a generic software methodology for both ground and space applications that will remain unaltered despite new evolutions in hardware, and supports concurrent multi-standard, multi-channel and multi-rate telemetry signals.

Executable Behavioral Modeling of System and Software Architecture Specifications to Inform Resourcing Decisions

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-09-01

BEHAVIORAL MODELING OF SYSTEM- AND SOFTWARE- ARCHITECTURE SPECIFICATIONS TO INFORM RESOURCING DECISIONS by Monica F. Farah-Stapleton...AND SOFTWARE- ARCHITECTURE SPECIFICATIONS TO INFORM RESOURCING DECISIONS 5. FUNDING NUMBERS 6. AUTHOR(S) Monica F. Farah-Stapleton 7. PERFORMING...this thesis are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government. IRB number

Achieving Better Buying Power through Acquisition of Open Architecture Software Systems for Web and Mobile Devices

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-02-22

SPONSORED REPORT SERIES Achieving Better Buying Power through Acquisition of Open Architecture Software Systems for Web and Mobile Devices 22...ACQUISITION RESEARCH PROGRAM SPONSORED REPORT SERIES Achieving Better Buying Power through Acquisition of Open Architecture Software Systems for Web ...Policy Naval Postgraduate School Executive Summary Many people within large enterprises rely on up to four Web -based or mobile devices for their

Integrating MPI and deduplication engines: a software architecture roadmap.

PubMed

Baksi, Dibyendu

2009-03-01

The objective of this paper is to clarify the major concepts related to architecture and design of patient identity management software systems so that an implementor looking to solve a specific integration problem in the context of a Master Patient Index (MPI) and a deduplication engine can address the relevant issues. The ideas presented are illustrated in the context of a reference use case from Integrating the Health Enterprise Patient Identifier Cross-referencing (IHE PIX) profile. Sound software engineering principles using the latest design paradigm of model driven architecture (MDA) are applied to define different views of the architecture. The main contribution of the paper is a clear software architecture roadmap for implementors of patient identity management systems. Conceptual design in terms of static and dynamic views of the interfaces is provided as an example of platform independent model. This makes the roadmap applicable to any specific solutions of MPI, deduplication library or software platform. Stakeholders in need of integration of MPIs and deduplication engines can evaluate vendor specific solutions and software platform technologies in terms of fundamental concepts and can make informed decisions that preserve investment. This also allows freedom from vendor lock-in and the ability to kick-start integration efforts based on a solid architecture.

Technology Review of Multi-Agent Systems and Tools

DTIC Science & Technology

2005-06-01

over a network, including the Internet. A web services architecture is the logical evolution of object-oriented analysis and design coupled with...the logical evolution of components geared towards the architecture, design, implementation, and deployment of e-business solutions. As in object...querying. The Web Services architecture describes the principles behind the next generation of e- business architectures, presenting a logical evolution

The Need for Software Architecture Evaluation in the Acquisition of Software-Intensive Sysetms

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-01-01

Function and Performance Specification GIG Global Information Grid ISO International Standard Organisation MDA Model Driven Architecture...architecture and design, which is a key part of knowledge-based economy UNCLASSIFIED DSTO-TR-2936 UNCLASSIFIED 24  Allow Australian SMEs to

Transforming Aggregate Object-Oriented Formal Specifications to Code

DTIC Science & Technology

1999-03-01

integration issues associated with a formal-based software transformation system, such as the source specification, the problem space architecture , design architecture ... design transforms, and target software transforms. Software is critical in today’s Air Force, yet its specification, design, and development

An Open Avionics and Software Architecture to Support Future NASA Exploration Missions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Schlesinger, Adam

2017-01-01

The presentation describes an avionics and software architecture that has been developed through NASAs Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) division. The architecture is open-source, highly reliable with fault tolerance, and utilizes standard capabilities and interfaces, which are scalable and customizable to support future exploration missions. Specific focus areas of discussion will include command and data handling, software, human interfaces, communication and wireless systems, and systems engineering and integration.

The Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation Safeguards and Separations Reprocessing Plant Toolkit

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

McCaskey, Alex; Billings, Jay Jay; de Almeida, Valmor F

2011-08-01

This report details the progress made in the development of the Reprocessing Plant Toolkit (RPTk) for the DOE Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) program. RPTk is an ongoing development effort intended to provide users with an extensible, integrated, and scalable software framework for the modeling and simulation of spent nuclear fuel reprocessing plants by enabling the insertion and coupling of user-developed physicochemical modules of variable fidelity. The NEAMS Safeguards and Separations IPSC (SafeSeps) and the Enabling Computational Technologies (ECT) supporting program element have partnered to release an initial version of the RPTk with a focus on software usabilitymore » and utility. RPTk implements a data flow architecture that is the source of the system's extensibility and scalability. Data flows through physicochemical modules sequentially, with each module importing data, evolving it, and exporting the updated data to the next downstream module. This is accomplished through various architectural abstractions designed to give RPTk true plug-and-play capabilities. A simple application of this architecture, as well as RPTk data flow and evolution, is demonstrated in Section 6 with an application consisting of two coupled physicochemical modules. The remaining sections describe this ongoing work in full, from system vision and design inception to full implementation. Section 3 describes the relevant software development processes used by the RPTk development team. These processes allow the team to manage system complexity and ensure stakeholder satisfaction. This section also details the work done on the RPTk ``black box'' and ``white box'' models, with a special focus on the separation of concerns between the RPTk user interface and application runtime. Section 4 and 5 discuss that application runtime component in more detail, and describe the dependencies, behavior, and rigorous testing of its constituent components.« less

Using UML Modeling to Facilitate Three-Tier Architecture Projects in Software Engineering Courses

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mitra, Sandeep

2014-01-01

This article presents the use of a model-centric approach to facilitate software development projects conforming to the three-tier architecture in undergraduate software engineering courses. Many instructors intend that such projects create software applications for use by real-world customers. While it is important that the first version of these…

Issues in Defining Software Architectures in a GIS Environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Acosta, Jesus; Alvorado, Lori

1997-01-01

The primary mission of the Pan-American Center for Earth and Environmental Studies (PACES) is to advance the research areas that are relevant to NASA's Mission to Planet Earth program. One of the activities at PACES is the establishment of a repository for geographical, geological and environmental information that covers various regions of Mexico and the southwest region of the U.S. and that is acquired from NASA and other sources through remote sensing, ground studies or paper-based maps. The center will be providing access of this information to other government entities in the U.S. and Mexico, and research groups from universities, national laboratories and industry. Geographical Information Systems(GIS) provide the means to manage, manipulate, analyze and display geographically referenced information that will be managed by PACES. Excellent off-the-shelf software exists for a complete GIS as well as software for storing and managing spatial databases, processing images, networking and viewing maps with layered information. This allows the user flexibility in combining systems to create a GIS or to mix these software packages with custom-built application programs. Software architectural languages provide the ability to specify the computational components and interactions among these components, an important topic in the domain of GIS because of the need to integrate numerous software packages. This paper discusses the characteristics that architectural languages address with respect to the issues relating to the data that must be communicated between software systems and components when systems interact. The paper presents a background on GIS in section 2. Section 3 gives an overview of software architecture and architectural languages. Section 4 suggests issues that may be of concern when defining the software architecture of a GIS. The last section discusses the future research effort and finishes with a summary.

Modeling and Analysis of Space Based Transceivers

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Moore, Michael S.; Price, Jeremy C.; Reinhart, Richard; Liebetreu, John; Kacpura, Tom J.

2005-01-01

This paper presents the tool chain, methodology, and results of an on-going study being performed jointly by Space Communication Experts at NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC), General Dynamics C4 Systems (GD), and Southwest Research Institute (SwRI). The team is evaluating the applicability and tradeoffs concerning the use of Software Defined Radio (SDR) technologies for Space missions. The Space Telecommunications Radio Systems (STRS) project is developing an approach toward building SDR-based transceivers for space communications applications based on an accompanying software architecture that can be used to implement transceivers for NASA space missions. The study is assessing the overall cost and benefit of employing SDR technologies in general, and of developing a software architecture standard for its space SDR transceivers. The study is considering the cost and benefit of existing architectures, such as the Joint Tactical Radio Systems (JTRS) Software Communications Architecture (SCA), as well as potential new space-specific architectures.

Wireless Sensor Networks Approach

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Perotti, Jose M.

2003-01-01

This viewgraph presentation provides information on hardware and software configurations for a network architecture for sensors. The hardware configuration uses a central station and remote stations. The software configuration uses the 'lost station' software algorithm. The presentation profiles a couple current examples of this network architecture in use.

Space Telecommunications Radio System STRS Cognitive Radio

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Briones, Janette C.; Handler, Louis M.

2013-01-01

Radios today are evolving from awareness toward cognition. A software defined radio (SDR) provides the most capability for integrating autonomic decision making ability and allows the incremental evolution toward a cognitive radio. This cognitive radio technology will impact NASA space communications in areas such as spectrum utilization, interoperability, network operations, and radio resource management over a wide range of operating conditions. NASAs cognitive radio will build upon the infrastructure being developed by Space Telecommunication Radio System (STRS) SDR technology. This paper explores the feasibility of inserting cognitive capabilities in the NASA STRS architecture and the interfaces between the cognitive engine and the STRS radio. The STRS architecture defines methods that can inform the cognitive engine about the radio environment so that the cognitive engine can learn autonomously from experience, and take appropriate actions to adapt the radio operating characteristics and optimize performance.

Evaluating a Service-Oriented Architecture

DTIC Science & Technology

2007-09-01

See the description on page 13. SaaS Software as a service ( SaaS ) is a software delivery model where customers don’t own a copy of the application... serviceability REST Representational State Transfer RIA rich internet application RPC remote procedure call SaaS software as a service SAML Security...Evaluating a Service -Oriented Architecture Phil Bianco, Software Engineering Institute Rick Kotermanski, Summa Technologies Paulo Merson

Improved CLARAty Functional-Layer/Decision-Layer Interface

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Estlin, Tara; Rabideau, Gregg; Gaines, Daniel; Johnston, Mark; Chouinard, Caroline; Nessnas, Issa; Shu, I-Hsiang

2008-01-01

Improved interface software for communication between the CLARAty Decision and Functional layers has been developed. [The Coupled Layer Architecture for Robotics Autonomy (CLARAty) was described in Coupled-Layer Robotics Architecture for Autonomy (NPO-21218), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 26, No. 12 (December 2002), page 48. To recapitulate: the CLARAty architecture was developed to improve the modularity of robotic software while tightening coupling between planning/execution and basic control subsystems. Whereas prior robotic software architectures typically contained three layers, the CLARAty contains two layers: a decision layer (DL) and a functional layer (FL).] Types of communication supported by the present software include sending commands from DL modules to FL modules and sending data updates from FL modules to DL modules. The present software supplants prior interface software that had little error-checking capability, supported data parameters in string form only, supported commanding at only one level of the FL, and supported only limited updates of the state of the robot. The present software offers strong error checking, and supports complex data structures and commanding at multiple levels of the FL, and relative to the prior software, offers a much wider spectrum of state-update capabilities.

Evolution and advanced technology. [of Flight Telerobotic Servicer

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ollendorf, Stanford; Pennington, Jack E.; Hansen, Bert, III

1990-01-01

The NASREM architecture with its standard interfaces permits development and evolution of the Flight Telerobotic Servicer to greater autonomy. Technologies in control strategies for an arm with seven DOF, including a safety system containing skin sensors for obstacle avoidance, are being developed. Planning and robotic execution software includes symbolic task planning, world model data bases, and path planning algorithms. Research over the last five years has led to the development of laser scanning and ranging systems, which use coherent semiconductor laser diodes for short range sensing. The possibility of using a robot to autonomously assemble space structures is being investigated. A control framework compatible with NASREM is being developed that allows direct global control of the manipulator. Researchers are developing systems that permit an operator to quickly reconfigure the telerobot to do new tasks safely.

Software Management Environment (SME) concepts and architecture, revision 1

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hendrick, Robert; Kistler, David; Valett, Jon

1992-01-01

This document presents the concepts and architecture of the Software Management Environment (SME), developed for the Software Engineering Branch of the Flight Dynamic Division (FDD) of GSFC. The SME provides an integrated set of experience-based management tools that can assist software development managers in managing and planning flight dynamics software development projects. This document provides a high-level description of the types of information required to implement such an automated management tool.

A UML-based metamodel for software evolution process

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jiang, Zuo; Zhou, Wei-Hong; Fu, Zhi-Tao; Xiong, Shun-Qing

2014-04-01

A software evolution process is a set of interrelated software processes under which the corresponding software is evolving. An object-oriented software evolution process meta-model (OO-EPMM), abstract syntax and formal OCL constraint of meta-model are presented in this paper. OO-EPMM can not only represent software development process, but also represent software evolution.

FPA Depot - Web Application

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Avila, Edwin M. Martinez; Muniz, Ricardo; Szafran, Jamie; Dalton, Adam

2011-01-01

Lines of code (LOC) analysis is one of the methods used to measure programmer productivity and estimate schedules of programming projects. The Launch Control System (LCS) had previously used this method to estimate the amount of work and to plan development efforts. The disadvantage of using LOC as a measure of effort is that one can only measure 30% to 35% of the total effort of software projects involves coding [8]. In the application, instead of using the LOC we are using function point for a better estimation of hours in each software to develop. Because of these disadvantages, Jamie Szafran of the System Software Branch of Control And Data Systems (NE-C3) at Kennedy Space Canter developed a web application called Function Point Analysis (FPA) Depot. The objective of this web application is that the LCS software architecture team can use the data to more accurately estimate the effort required to implement customer requirements. This paper describes the evolution of the domain model used for function point analysis as project managers continually strive to generate more accurate estimates.

A new software-based architecture for quantum computer

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wu, Nan; Song, FangMin; Li, Xiangdong

2010-04-01

In this paper, we study a reliable architecture of a quantum computer and a new instruction set and machine language for the architecture, which can improve the performance and reduce the cost of the quantum computing. We also try to address some key issues in detail in the software-driven universal quantum computers.

Software Technology for Adaptable, Reliable Systems (STARS). Software Architecture Seminar Report: Central Archive for Reusable Defense Software (CARDS)

DTIC Science & Technology

1994-01-29

other processes, but that he arrived at his results in a different manner. Batory didn’t start with idioms; he performed a domain analysis and...abstracted idioms. Through domain analysis and domain modeling, new idioms can be found and the form of architecture can be the same. It was also questioned...Programming 5. Consensus Definition of Architecture 6. Inductive Analysis of Current Exemplars 7. VHDL (Bailor) 8. Ontological Structuring 3.3.3

Key Technologies of Phone Storage Forensics Based on ARM Architecture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Jianghan; Che, Shengbing

2018-03-01

Smart phones are mainly running Android, IOS and Windows Phone three mobile platform operating systems. The android smart phone has the best market shares and its processor chips are almost ARM software architecture. The chips memory address mapping mechanism of ARM software architecture is different with x86 software architecture. To forensics to android mart phone, we need to understand three key technologies: memory data acquisition, the conversion mechanism from virtual address to the physical address, and find the system’s key data. This article presents a viable solution which does not rely on the operating system API for a complete solution to these three issues.

Parallel Logic Programming and Parallel Systems Software and Hardware

DTIC Science & Technology

1989-07-29

Conference, Dallas TX. January 1985. (55) [Rous75] Roussel, P., "PROLOG: Manuel de Reference et d’Uilisation", Group d’ Intelligence Artificielle , Universite d...completed. Tools were provided for software development using artificial intelligence techniques. Al software for massively parallel architectures was...using artificial intelligence tech- niques. Al software for massively parallel architectures was started. 1. Introduction We describe research conducted

The Earthscope USArray Array Network Facility (ANF): Evolution of Data Acquisition, Processing, and Storage Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Davis, G. A.; Battistuz, B.; Foley, S.; Vernon, F. L.; Eakins, J. A.

2009-12-01

Since April 2004 the Earthscope USArray Transportable Array (TA) network has grown to over 400 broadband seismic stations that stream multi-channel data in near real-time to the Array Network Facility in San Diego. In total, over 1.7 terabytes per year of 24-bit, 40 samples-per-second seismic and state of health data is recorded from the stations. The ANF provides analysts access to real-time and archived data, as well as state-of-health data, metadata, and interactive tools for station engineers and the public via a website. Additional processing and recovery of missing data from on-site recorders (balers) at the stations is performed before the final data is transmitted to the IRIS Data Management Center (DMC). Assembly of the final data set requires additional storage and processing capabilities to combine the real-time data with baler data. The infrastructure supporting these diverse computational and storage needs currently consists of twelve virtualized Sun Solaris Zones executing on nine physical server systems. The servers are protected against failure by redundant power, storage, and networking connections. Storage needs are provided by a hybrid iSCSI and Fiber Channel Storage Area Network (SAN) with access to over 40 terabytes of RAID 5 and 6 storage. Processing tasks are assigned to systems based on parallelization and floating-point calculation needs. On-site buffering at the data-loggers provide protection in case of short-term network or hardware problems, while backup acquisition systems at the San Diego Supercomputer Center and the DMC protect against catastrophic failure of the primary site. Configuration management and monitoring of these systems is accomplished with open-source (Cfengine, Nagios, Solaris Community Software) and commercial tools (Intermapper). In the evolution from a single server to multiple virtualized server instances, Sun Cluster software was evaluated and found to be unstable in our environment. Shared filesystem architectures using PxFS and QFS were found to be incompatible with our software architecture, so sharing of data between systems is accomplished via traditional NFS. Linux was found to be limited in terms of deployment flexibility and consistency between versions. Despite the experimentation with various technologies, our current virtualized architecture is stable to the point of an average daily real time data return rate of 92.34% over the entire lifetime of the project to date.

Architectural Implementation of NASA Space Telecommunications Radio System Specification

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Peters, Kenneth J.; Lux, James P.; Lang, Minh; Duncan, Courtney B.

2012-01-01

This software demonstrates a working implementation of the NASA STRS (Space Telecommunications Radio System) architecture specification. This is a developing specification of software architecture and required interfaces to provide commonality among future NASA and commercial software-defined radios for space, and allow for easier mixing of software and hardware from different vendors. It provides required functions, and supports interaction with STRS-compliant simple test plug-ins ("waveforms"). All of it is programmed in "plain C," except where necessary to interact with C++ plug-ins. It offers a small footprint, suitable for use in JPL radio hardware. Future NASA work is expected to develop into fully capable software-defined radios for use on the space station, other space vehicles, and interplanetary probes.

Quantum Computing Architectural Design

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

West, Jacob; Simms, Geoffrey; Gyure, Mark

2006-03-01

Large scale quantum computers will invariably require scalable architectures in addition to high fidelity gate operations. Quantum computing architectural design (QCAD) addresses the problems of actually implementing fault-tolerant algorithms given physical and architectural constraints beyond those of basic gate-level fidelity. Here we introduce a unified framework for QCAD that enables the scientist to study the impact of varying error correction schemes, architectural parameters including layout and scheduling, and physical operations native to a given architecture. Our software package, aptly named QCAD, provides compilation, manipulation/transformation, multi-paradigm simulation, and visualization tools. We demonstrate various features of the QCAD software package through several examples.

SIENA Customer Problem Statement and Requirements

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

L. Sauer; R. Clay; C. Adams

2000-08-01

This document describes the problem domain and functional requirements of the SIENA framework. The software requirements and system architecture of SIENA are specified in separate documents (called SIENA Software Requirement Specification and SIENA Software Architecture, respectively). While currently this version of the document describes the problems and captures the requirements within the Analysis domain (concentrating on finite element models), it is our intention to subsequent y expand this document to describe problems and capture requirements from the Design and Manufacturing domains. In addition, SIENA is designed to be extendible to support and integrate elements from the other domains (see SIENAmore » Software Architecture document).« less

STGT program: Ada coding and architecture lessons learned

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Usavage, Paul; Nagurney, Don

1992-01-01

STGT (Second TDRSS Ground Terminal) is currently halfway through the System Integration Test phase (Level 4 Testing). To date, many software architecture and Ada language issues have been encountered and solved. This paper, which is the transcript of a presentation at the 3 Dec. meeting, attempts to define these lessons plus others learned regarding software project management and risk management issues, training, performance, reuse, and reliability. Observations are included regarding the use of particular Ada coding constructs, software architecture trade-offs during the prototyping, development and testing stages of the project, and dangers inherent in parallel or concurrent systems, software, hardware, and operations engineering.

Updates to the NASA Space Telecommunications Radio System (STRS) Architecture

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kacpura, Thomas J.; Handler, Louis M.; Briones, Janette; Hall, Charles S.

2008-01-01

This paper describes an update of the Space Telecommunications Radio System (STRS) open architecture for NASA space based radios. The STRS architecture has been defined as a framework for the design, development, operation and upgrade of space based software defined radios, where processing resources are constrained. The architecture has been updated based upon reviews by NASA missions, radio providers, and component vendors. The STRS Standard prescribes the architectural relationship between the software elements used in software execution and defines the Application Programmer Interface (API) between the operating environment and the waveform application. Modeling tools have been adopted to present the architecture. The paper will present a description of the updated API, configuration files, and constraints. Minimum compliance is discussed for early implementations. The paper then closes with a summary of the changes made and discussion of the relevant alignment with the Object Management Group (OMG) SWRadio specification, and enhancements to the specialized signal processing abstraction.

Practical, redundant, failure-tolerant, self-reconfiguring embedded system architecture

DOEpatents

Klarer, Paul R.; Hayward, David R.; Amai, Wendy A.

2006-10-03

This invention relates to system architectures, specifically failure-tolerant and self-reconfiguring embedded system architectures. The invention provides both a method and architecture for redundancy. There can be redundancy in both software and hardware for multiple levels of redundancy. The invention provides a self-reconfiguring architecture for activating redundant modules whenever other modules fail. The architecture comprises: a communication backbone connected to two or more processors and software modules running on each of the processors. Each software module runs on one processor and resides on one or more of the other processors to be available as a backup module in the event of failure. Each module and backup module reports its status over the communication backbone. If a primary module does not report, its backup module takes over its function. If the primary module becomes available again, the backup module returns to its backup status.

A research on the application of software defined networking in satellite network architecture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Song, Huan; Chen, Jinqiang; Cao, Suzhi; Cui, Dandan; Li, Tong; Su, Yuxing

2017-10-01

Software defined network is a new type of network architecture, which decouples control plane and data plane of traditional network, has the feature of flexible configurations and is a direction of the next generation terrestrial Internet development. Satellite network is an important part of the space-ground integrated information network, while the traditional satellite network has the disadvantages of difficult network topology maintenance and slow configuration. The application of SDN technology in satellite network can solve these problems that traditional satellite network faces. At present, the research on the application of SDN technology in satellite network is still in the stage of preliminary study. In this paper, we start with introducing the SDN technology and satellite network architecture. Then we mainly introduce software defined satellite network architecture, as well as the comparison of different software defined satellite network architecture and satellite network virtualization. Finally, the present research status and development trend of SDN technology in satellite network are analyzed.

The South African Astronomical Observatory instrumentation software architecture and the SHOC instruments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

van Gend, Carel; Lombaard, Briehan; Sickafoose, Amanda; Whittal, Hamish

2016-07-01

Until recently, software for instruments on the smaller telescopes at the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) has not been designed for remote accessibility and frequently has not been developed using modern software best-practice. We describe a software architecture we have implemented for use with new and upgraded instruments at the SAAO. The architecture was designed to allow for multiple components and to be fast, reliable, remotely- operable, support different user interfaces, employ as much non-proprietary software as possible, and to take future-proofing into consideration. Individual component drivers exist as standalone processes, communicating over a network. A controller layer coordinates the various components, and allows a variety of user interfaces to be used. The Sutherland High-speed Optical Cameras (SHOC) instruments incorporate an Andor electron-multiplying CCD camera, a GPS unit for accurate timing and a pair of filter wheels. We have applied the new architecture to the SHOC instruments, with the camera driver developed using Andor's software development kit. We have used this to develop an innovative web-based user-interface to the instrument.

Modular Rocket Engine Control Software (MRECS)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Tarrant, Charlie; Crook, Jerry

1997-01-01

The Modular Rocket Engine Control Software (MRECS) Program is a technology demonstration effort designed to advance the state-of-the-art in launch vehicle propulsion systems. Its emphasis is on developing and demonstrating a modular software architecture for a generic, advanced engine control system that will result in lower software maintenance (operations) costs. It effectively accommodates software requirements changes that occur due to hardware. technology upgrades and engine development testing. Ground rules directed by MSFC were to optimize modularity and implement the software in the Ada programming language. MRECS system software and the software development environment utilize Commercial-Off-the-Shelf (COTS) products. This paper presents the objectives and benefits of the program. The software architecture, design, and development environment are described. MRECS tasks are defined and timing relationships given. Major accomplishment are listed. MRECS offers benefits to a wide variety of advanced technology programs in the areas of modular software, architecture, reuse software, and reduced software reverification time related to software changes. Currently, the program is focused on supporting MSFC in accomplishing a Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) hot-fire test at Stennis Space Center and the Low Cost Boost Technology (LCBT) Program.

Ground System Architectures Workshop GMSEC SERVICES SUITE (GSS): an Agile Development Story

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ly, Vuong

2017-01-01

The GMSEC (Goddard Mission Services Evolution Center) Services Suite (GSS) is a collection of tools and software services along with a robust customizable web-based portal that enables the user to capture, monitor, report, and analyze system-wide GMSEC data. Given our plug-and-play architecture and the needs for rapid system development, we opted to follow the Scrum Agile Methodology for software development. Being one of the first few projects to implement the Agile methodology at NASA GSFC, in this presentation we will present our approaches, tools, successes, and challenges in implementing this methodology. The GMSEC architecture provides a scalable, extensible ground and flight system for existing and future missions. GMSEC comes with a robust Application Programming Interface (GMSEC API) and a core set of Java-based GMSEC components that facilitate the development of a GMSEC-based ground system. Over the past few years, we have seen an upbeat in the number of customers who are moving from a native desktop application environment to a web based environment particularly for data monitoring and analysis. We also see a need to provide separation of the business logic from the GUI display for our Java-based components and also to consolidate all the GUI displays into one interface. This combination of separation and consolidation brings immediate value to a GMSEC-based ground system through increased ease of data access via a uniform interface, built-in security measures, centralized configuration management, and ease of feature extensibility.

Image Understanding Architecture

DTIC Science & Technology

1991-09-01

architecture to support real-time, knowledge -based image understanding , and develop the software support environment that will be needed to utilize...NUMBER OF PAGES Image Understanding Architecture, Knowledge -Based Vision, AI Real-Time Computer Vision, Software Simulator, Parallel Processor IL PRICE... information . In addition to sensory and knowledge -based processing it is useful to introduce a level of symbolic processing. Thus, vision researchers

A heterogeneous hierarchical architecture for real-time computing

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Skroch, D.A.; Fornaro, R.J.

The need for high-speed data acquisition and control algorithms has prompted continued research in the area of multiprocessor systems and related programming techniques. The result presented here is a unique hardware and software architecture for high-speed real-time computer systems. The implementation of a prototype of this architecture has required the integration of architecture, operating systems and programming languages into a cohesive unit. This report describes a Heterogeneous Hierarchial Architecture for Real-Time (H{sup 2} ART) and system software for program loading and interprocessor communication.

A synchronized computational architecture for generalized bilateral control of robot arms

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bejczy, Antal K.; Szakaly, Zoltan

1987-01-01

This paper describes a computational architecture for an interconnected high speed distributed computing system for generalized bilateral control of robot arms. The key method of the architecture is the use of fully synchronized, interrupt driven software. Since an objective of the development is to utilize the processing resources efficiently, the synchronization is done in the hardware level to reduce system software overhead. The architecture also achieves a balaced load on the communication channel. The paper also describes some architectural relations to trading or sharing manual and automatic control.

A distributed data acquisition software scheme for the Laboratory Telerobotic Manipulator

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Butler, P.L.; Glassell, R.L.; Rowe, J.C.

1990-01-01

A custom software architecture was developed for use in the Laboratory Telerobotic Manipulator (LTM) to provide support for the distributed data acquisition electronics. This architecture was designed to provide a comprehensive development environment that proved to be useful for both hardware and software debugging. This paper describes the development environment and the operational characteristics of the real-time data acquisition software. 8 refs., 5 figs.

Control System Architectures, Technologies and Concepts for Near Term and Future Human Exploration of Space

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Boulanger, Richard; Overland, David

2004-01-01

Technologies that facilitate the design and control of complex, hybrid, and resource-constrained systems are examined. This paper focuses on design methodologies, and system architectures, not on specific control methods that may be applied to life support subsystems. Honeywell and Boeing have estimated that 60-80Y0 of the effort in developing complex control systems is software development, and only 20-40% is control system development. It has also been shown that large software projects have failure rates of as high as 50-65%. Concepts discussed include the Unified Modeling Language (UML) and design patterns with the goal of creating a self-improving, self-documenting system design process. Successful architectures for control must not only facilitate hardware to software integration, but must also reconcile continuously changing software with much less frequently changing hardware. These architectures rely on software modules or components to facilitate change. Architecting such systems for change leverages the interfaces between these modules or components.

Implications of Responsive Space on the Flight Software Architecture

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wilmot, Jonathan

2006-01-01

The Responsive Space initiative has several implications for flight software that need to be addressed not only within the run-time element, but the development infrastructure and software life-cycle process elements as well. The runtime element must at a minimum support Plug & Play, while the development and process elements need to incorporate methods to quickly generate the needed documentation, code, tests, and all of the artifacts required of flight quality software. Very rapid response times go even further, and imply little or no new software development, requiring instead, using only predeveloped and certified software modules that can be integrated and tested through automated methods. These elements have typically been addressed individually with significant benefits, but it is when they are combined that they can have the greatest impact to Responsive Space. The Flight Software Branch at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center has been developing the runtime, infrastructure and process elements needed for rapid integration with the Core Flight software System (CFS) architecture. The CFS architecture consists of three main components; the core Flight Executive (cFE), the component catalog, and the Integrated Development Environment (DE). This paper will discuss the design of the components, how they facilitate rapid integration, and lessons learned as the architecture is utilized for an upcoming spacecraft.

Assessment of the integration capability of system architectures from a complex and distributed software systems perspective

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Leuchter, S.; Reinert, F.; Müller, W.

2014-06-01

Procurement and design of system architectures capable of network centric operations demand for an assessment scheme in order to compare different alternative realizations. In this contribution an assessment method for system architectures targeted at the C4ISR domain is presented. The method addresses the integration capability of software systems from a complex and distributed software system perspective focusing communication, interfaces and software. The aim is to evaluate the capability to integrate a system or its functions within a system-of-systems network. This method uses approaches from software architecture quality assessment and applies them on the system architecture level. It features a specific goal tree of several dimensions that are relevant for enterprise integration. These dimensions have to be weighed against each other and totalized using methods from the normative decision theory in order to reflect the intention of the particular enterprise integration effort. The indicators and measurements for many of the considered quality features rely on a model based view on systems, networks, and the enterprise. That means it is applicable to System-of-System specifications based on enterprise architectural frameworks relying on defined meta-models or domain ontologies for defining views and viewpoints. In the defense context we use the NATO Architecture Framework (NAF) to ground respective system models. The proposed assessment method allows evaluating and comparing competing system designs regarding their future integration potential. It is a contribution to the system-of-systems engineering methodology.

Remote hardware-reconfigurable robotic camera

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Arias-Estrada, Miguel; Torres-Huitzil, Cesar; Maya-Rueda, Selene E.

2001-10-01

In this work, a camera with integrated image processing capabilities is discussed. The camera is based on an imager coupled to an FPGA device (Field Programmable Gate Array) which contains an architecture for real-time computer vision low-level processing. The architecture can be reprogrammed remotely for application specific purposes. The system is intended for rapid modification and adaptation for inspection and recognition applications, with the flexibility of hardware and software reprogrammability. FPGA reconfiguration allows the same ease of upgrade in hardware as a software upgrade process. The camera is composed of a digital imager coupled to an FPGA device, two memory banks, and a microcontroller. The microcontroller is used for communication tasks and FPGA programming. The system implements a software architecture to handle multiple FPGA architectures in the device, and the possibility to download a software/hardware object from the host computer into its internal context memory. System advantages are: small size, low power consumption, and a library of hardware/software functionalities that can be exchanged during run time. The system has been validated with an edge detection and a motion processing architecture, which will be presented in the paper. Applications targeted are in robotics, mobile robotics, and vision based quality control.

Space Station data management system architecture

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mallary, William E.; Whitelaw, Virginia A.

1987-01-01

Within the Space Station program, the Data Management System (DMS) functions in a dual role. First, it provides the hardware resources and software services which support the data processing, data communications, and data storage functions of the onboard subsystems and payloads. Second, it functions as an integrating entity which provides a common operating environment and human-machine interface for the operation and control of the orbiting Space Station systems and payloads by both the crew and the ground operators. This paper discusses the evolution and derivation of the requirements and issues which have had significant effect on the design of the Space Station DMS, describes the DMS components and services which support system and payload operations, and presents the current architectural view of the system as it exists in October 1986; one-and-a-half years into the Space Station Phase B Definition and Preliminary Design Study.

A Design for Composing and Extending Vehicle Models

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Madden, Michael M.; Neuhaus, Jason R.

2003-01-01

The Systems Development Branch (SDB) at NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) creates simulation software products for research. Each product consists of an aircraft model with experiment extensions. SDB treats its aircraft models as reusable components, upon which experiments can be built. SDB has evolved aircraft model design with the following goals: 1. Avoid polluting the aircraft model with experiment code. 2. Discourage the copy and tailor method of reuse. The current evolution of that architecture accomplishes these goals by reducing experiment creation to extend and compose. The architecture mechanizes the operational concerns of the model's subsystems and encapsulates them in an interface inherited by all subsystems. Generic operational code exercises the subsystems through the shared interface. An experiment is thus defined by the collection of subsystems that it creates ("compose"). Teams can modify the aircraft subsystems for the experiment using inheritance and polymorphism to create variants ("extend").

Integrated System Health Management (ISHM): Systematic Capability Implementation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Figueroa, Fernando; Holland, Randy; Schmalzwel, John; Duncavage, Dan

2006-01-01

This paper provides a credible approach for implementation of ISHM capability in any system. The requirements and processes to implement ISHM capability are unique in that a credible capability is initially implemented at a low level, and it evolves to achieve higher levels by incremental augmentation. In contrast, typical capabilities, such as thrust of an engine, are implemented once at full Functional Capability Level (FCL), which is not designed to change during the life of the product. The approach will describe core ingredients (e.g. technologies, architectures, etc.) and when and how ISHM capabilities may be implemented. A specific architecture/taxonomy/ontology will be described, as well as a prototype software environment that supports development of ISHM capability. This paper will address implementation of system-wide ISHM as a core capability, and ISHM for specific subsystems as expansions and evolution, but always focusing on achieving an integrated capability.

On-Board Software Reference Architecture for Payloads

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bos, Victor; Rugina, Ana; Trcka, Adam

2016-08-01

The goal of the On-board Software Reference Architecture for Payloads (OSRA-P) is to identify an architecture for payload software to harmonize the payload domain, to enable more reuse of common/generic payload software across different payloads and missions and to ease the integration of the payloads with the platform.To investigate the payload domain, recent and current payload instruments of European space missions have been analyzed. This led to a Payload Catalogue describing 12 payload instruments as well as a Capability Matrix listing specific characteristics of each payload. In addition, a functional decomposition of payload software was prepared which contains functionalities typically found in payload systems. The definition of OSRA-P was evaluated by case studies and a dedicated OSRA-P workshop to gather feedback from the payload community.

Design and Multicentric Implementation of a Generic Software Architecture for Patient Recruitment Systems Re-Using Existing HIS Tools and Routine Patient Data

PubMed Central

Trinczek, B.; Köpcke, F.; Leusch, T.; Majeed, R.W.; Schreiweis, B.; Wenk, J.; Bergh, B.; Ohmann, C.; Röhrig, R.; Prokosch, H.U.; Dugas, M.

2014-01-01

Summary Objective (1) To define features and data items of a Patient Recruitment System (PRS); (2) to design a generic software architecture of such a system covering the requirements; (3) to identify implementation options available within different Hospital Information System (HIS) environments; (4) to implement five PRS following the architecture and utilizing the implementation options as proof of concept. Methods Existing PRS were reviewed and interviews with users and developers conducted. All reported PRS features were collected and prioritized according to their published success and user’s request. Common feature sets were combined into software modules of a generic software architecture. Data items to process and transfer were identified for each of the modules. Each site collected implementation options available within their respective HIS environment for each module, provided a prototypical implementation based on available implementation possibilities and supported the patient recruitment of a clinical trial as a proof of concept. Results 24 commonly reported and requested features of a PRS were identified, 13 of them prioritized as being mandatory. A UML version 2 based software architecture containing 5 software modules covering these features was developed. 13 data item groups processed by the modules, thus required to be available electronically, have been identified. Several implementation options could be identified for each module, most of them being available at multiple sites. Utilizing available tools, a PRS could be implemented in each of the five participating German university hospitals. Conclusion A set of required features and data items of a PRS has been described for the first time. The software architecture covers all features in a clear, well-defined way. The variety of implementation options and the prototypes show that it is possible to implement the given architecture in different HIS environments, thus enabling more sites to successfully support patient recruitment in clinical trials. PMID:24734138

Design and multicentric implementation of a generic software architecture for patient recruitment systems re-using existing HIS tools and routine patient data.

PubMed

Trinczek, B; Köpcke, F; Leusch, T; Majeed, R W; Schreiweis, B; Wenk, J; Bergh, B; Ohmann, C; Röhrig, R; Prokosch, H U; Dugas, M

2014-01-01

(1) To define features and data items of a Patient Recruitment System (PRS); (2) to design a generic software architecture of such a system covering the requirements; (3) to identify implementation options available within different Hospital Information System (HIS) environments; (4) to implement five PRS following the architecture and utilizing the implementation options as proof of concept. Existing PRS were reviewed and interviews with users and developers conducted. All reported PRS features were collected and prioritized according to their published success and user's request. Common feature sets were combined into software modules of a generic software architecture. Data items to process and transfer were identified for each of the modules. Each site collected implementation options available within their respective HIS environment for each module, provided a prototypical implementation based on available implementation possibilities and supported the patient recruitment of a clinical trial as a proof of concept. 24 commonly reported and requested features of a PRS were identified, 13 of them prioritized as being mandatory. A UML version 2 based software architecture containing 5 software modules covering these features was developed. 13 data item groups processed by the modules, thus required to be available electronically, have been identified. Several implementation options could be identified for each module, most of them being available at multiple sites. Utilizing available tools, a PRS could be implemented in each of the five participating German university hospitals. A set of required features and data items of a PRS has been described for the first time. The software architecture covers all features in a clear, well-defined way. The variety of implementation options and the prototypes show that it is possible to implement the given architecture in different HIS environments, thus enabling more sites to successfully support patient recruitment in clinical trials.

A Comparison and Evaluation of Real-Time Software Systems Modeling Languages

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Evensen, Kenneth D.; Weiss, Kathryn Anne

2010-01-01

A model-driven approach to real-time software systems development enables the conceptualization of software, fostering a more thorough understanding of its often complex architecture and behavior while promoting the documentation and analysis of concerns common to real-time embedded systems such as scheduling, resource allocation, and performance. Several modeling languages have been developed to assist in the model-driven software engineering effort for real-time systems, and these languages are beginning to gain traction with practitioners throughout the aerospace industry. This paper presents a survey of several real-time software system modeling languages, namely the Architectural Analysis and Design Language (AADL), the Unified Modeling Language (UML), Systems Modeling Language (SysML), the Modeling and Analysis of Real-Time Embedded Systems (MARTE) UML profile, and the AADL for UML profile. Each language has its advantages and disadvantages, and in order to adequately describe a real-time software system's architecture, a complementary use of multiple languages is almost certainly necessary. This paper aims to explore these languages in the context of understanding the value each brings to the model-driven software engineering effort and to determine if it is feasible and practical to combine aspects of the various modeling languages to achieve more complete coverage in architectural descriptions. To this end, each language is evaluated with respect to a set of criteria such as scope, formalisms, and architectural coverage. An example is used to help illustrate the capabilities of the various languages.

Modeling of a 3DTV service in the software-defined networking architecture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wilczewski, Grzegorz

2014-11-01

In this article a newly developed concept towards modeling of a multimedia service offering stereoscopic motion imagery is presented. Proposed model is based on the approach of utilization of Software-defined Networking or Software Defined Networks architecture (SDN). The definition of 3D television service spanning SDN concept is identified, exposing basic characteristic of a 3DTV service in a modern networking organization layout. Furthermore, exemplary functionalities of the proposed 3DTV model are depicted. It is indicated that modeling of a 3DTV service in the Software-defined Networking architecture leads to multiplicity of improvements, especially towards flexibility of a service supporting heterogeneity of end user devices.

Alleles versus mutations: Understanding the evolution of genetic architecture requires a molecular perspective on allelic origins.

PubMed

Remington, David L

2015-12-01

Perspectives on the role of large-effect quantitative trait loci (QTL) in the evolution of complex traits have shifted back and forth over the past few decades. Different sets of studies have produced contradictory insights on the evolution of genetic architecture. I argue that much of the confusion results from a failure to distinguish mutational and allelic effects, a limitation of using the Fisherian model of adaptive evolution as the lens through which the evolution of adaptive variation is examined. A molecular-based perspective reveals that allelic differences can involve the cumulative effects of many mutations plus intragenic recombination, a model that is supported by extensive empirical evidence. I discuss how different selection regimes could produce very different architectures of allelic effects under a molecular-based model, which may explain conflicting insights on genetic architecture from studies of variation within populations versus between divergently selected populations. I address shortcomings of genome-wide association study (GWAS) practices in light of more suitable models of allelic evolution, and suggest alternate GWAS strategies to generate more valid inferences about genetic architecture. Finally, I discuss how adopting more suitable models of allelic evolution could help redirect research on complex trait evolution toward addressing more meaningful questions in evolutionary biology. © 2015 The Author(s). Evolution © 2015 The Society for the Study of Evolution.

Separating essentials from incidentals: an execution architecture for real-time control systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dvorak, Daniel; Reinholtz, Kirk

2004-01-01

This paper describes an execution architecture that makes such systems far more analyzable and verifiable by aggressive separation of concerns. The architecture separates two key software concerns: transformations of global state, as defined in pure functions; and sequencing/timing of transformations, as performed by an engine that enforces four prime invariants. The important advantage of this architecture, besides facilitating verification, is that it encourages formal specification of systems in a vocabulary that brings systems engineering closer to software engineering.

Fault Management Architectures and the Challenges of Providing Software Assurance

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Savarino, Shirley; Fitz, Rhonda; Fesq, Lorraine; Whitman, Gerek

2015-01-01

The satellite systems Fault Management (FM) is focused on safety, the preservation of assets, and maintaining the desired functionality of the system. How FM is implemented varies among missions. Common to most is system complexity due to a need to establish a multi-dimensional structure across hardware, software and operations. This structure is necessary to identify and respond to system faults, mitigate technical risks and ensure operational continuity. These architecture, implementation and software assurance efforts increase with mission complexity. Because FM is a systems engineering discipline with a distributed implementation, providing efficient and effective verification and validation (VV) is challenging. A breakout session at the 2012 NASA Independent Verification Validation (IVV) Annual Workshop titled VV of Fault Management: Challenges and Successes exposed these issues in terms of VV for a representative set of architectures. NASA's IVV is funded by NASA's Software Assurance Research Program (SARP) in partnership with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to extend the work performed at the Workshop session. NASA IVV will extract FM architectures across the IVV portfolio and evaluate the data set for robustness, assess visibility for validation and test, and define software assurance methods that could be applied to the various architectures and designs. This work focuses efforts on FM architectures from critical and complex projects within NASA. The identification of particular FM architectures, visibility, and associated VVIVV techniques provides a data set that can enable higher assurance that a satellite system will adequately detect and respond to adverse conditions. Ultimately, results from this activity will be incorporated into the NASA Fault Management Handbook providing dissemination across NASA, other agencies and the satellite community. This paper discusses the approach taken to perform the evaluations and preliminary findings from the research including identification of FM architectures, visibility observations, and methods utilized for VVIVV.

Modular Rocket Engine Control Software (MRECS)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Tarrant, C.; Crook, J.

1998-01-01

The Modular Rocket Engine Control Software (MRECS) Program is a technology demonstration effort designed to advance the state-of-the-art in launch vehicle propulsion systems. Its emphasis is on developing and demonstrating a modular software architecture for advanced engine control systems that will result in lower software maintenance (operations) costs. It effectively accommodates software requirement changes that occur due to hardware technology upgrades and engine development testing. Ground rules directed by MSFC were to optimize modularity and implement the software in the Ada programming language. MRECS system software and the software development environment utilize Commercial-Off-the-Shelf (COTS) products. This paper presents the objectives, benefits, and status of the program. The software architecture, design, and development environment are described. MRECS tasks are defined and timing relationships given. Major accomplishments are listed. MRECS offers benefits to a wide variety of advanced technology programs in the areas of modular software architecture, reuse software, and reduced software reverification time related to software changes. MRECS was recently modified to support a Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) hot-fire test. Cold Flow and Flight Readiness Testing were completed before the test was cancelled. Currently, the program is focused on supporting NASA MSFC in accomplishing development testing of the Fastrac Engine, part of NASA's Low Cost Technologies (LCT) Program. MRECS will be used for all engine development testing.

Preliminary Design of an Autonomous Amphibious System

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-09-01

changing vehicle dynamics will require innovative new autonomy algorithms. The developed software architecture, drive-by- wire kit, and supporting...COMMUNICATIONS ARCHITECTURE .................................................12 3.3 DRIVE-BY- WIRE DESIGN...SOFTWARE MATURATION PLANS ......................................................17 4.2 DRIVE-BY- WIRE PLANNED REFINEMENT

Investigating the Acquisition of Software Systems that Rely on Open Architecture and Open Source Software

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-03-01

associated with certain software systems [Breaux and Anton 2008]. With this basis to build on, it is now possible to analyze the alignment of...Kazman, R., (2003). Software Architecture in Practice, 2nd Edition, Addison-Wesley Pro- fessional, New York.. Breaux, T.D. and Anton , A.I. (2008... calculus for license rights and obligations in license and context models. Using them, we calculate rights and obligations for specific sys- tems, identify

Software Design for Real-Time Systems on Parallel Computers: Formal Specifications.

DTIC Science & Technology

1996-04-01

This research investigated the important issues related to the analysis and design of real - time systems targeted to parallel architectures. In...particular, the software specification models for real - time systems on parallel architectures were evaluated. A survey of current formal methods for...uniprocessor real - time systems specifications was conducted to determine their extensibility in specifying real - time systems on parallel architectures. In

Programmable bandwidth management in software-defined EPON architecture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Chengjun; Guo, Wei; Wang, Wei; Hu, Weisheng; Xia, Ming

2016-07-01

This paper proposes a software-defined EPON architecture which replaces the hardware-implemented DBA module with reprogrammable DBA module. The DBA module allows pluggable bandwidth allocation algorithms among multiple ONUs adaptive to traffic profiles and network states. We also introduce a bandwidth management scheme executed at the controller to manage the customized DBA algorithms for all date queues of ONUs. Our performance investigation verifies the effectiveness of this new EPON architecture, and numerical results show that software-defined EPONs can achieve less traffic delay and provide better support to service differentiation in comparison with traditional EPONs.

Software design by reusing architectures

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bhansali, Sanjay; Nii, H. Penny

1992-01-01

Abstraction fosters reuse by providing a class of artifacts that can be instantiated or customized to produce a set of artifacts meeting different specific requirements. It is proposed that significant leverage can be obtained by abstracting software system designs and the design process. The result of such an abstraction is a generic architecture and a set of knowledge-based, customization tools that can be used to instantiate the generic architecture. An approach for designing software systems based on the above idea are described. The approach is illustrated through an implemented example, and the advantages and limitations of the approach are discussed.

Building the Core Architecture of a Multiagent System Product Line: With an example from a future NASA Mission

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pena, Joaquin; Hinchey, Michael G.; Ruiz-Cortes, Antonio

2006-01-01

The field of Software Product Lines (SPL) emphasizes building a core architecture for a family of software products from which concrete products can be derived rapidly. This helps to reduce time-to-market, costs, etc., and can result in improved software quality and safety. Current AOSE methodologies are concerned with developing a single Multiagent System. We propose an initial approach to developing the core architecture of a Multiagent Systems Product Line (MAS-PL), exemplifying our approach with reference to a concept NASA mission based on multiagent technology.

Verifying Architectural Design Rules of the Flight Software Product Line

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ganesan, Dharmalingam; Lindvall, Mikael; Ackermann, Chris; McComas, David; Bartholomew, Maureen

2009-01-01

This paper presents experiences of verifying architectural design rules of the NASA Core Flight Software (CFS) product line implementation. The goal of the verification is to check whether the implementation is consistent with the CFS architectural rules derived from the developer's guide. The results indicate that consistency checking helps a) identifying architecturally significant deviations that were eluded during code reviews, b) clarifying the design rules to the team, and c) assessing the overall implementation quality. Furthermore, it helps connecting business goals to architectural principles, and to the implementation. This paper is the first step in the definition of a method for analyzing and evaluating product line implementations from an architecture-centric perspective.

Scalable software architecture for on-line multi-camera video processing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Camplani, Massimo; Salgado, Luis

2011-03-01

In this paper we present a scalable software architecture for on-line multi-camera video processing, that guarantees a good trade off between computational power, scalability and flexibility. The software system is modular and its main blocks are the Processing Units (PUs), and the Central Unit. The Central Unit works as a supervisor of the running PUs and each PU manages the acquisition phase and the processing phase. Furthermore, an approach to easily parallelize the desired processing application has been presented. In this paper, as case study, we apply the proposed software architecture to a multi-camera system in order to efficiently manage multiple 2D object detection modules in a real-time scenario. System performance has been evaluated under different load conditions such as number of cameras and image sizes. The results show that the software architecture scales well with the number of camera and can easily works with different image formats respecting the real time constraints. Moreover, the parallelization approach can be used in order to speed up the processing tasks with a low level of overhead.

Analysis of three-dimensionally proliferated sensor architectures for flexible SSA

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cunio, Phillip M.; Flewelling, Brien

2018-05-01

The evolution of space into a congested, contested, and competitive regime drives a commensurate need for awareness of events there. As the number of systems on orbit grows, so will the need for sensing and tracking these systems. One avenue for advanced sensing capability is a widespread network of small but capable Space Situational Awareness (SSA) sensors, proliferated widely in the three-dimensional volume extending from the Earth's surface to the Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO) belt, incorporating multiple different varieties and types of sensors. Due to the freedom of movement afforded by solid surfaces and atmosphere, some of these sensors may have substantial mobility. Accordingly, designing a network for maximum SSA coverage at reasonable cost may entail heterogeneous architectures with common logistics (including modular sensor packages or mobility platforms, which may be flexibly re-assigned). Smaller mobile sensors leveraging Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components and software are appealing for their ability to simplify logistics versus large, monolithic, uniquely-exquisite sensor systems. This paper examines concepts for such sensor systems, and analyzes the costs associated with their use, while assessing the benefits (including reduced gap time, weather resilience, and multiple-sensor coverage) that such an architecture enables. Recommendations for preferred modes and mixes of fielding sensors in a heterogeneous architecture are made, and directions for future related research are suggested.

A multi-objective optimization approach accurately resolves protein domain architectures

PubMed Central

Bernardes, J.S.; Vieira, F.R.J.; Zaverucha, G.; Carbone, A.

2016-01-01

Motivation: Given a protein sequence and a number of potential domains matching it, what are the domain content and the most likely domain architecture for the sequence? This problem is of fundamental importance in protein annotation, constituting one of the main steps of all predictive annotation strategies. On the other hand, when potential domains are several and in conflict because of overlapping domain boundaries, finding a solution for the problem might become difficult. An accurate prediction of the domain architecture of a multi-domain protein provides important information for function prediction, comparative genomics and molecular evolution. Results: We developed DAMA (Domain Annotation by a Multi-objective Approach), a novel approach that identifies architectures through a multi-objective optimization algorithm combining scores of domain matches, previously observed multi-domain co-occurrence and domain overlapping. DAMA has been validated on a known benchmark dataset based on CATH structural domain assignments and on the set of Plasmodium falciparum proteins. When compared with existing tools on both datasets, it outperforms all of them. Availability and implementation: DAMA software is implemented in C++ and the source code can be found at http://www.lcqb.upmc.fr/DAMA. Contact: juliana.silva_bernardes@upmc.fr or alessandra.carbone@lip6.fr Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. PMID:26458889

Systems, methods and apparatus for developing and maintaining evolving systems with software product lines

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hinchey, Michael G. (Inventor); Rash, James L. (Inventor); Pena, Joaquin (Inventor)

2011-01-01

Systems, methods and apparatus are provided through which an evolutionary system is managed and viewed as a software product line. In some embodiments, the core architecture is a relatively unchanging part of the system, and each version of the system is viewed as a product from the product line. Each software product is generated from the core architecture with some agent-based additions. The result may be a multi-agent system software product line.

ESPC Common Model Architecture Earth System Modeling Framework (ESMF) Software and Application Development

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-09-30

originate from NASA , NOAA , and community modeling efforts, and support for creation of the suite was shared by sponsors from other agencies. ESPS...Framework (ESMF) Software and Application Development Cecelia Deluca NESII/CIRES/ NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory 325 Broadway Boulder, CO...Capability (NUOPC) was established between NOAA and Navy to develop a common software architecture for easy and efficient interoperability. The

Architectural Implications of Cloud Computing

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-10-24

Public Cloud Infrastructure-as-a- Service (IaaS) Software -as-a- Service ( SaaS ) Cloud Computing Types Platform-as-a- Service (PaaS) Based on Type of...Twitter #SEIVirtualForum © 2011 Carnegie Mellon University Software -as-a- Service ( SaaS ) Model of software deployment in which a third-party...and System Solutions (RTSS) Program. Her current interests and projects are in service -oriented architecture (SOA), cloud computing, and context

BH-ShaDe: A Software Tool That Assists Architecture Students in the III-Structured Task of Housing Design

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Millan, Eva; Belmonte, Maria-Victoria; Ruiz-Montiel, Manuela; Gavilanes, Juan; Perez-de-la-Cruz, Jose-Luis

2016-01-01

In this paper, we present BH-ShaDe, a new software tool to assist architecture students learning the ill-structured domain/task of housing design. The software tool provides students with automatic or interactively generated floor plan schemas for basic houses. The students can then use the generated schemas as initial seeds to develop complete…

OASYS (OrAnge SYnchrotron Suite): an open-source graphical environment for x-ray virtual experiments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rebuffi, Luca; Sanchez del Rio, Manuel

2017-08-01

The evolution of the hardware platforms, the modernization of the software tools, the access to the codes of a large number of young people and the popularization of the open source software for scientific applications drove us to design OASYS (ORange SYnchrotron Suite), a completely new graphical environment for modelling X-ray experiments. The implemented software architecture allows to obtain not only an intuitive and very-easy-to-use graphical interface, but also provides high flexibility and rapidity for interactive simulations, making configuration changes to quickly compare multiple beamline configurations. Its purpose is to integrate in a synergetic way the most powerful calculation engines available. OASYS integrates different simulation strategies via the implementation of adequate simulation tools for X-ray Optics (e.g. ray tracing and wave optics packages). It provides a language to make them to communicate by sending and receiving encapsulated data. Python has been chosen as main programming language, because of its universality and popularity in scientific computing. The software Orange, developed at the University of Ljubljana (SLO), is the high level workflow engine that provides the interaction with the user and communication mechanisms.

A Practical Software Architecture for Virtual Universities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Xiang, Peifeng; Shi, Yuanchun; Qin, Weijun

2006-01-01

This article introduces a practical software architecture called CUBES, which focuses on system integration and evolvement for online virtual universities. The key of CUBES is a supporting platform that helps to integrate and evolve heterogeneous educational applications developed by different organizations. Both standardized educational…

Freight Advanced Traveler Information System (FRATIS) Dallas-Fort Worth : software architecture design and implementation options.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2013-05-01

This document describes the Software Architecture Design and Implementation Options for FRATIS system. The demonstration component of this task will serve to test the technical feasibility of the FRATIS prototype while also facilitating the collectio...

Data Strategies to Support Automated Multi-Sensor Data Fusion in a Service Oriented Architecture

DTIC Science & Technology

2008-06-01

and employ vast quantities of content. This dissertation provides two software architectural patterns and an auto-fusion process that guide the...UDDI), Simple Order Access Protocol (SOAP), Java, Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA), Business Process Execution Language for Web Service (BPEL4WS) 16...content. This dissertation provides two software architectural patterns and an auto-fusion process that guide the development of a distributed

Combining Architecture-Centric Engineering with the Team Software Process

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-12-01

colleagues from Quarksoft and CIMAT have re- cently reported on their experiences in “Introducing Software Architecture Development Methods into a TSP...Postmortem Lessons, new goals, new requirements, new risk , etc. Business and technical goals Estimates, plans, process, commitment Work products...architecture to mitigate the risks unco- vered by the ATAM. At the end of the iteration, version 1.0 of the architec- ture is available. Implement a second

Hardware Architecture Study for NASA's Space Software Defined Radios

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Reinhart, Richard C.; Scardelletti, Maximilian C.; Mortensen, Dale J.; Kacpura, Thomas J.; Andro, Monty; Smith, Carl; Liebetreu, John

2008-01-01

This study defines a hardware architecture approach for software defined radios to enable commonality among NASA space missions. The architecture accommodates a range of reconfigurable processing technologies including general purpose processors, digital signal processors, field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) in addition to flexible and tunable radio frequency (RF) front-ends to satisfy varying mission requirements. The hardware architecture consists of modules, radio functions, and and interfaces. The modules are a logical division of common radio functions that comprise a typical communication radio. This paper describes the architecture details, module definitions, and the typical functions on each module as well as the module interfaces. Trade-offs between component-based, custom architecture and a functional-based, open architecture are described. The architecture does not specify the internal physical implementation within each module, nor does the architecture mandate the standards or ratings of the hardware used to construct the radios.

Architecture-Centric Development in Globally Distributed Projects

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sauer, Joachim

In this chapter architecture-centric development is proposed as a means to strengthen the cohesion of distributed teams and to tackle challenges due to geographical and temporal distances and the clash of different cultures. A shared software architecture serves as blueprint for all activities in the development process and ties them together. Architecture-centric development thus provides a plan for task allocation, facilitates the cooperation of globally distributed developers, and enables continuous integration reaching across distributed teams. Advice is also provided for software architects who work with distributed teams in an agile manner.

Architecture of the software for LAMOST fiber positioning subsystem

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Peng, Xiaobo; Xing, Xiaozheng; Hu, Hongzhuan; Zhai, Chao; Li, Weimin

2004-09-01

The architecture of the software which controls the LAMOST fiber positioning sub-system is described. The software is composed of two parts as follows: a main control program in a computer and a unit controller program in a MCS51 single chip microcomputer ROM. And the function of the software includes: Client/Server model establishment, observation planning, collision handling, data transmission, pulse generation, CCD control, image capture and processing, and data analysis etc. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which different parts of the software can communicate. Also software techniques for multi threads, SOCKET programming, Microsoft Windows message response, and serial communications are discussed.

LEGOS: Object-based software components for mission-critical systems. Final report, June 1, 1995--December 31, 1997

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

NONE

1998-08-01

An estimated 85% of the installed base of software is a custom application with a production quantity of one. In practice, almost 100% of military software systems are custom software. Paradoxically, the marginal costs of producing additional units are near zero. So why hasn`t the software market, a market with high design costs and low productions costs evolved like other similar custom widget industries, such as automobiles and hardware chips? The military software industry seems immune to market pressures that have motivated a multilevel supply chain structure in other widget industries: design cost recovery, improve quality through specialization, and enablemore » rapid assembly from purchased components. The primary goal of the ComponentWare Consortium (CWC) technology plan was to overcome barriers to building and deploying mission-critical information systems by using verified, reusable software components (Component Ware). The adoption of the ComponentWare infrastructure is predicated upon a critical mass of the leading platform vendors` inevitable adoption of adopting emerging, object-based, distributed computing frameworks--initially CORBA and COM/OLE. The long-range goal of this work is to build and deploy military systems from verified reusable architectures. The promise of component-based applications is to enable developers to snap together new applications by mixing and matching prefabricated software components. A key result of this effort is the concept of reusable software architectures. A second important contribution is the notion that a software architecture is something that can be captured in a formal language and reused across multiple applications. The formalization and reuse of software architectures provide major cost and schedule improvements. The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is fast becoming the industry standard for object-oriented analysis and design notation for object-based systems. However, the lack of a standard real-time distributed object operating system, lack of a standard Computer-Aided Software Environment (CASE) tool notation and lack of a standard CASE tool repository has limited the realization of component software. The approach to fulfilling this need is the software component factory innovation. The factory approach takes advantage of emerging standards such as UML, CORBA, Java and the Internet. The key technical innovation of the software component factory is the ability to assemble and test new system configurations as well as assemble new tools on demand from existing tools and architecture design repositories.« less

NASA/NBS (National Aeronautics and Space Administration/National Bureau of Standards) standard reference model for telerobot control system architecture (NASREM)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Albus, James S.; Mccain, Harry G.; Lumia, Ronald

1989-01-01

The document describes the NASA Standard Reference Model (NASREM) Architecture for the Space Station Telerobot Control System. It defines the functional requirements and high level specifications of the control system for the NASA space Station document for the functional specification, and a guideline for the development of the control system architecture, of the 10C Flight Telerobot Servicer. The NASREM telerobot control system architecture defines a set of standard modules and interfaces which facilitates software design, development, validation, and test, and make possible the integration of telerobotics software from a wide variety of sources. Standard interfaces also provide the software hooks necessary to incrementally upgrade future Flight Telerobot Systems as new capabilities develop in computer science, robotics, and autonomous system control.

Flexible Software Architecture for Visualization and Seismic Data Analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Petunin, S.; Pavlov, I.; Mogilenskikh, D.; Podzyuban, D.; Arkhipov, A.; Baturuin, N.; Lisin, A.; Smith, A.; Rivers, W.; Harben, P.

2007-12-01

Research in the field of seismology requires software and signal processing utilities for seismogram manipulation and analysis. Seismologists and data analysts often encounter a major problem in the use of any particular software application specific to seismic data analysis: the tuning of commands and windows to the specific waveforms and hot key combinations so as to fit their familiar informational environment. The ability to modify the user's interface independently from the developer requires an adaptive code structure. An adaptive code structure also allows for expansion of software capabilities such as new signal processing modules and implementation of more efficient algorithms. Our approach is to use a flexible "open" architecture for development of geophysical software. This report presents an integrated solution for organizing a logical software architecture based on the Unix version of the Geotool software implemented on the Microsoft NET 2.0 platform. Selection of this platform greatly expands the variety and number of computers that can implement the software, including laptops that can be utilized in field conditions. It also facilitates implementation of communication functions for seismic data requests from remote databases through the Internet. The main principle of the new architecture for Geotool is that scientists should be able to add new routines for digital waveform analysis via software plug-ins that utilize the basic Geotool display for GUI interaction. The use of plug-ins allows the efficient integration of diverse signal-processing software, including software still in preliminary development, into an organized platform without changing the fundamental structure of that platform itself. An analyst's use of Geotool is tracked via a metadata file so that future studies can reconstruct, and alter, the original signal processing operations. The work has been completed in the framework of a joint Russian- American project.

DAQ: Software Architecture for Data Acquisition in Sounding Rockets

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ahmad, Mohammad; Tran, Thanh; Nichols, Heidi; Bowles-Martinez, Jessica N.

2011-01-01

A multithreaded software application was developed by Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) to collect a set of correlated imagery, Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) and GPS data for a Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) sounding rocket flight. The data set will be used to advance Terrain Relative Navigation (TRN) technology algorithms being researched at JPL. This paper describes the software architecture and the tests used to meet the timing and data rate requirements for the software used to collect the dataset. Also discussed are the challenges of using commercial off the shelf (COTS) flight hardware and open source software. This includes multiple Camera Link (C-link) based cameras, a Pentium-M based computer, and Linux Fedora 11 operating system. Additionally, the paper talks about the history of the software architecture's usage in other JPL projects and its applicability for future missions, such as cubesats, UAVs, and research planes/balloons. Also talked about will be the human aspect of project especially JPL's Phaeton program and the results of the launch.

Generic Software Architecture for Prognostics (GSAP) User Guide

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Teubert, Christopher Allen; Daigle, Matthew John; Watkins, Jason; Sankararaman, Shankar; Goebel, Kai

2016-01-01

The Generic Software Architecture for Prognostics (GSAP) is a framework for applying prognostics. It makes applying prognostics easier by implementing many of the common elements across prognostic applications. The standard interface enables reuse of prognostic algorithms and models across systems using the GSAP framework.

Scaling Watershed Models: Modern Approaches to Science Computation with MapReduce, Parallelization, and Cloud Optimization

EPA Science Inventory

Environmental models are products of the computer architecture and software tools available at the time of development. Scientifically sound algorithms may persist in their original state even as system architectures and software development approaches evolve and progress. Dating...

Concurrent extensions to the FORTRAN language for parallel programming of computational fluid dynamics algorithms

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Weeks, Cindy Lou

1986-01-01

Experiments were conducted at NASA Ames Research Center to define multi-tasking software requirements for multiple-instruction, multiple-data stream (MIMD) computer architectures. The focus was on specifying solutions for algorithms in the field of computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The program objectives were to allow researchers to produce usable parallel application software as soon as possible after acquiring MIMD computer equipment, to provide researchers with an easy-to-learn and easy-to-use parallel software language which could be implemented on several different MIMD machines, and to enable researchers to list preferred design specifications for future MIMD computer architectures. Analysis of CFD algorithms indicated that extensions of an existing programming language, adaptable to new computer architectures, provided the best solution to meeting program objectives. The CoFORTRAN Language was written in response to these objectives and to provide researchers a means to experiment with parallel software solutions to CFD algorithms on machines with parallel architectures.

Fault Management Architectures and the Challenges of Providing Software Assurance

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Savarino, Shirley; Fitz, Rhonda; Fesq, Lorraine; Whitman, Gerek

2015-01-01

Fault Management (FM) is focused on safety, the preservation of assets, and maintaining the desired functionality of the system. How FM is implemented varies among missions. Common to most missions is system complexity due to a need to establish a multi-dimensional structure across hardware, software and spacecraft operations. FM is necessary to identify and respond to system faults, mitigate technical risks and ensure operational continuity. Generally, FM architecture, implementation, and software assurance efforts increase with mission complexity. Because FM is a systems engineering discipline with a distributed implementation, providing efficient and effective verification and validation (V&V) is challenging. A breakout session at the 2012 NASA Independent Verification & Validation (IV&V) Annual Workshop titled "V&V of Fault Management: Challenges and Successes" exposed this issue in terms of V&V for a representative set of architectures. NASA's Software Assurance Research Program (SARP) has provided funds to NASA IV&V to extend the work performed at the Workshop session in partnership with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). NASA IV&V will extract FM architectures across the IV&V portfolio and evaluate the data set, assess visibility for validation and test, and define software assurance methods that could be applied to the various architectures and designs. This SARP initiative focuses efforts on FM architectures from critical and complex projects within NASA. The identification of particular FM architectures and associated V&V/IV&V techniques provides a data set that can enable improved assurance that a system will adequately detect and respond to adverse conditions. Ultimately, results from this activity will be incorporated into the NASA Fault Management Handbook providing dissemination across NASA, other agencies and the space community. This paper discusses the approach taken to perform the evaluations and preliminary findings from the research.

Multimission helicopter information display technology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Terry, William S.

1995-06-01

A new Operator display subsystem is being incorporated as part of the next generation United States Navy (USN) helicopter avionics system to be integrated into the Multi-Mission Helicopter (MMH) which will replace both the SH-60B and the SH- 60F in 2001. This subsystem exploits state-of-the-art technology for the display hardware, the display driver hardware, information presentation methodologies, and software architecture. The technologies to be base technologies have evolved during the development period and the solution has been modified to include current elements including high resolution AMLCD color displays that are sunlight readable, highly reliable, and significantly lighter that CRT technology, as well as Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) based high-performance display generators that have only recently become feasible to implement in a military aircraft. This paper describes the overall subsystem architecture, some detail on the individual elements along with supporting rationale, the manner in which the display subsystem provides the necessary tools to significantly enhance the performance of the weapon system through the vital Operator-System Interface. Also addressed is a summary of the evolution of design leading to the current approach to MMH Operator displays and display processing as well as the growth path that the MMH display subsystem will most likely follow as additional technology evolution occurs.

Measurements of the LHCb software stack on the ARM architecture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vijay Kartik, S.; Couturier, Ben; Clemencic, Marco; Neufeld, Niko

2014-06-01

The ARM architecture is a power-efficient design that is used in most processors in mobile devices all around the world today since they provide reasonable compute performance per watt. The current LHCb software stack is designed (and thus expected) to build and run on machines with the x86/x86_64 architecture. This paper outlines the process of measuring the performance of the LHCb software stack on the ARM architecture - specifically, the ARMv7 architecture on Cortex-A9 processors from NVIDIA and on full-fledged ARM servers with chipsets from Calxeda - and makes comparisons with the performance on x86_64 architectures on the Intel Xeon L5520/X5650 and AMD Opteron 6272. The paper emphasises the aspects of performance per core with respect to the power drawn by the compute nodes for the given performance - this ensures a fair real-world comparison with much more 'powerful' Intel/AMD processors. The comparisons of these real workloads in the context of LHCb are also complemented with the standard synthetic benchmarks HEPSPEC and Coremark. The pitfalls and solutions for the non-trivial task of porting the source code to build for the ARMv7 instruction set are presented. The specific changes in the build process needed for ARM-specific portions of the software stack are described, to serve as pointers for further attempts taken up by other groups in this direction. Cases where architecture-specific tweaks at the assembler lever (both in ROOT and the LHCb software stack) were needed for a successful compile are detailed - these cases are good indicators of where/how the software stack as well as the build system can be made more portable and multi-arch friendly. The experience gained from the tasks described in this paper are intended to i) assist in making an informed choice about ARM-based server solutions as a feasible low-power alternative to the current compute nodes, and ii) revisit the software design and build system for portability and generic improvements.

Architecture for autonomy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Broten, Gregory S.; Monckton, Simon P.; Collier, Jack; Giesbrecht, Jared

2006-05-01

In 2002 Defence R&D Canada changed research direction from pure tele-operated land vehicles to general autonomy for land, air, and sea craft. The unique constraints of the military environment coupled with the complexity of autonomous systems drove DRDC to carefully plan a research and development infrastructure that would provide state of the art tools without restricting research scope. DRDC's long term objectives for its autonomy program address disparate unmanned ground vehicle (UGV), unattended ground sensor (UGS), air (UAV), and subsea and surface (UUV and USV) vehicles operating together with minimal human oversight. Individually, these systems will range in complexity from simple reconnaissance mini-UAVs streaming video to sophisticated autonomous combat UGVs exploiting embedded and remote sensing. Together, these systems can provide low risk, long endurance, battlefield services assuming they can communicate and cooperate with manned and unmanned systems. A key enabling technology for this new research is a software architecture capable of meeting both DRDC's current and future requirements. DRDC built upon recent advances in the computing science field while developing its software architecture know as the Architecture for Autonomy (AFA). Although a well established practice in computing science, frameworks have only recently entered common use by unmanned vehicles. For industry and government, the complexity, cost, and time to re-implement stable systems often exceeds the perceived benefits of adopting a modern software infrastructure. Thus, most persevere with legacy software, adapting and modifying software when and wherever possible or necessary -- adopting strategic software frameworks only when no justifiable legacy exists. Conversely, academic programs with short one or two year projects frequently exploit strategic software frameworks but with little enduring impact. The open-source movement radically changes this picture. Academic frameworks, open to public scrutiny and modification, now rival commercial frameworks in both quality and economic impact. Further, industry now realizes that open source frameworks can reduce cost and risk of systems engineering. This paper describes the Architecture for Autonomy implemented by DRDC and how this architecture meets DRDC's current needs. It also presents an argument for why this architecture should also satisfy DRDC's future requirements as well.

IHE cross-enterprise document sharing for imaging: interoperability testing software

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

Background With the deployments of Electronic Health Records (EHR), interoperability testing in healthcare is becoming crucial. EHR enables access to prior diagnostic information in order to assist in health decisions. It is a virtual system that results from the cooperation of several heterogeneous distributed systems. Interoperability between peers is therefore essential. Achieving interoperability requires various types of testing. Implementations need to be tested using software that simulates communication partners, and that provides test data and test plans. Results In this paper we describe a software that is used to test systems that are involved in sharing medical images within the EHR. Our software is used as part of the Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) testing process to test the Cross Enterprise Document Sharing for imaging (XDS-I) integration profile. We describe its architecture and functionalities; we also expose the challenges encountered and discuss the elected design solutions. Conclusions EHR is being deployed in several countries. The EHR infrastructure will be continuously evolving to embrace advances in the information technology domain. Our software is built on a web framework to allow for an easy evolution with web technology. The testing software is publicly available; it can be used by system implementers to test their implementations. It can also be used by site integrators to verify and test the interoperability of systems, or by developers to understand specifications ambiguities, or to resolve implementations difficulties. PMID:20858241

IHE cross-enterprise document sharing for imaging: interoperability testing software.

PubMed

Noumeir, Rita; Renaud, Bérubé

2010-09-21

With the deployments of Electronic Health Records (EHR), interoperability testing in healthcare is becoming crucial. EHR enables access to prior diagnostic information in order to assist in health decisions. It is a virtual system that results from the cooperation of several heterogeneous distributed systems. Interoperability between peers is therefore essential. Achieving interoperability requires various types of testing. Implementations need to be tested using software that simulates communication partners, and that provides test data and test plans. In this paper we describe a software that is used to test systems that are involved in sharing medical images within the EHR. Our software is used as part of the Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) testing process to test the Cross Enterprise Document Sharing for imaging (XDS-I) integration profile. We describe its architecture and functionalities; we also expose the challenges encountered and discuss the elected design solutions. EHR is being deployed in several countries. The EHR infrastructure will be continuously evolving to embrace advances in the information technology domain. Our software is built on a web framework to allow for an easy evolution with web technology. The testing software is publicly available; it can be used by system implementers to test their implementations. It can also be used by site integrators to verify and test the interoperability of systems, or by developers to understand specifications ambiguities, or to resolve implementations difficulties.

Ensemble: an Architecture for Mission-Operations Software

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Norris, Jeffrey; Powell, Mark; Fox, Jason; Rabe, Kenneth; Shu, IHsiang; McCurdy, Michael; Vera, Alonso

2008-01-01

Ensemble is the name of an open architecture for, and a methodology for the development of, spacecraft mission operations software. Ensemble is also potentially applicable to the development of non-spacecraft mission-operations- type software. Ensemble capitalizes on the strengths of the open-source Eclipse software and its architecture to address several issues that have arisen repeatedly in the development of mission-operations software: Heretofore, mission-operations application programs have been developed in disparate programming environments and integrated during the final stages of development of missions. The programs have been poorly integrated, and it has been costly to develop, test, and deploy them. Users of each program have been forced to interact with several different graphical user interfaces (GUIs). Also, the strategy typically used in integrating the programs has yielded serial chains of operational software tools of such a nature that during use of a given tool, it has not been possible to gain access to the capabilities afforded by other tools. In contrast, the Ensemble approach offers a low-risk path towards tighter integration of mission-operations software tools.

Achieving AFRL Universal FADEC Vision With Open Architecture Addressing Capability and Obsolescence for Military and Commercial Applications (Preprint)

DTIC Science & Technology

2006-11-01

engines will involve a family of common components. It will consist of a real - time operating system and partitioned application software (AS...system will employ a standard hardware and software architecture. It will consist of a real time operating system and partitioned application...Inputs - Enables Large Cost Reduction 3. Software - FAA Certified Auto Code - Real Time Operating System - Commercial

Proceedings of the International Workshop on the Foundations of Service-Oriented Architecture (FSOA 2007)

DTIC Science & Technology

2008-06-01

agenda are summarized. x | CMU/SEI-2008-SR-011 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING INSTITUTE | 1 1 Introduction Service -oriented architecture (SOA... service -provision software systems. In this po- sition paper, we investigate an initial classification of challenge areas related to service orientation...decade we have witnessed a significant growth of software applications that are de- livered in the form of services utilizing a network infrastructure

Antiterrorist Software

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Clark, David A.

1998-01-01

In light of the escalation of terrorism, the Department of Defense spearheaded the development of new antiterrorist software for all Government agencies by issuing a Broad Agency Announcement to solicit proposals. This Government-wide competition resulted in a team that includes NASA Lewis Research Center's Computer Services Division, who will develop the graphical user interface (GUI) and test it in their usability lab. The team launched a program entitled Joint Sphere of Security (JSOS), crafted a design architecture (see the following figure), and is testing the interface. This software system has a state-ofthe- art, object-oriented architecture, with a main kernel composed of the Dynamic Information Architecture System (DIAS) developed by Argonne National Laboratory. DIAS will be used as the software "breadboard" for assembling the components of explosions, such as blast and collapse simulations.

A Generic Software Architecture For Prognostics

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Teubert, Christopher; Daigle, Matthew J.; Sankararaman, Shankar; Goebel, Kai; Watkins, Jason

2017-01-01

Prognostics is a systems engineering discipline focused on predicting end-of-life of components and systems. As a relatively new and emerging technology, there are few fielded implementations of prognostics, due in part to practitioners perceiving a large hurdle in developing the models, algorithms, architecture, and integration pieces. As a result, no open software frameworks for applying prognostics currently exist. This paper introduces the Generic Software Architecture for Prognostics (GSAP), an open-source, cross-platform, object-oriented software framework and support library for creating prognostics applications. GSAP was designed to make prognostics more accessible and enable faster adoption and implementation by industry, by reducing the effort and investment required to develop, test, and deploy prognostics. This paper describes the requirements, design, and testing of GSAP. Additionally, a detailed case study involving battery prognostics demonstrates its use.

Reconfigurable Transceiver and Software-Defined Radio Architecture and Technology Evaluated for NASA Space Communications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Reinhart, Richard C.; Kacpura, Thomas J.

2004-01-01

The NASA Glenn Research Center is investigating the development and suitability of a software-based open-architecture for space-based reconfigurable transceivers (RTs) and software-defined radios (SDRs). The main objectives of this project are to enable advanced operations and reduce mission costs. SDRs are becoming more common because of the capabilities of reconfigurable digital signal processing technologies such as field programmable gate arrays and digital signal processors, which place radio functions in firmware and software that were traditionally performed with analog hardware components. Features of interest of this communications architecture include nonproprietary open standards and application programming interfaces to enable software reuse and portability, independent hardware and software development, and hardware and software functional separation. The goals for RT and SDR technologies for NASA space missions include prelaunch and on-orbit frequency and waveform reconfigurability and programmability, high data rate capability, and overall communications and processing flexibility. These operational advances over current state-of-art transceivers will be provided to reduce the power, mass, and cost of RTs and SDRs for space communications. The open architecture for NASA communications will support existing (legacy) communications needs and capabilities while providing a path to more capable, advanced waveform development and mission concepts (e.g., ad hoc constellations with self-healing networks and high-rate science data return). A study was completed to assess the state of the art in RT architectures, implementations, and technologies. In-house researchers conducted literature searches and analysis, interviewed Government and industry contacts, and solicited information and white papers from industry on space-qualifiable RTs and SDRs and their associated technologies for space-based NASA applications. The white papers were evaluated, compiled, and used to assess RT and SDR system architectures and core technology elements to determine an appropriate investment strategy to advance these technologies to meet future mission needs. The use of these radios in the space environment represents a challenge because of the space radiation suitability of the components, which drastically reduces the processing capability. The radios available for space are considered to be RTs (as opposed to SDRs), which are digitally programmable radios with selectable changes from an architecture combining analog and digital components. The limited flexibility of this design contrasts against the desire to have a power-efficient solution and open architecture.

Image-Processing Software For A Hypercube Computer

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lee, Meemong; Mazer, Alan S.; Groom, Steven L.; Williams, Winifred I.

1992-01-01

Concurrent Image Processing Executive (CIPE) is software system intended to develop and use image-processing application programs on concurrent computing environment. Designed to shield programmer from complexities of concurrent-system architecture, it provides interactive image-processing environment for end user. CIPE utilizes architectural characteristics of particular concurrent system to maximize efficiency while preserving architectural independence from user and programmer. CIPE runs on Mark-IIIfp 8-node hypercube computer and associated SUN-4 host computer.

Using the CoRE Requirements Method with ADARTS. Version 01.00.05

DTIC Science & Technology

1994-03-01

requirements; combining ADARTS processes and objects derived from CoRE requirements into an ADARTS software architecture design ; and taking advantage of...CoRE’s precision in the ADARTS process structuring, class structuring, and software architecture design activities. Object-oriented requirements and

Challenges in the Development and Evolution of Secure Open Architecture Command and Control Systems (Briefing Charts)

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-06-01

widgets for an OA system Design-time architecture: Browser, email, widget, DB, OS Go ogle Instance architecture: Chrome, Gmail, Google...provides functionally similar components or applications compatible with an OA system design Firefox Browser, WP, calendar Opera Instance...architecture: Firefox , AbiWord, Evolution, Fedora GPL Ab1Word Google Docs Instance ardlitecture: Fire fox, OR Google cal., Google Docs, Fedora

Architecture for Survivable System Processing (ASSP)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wood, Richard J.

1991-11-01

The Architecture for Survivable System Processing (ASSP) Program is a multi-phase effort to implement Department of Defense (DOD) and commercially developed high-tech hardware, software, and architectures for reliable space avionics and ground based systems. System configuration options provide processing capabilities to address Time Dependent Processing (TDP), Object Dependent Processing (ODP), and Mission Dependent Processing (MDP) requirements through Open System Architecture (OSA) alternatives that allow for the enhancement, incorporation, and capitalization of a broad range of development assets. High technology developments in hardware, software, and networking models, address technology challenges of long processor life times, fault tolerance, reliability, throughput, memories, radiation hardening, size, weight, power (SWAP) and security. Hardware and software design, development, and implementation focus on the interconnectivity/interoperability of an open system architecture and is being developed to apply new technology into practical OSA components. To insure for widely acceptable architecture capable of interfacing with various commercial and military components, this program provides for regular interactions with standardization working groups (e.g.) the International Standards Organization (ISO), American National Standards Institute (ANSI), Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), and Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). Selection of a viable open architecture is based on the widely accepted standards that implement the ISO/OSI Reference Model.

Architecture for Survivable System Processing (ASSP)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wood, Richard J.

1991-01-01

The Architecture for Survivable System Processing (ASSP) Program is a multi-phase effort to implement Department of Defense (DOD) and commercially developed high-tech hardware, software, and architectures for reliable space avionics and ground based systems. System configuration options provide processing capabilities to address Time Dependent Processing (TDP), Object Dependent Processing (ODP), and Mission Dependent Processing (MDP) requirements through Open System Architecture (OSA) alternatives that allow for the enhancement, incorporation, and capitalization of a broad range of development assets. High technology developments in hardware, software, and networking models, address technology challenges of long processor life times, fault tolerance, reliability, throughput, memories, radiation hardening, size, weight, power (SWAP) and security. Hardware and software design, development, and implementation focus on the interconnectivity/interoperability of an open system architecture and is being developed to apply new technology into practical OSA components. To insure for widely acceptable architecture capable of interfacing with various commercial and military components, this program provides for regular interactions with standardization working groups (e.g.) the International Standards Organization (ISO), American National Standards Institute (ANSI), Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), and Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). Selection of a viable open architecture is based on the widely accepted standards that implement the ISO/OSI Reference Model.

A systems approach defining constraints of the genome architecture on lineage selection and evolvability during somatic cancer evolution

PubMed Central

Rübben, Albert; Nordhoff, Ole

2013-01-01

Summary Most clinically distinguishable malignant tumors are characterized by specific mutations, specific patterns of chromosomal rearrangements and a predominant mechanism of genetic instability but it remains unsolved whether modifications of cancer genomes can be explained solely by mutations and selection through the cancer microenvironment. It has been suggested that internal dynamics of genomic modifications as opposed to the external evolutionary forces have a significant and complex impact on Darwinian species evolution. A similar situation can be expected for somatic cancer evolution as molecular key mechanisms encountered in species evolution also constitute prevalent mutation mechanisms in human cancers. This assumption is developed into a systems approach of carcinogenesis which focuses on possible inner constraints of the genome architecture on lineage selection during somatic cancer evolution. The proposed systems approach can be considered an analogy to the concept of evolvability in species evolution. The principal hypothesis is that permissive or restrictive effects of the genome architecture on lineage selection during somatic cancer evolution exist and have a measurable impact. The systems approach postulates three classes of lineage selection effects of the genome architecture on somatic cancer evolution: i) effects mediated by changes of fitness of cells of cancer lineage, ii) effects mediated by changes of mutation probabilities and iii) effects mediated by changes of gene designation and physical and functional genome redundancy. Physical genome redundancy is the copy number of identical genetic sequences. Functional genome redundancy of a gene or a regulatory element is defined as the number of different genetic elements, regardless of copy number, coding for the same specific biological function within a cancer cell. Complex interactions of the genome architecture on lineage selection may be expected when modifications of the genome architecture have multiple and possibly opposed effects which manifest themselves at disparate times and progression stages. Dissection of putative mechanisms mediating constraints exerted by the genome architecture on somatic cancer evolution may provide an algorithm for understanding and predicting as well as modifying somatic cancer evolution in individual patients. PMID:23336076

Reductive evolution of architectural repertoires in proteomes and the birth of the tripartite world

PubMed Central

Wang, Minglei; Yafremava, Liudmila S.; Caetano-Anollés, Derek; Mittenthal, Jay E.; Caetano-Anollés, Gustavo

2007-01-01

The repertoire of protein architectures in proteomes is evolutionarily conserved and capable of preserving an accurate record of genomic history. Here we use a census of protein architecture in 185 genomes that have been fully sequenced to generate genome-based phylogenies that describe the evolution of the protein world at fold (F) and fold superfamily (FSF) levels. The patterns of representation of F and FSF architectures over evolutionary history suggest three epochs in the evolution of the protein world: (1) architectural diversification, where members of an architecturally rich ancestral community diversified their protein repertoire; (2) superkingdom specification, where superkingdoms Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukarya were specified; and (3) organismal diversification, where F and FSF specific to relatively small sets of organisms appeared as the result of diversification of organismal lineages. Functional annotation of FSF along these architectural chronologies revealed patterns of discovery of biological function. Most importantly, the analysis identified an early and extensive differential loss of architectures occurring primarily in Archaea that segregates the archaeal lineage from the ancient community of organisms and establishes the first organismal divide. Reconstruction of phylogenomic trees of proteomes reflects the timeline of architectural diversification in the emerging lineages. Thus, Archaea undertook a minimalist strategy using only a small subset of the full architectural repertoire and then crystallized into a diversified superkingdom late in evolution. Our analysis also suggests a communal ancestor to all life that was molecularly complex and adopted genomic strategies currently present in Eukarya. PMID:17908824

Domain specific software architectures: Command and control

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Braun, Christine; Hatch, William; Ruegsegger, Theodore; Balzer, Bob; Feather, Martin; Goldman, Neil; Wile, Dave

1992-01-01

GTE is the Command and Control contractor for the Domain Specific Software Architectures program. The objective of this program is to develop and demonstrate an architecture-driven, component-based capability for the automated generation of command and control (C2) applications. Such a capability will significantly reduce the cost of C2 applications development and will lead to improved system quality and reliability through the use of proven architectures and components. A major focus of GTE's approach is the automated generation of application components in particular subdomains. Our initial work in this area has concentrated in the message handling subdomain; we have defined and prototyped an approach that can automate one of the most software-intensive parts of C2 systems development. This paper provides an overview of the GTE team's DSSA approach and then presents our work on automated support for message processing.

Flexible software architecture for user-interface and machine control in laboratory automation.

PubMed

Arutunian, E B; Meldrum, D R; Friedman, N A; Moody, S E

1998-10-01

We describe a modular, layered software architecture for automated laboratory instruments. The design consists of a sophisticated user interface, a machine controller and multiple individual hardware subsystems, each interacting through a client-server architecture built entirely on top of open Internet standards. In our implementation, the user-interface components are built as Java applets that are downloaded from a server integrated into the machine controller. The user-interface client can thereby provide laboratory personnel with a familiar environment for experiment design through a standard World Wide Web browser. Data management and security are seamlessly integrated at the machine-controller layer using QNX, a real-time operating system. This layer also controls hardware subsystems through a second client-server interface. This architecture has proven flexible and relatively easy to implement and allows users to operate laboratory automation instruments remotely through an Internet connection. The software architecture was implemented and demonstrated on the Acapella, an automated fluid-sample-processing system that is under development at the University of Washington.

Multi-Agent Diagnosis and Control of an Air Revitalization System for Life Support in Space

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Malin, Jane T.; Kowing, Jeffrey; Nieten, Joseph; Graham, Jeffrey s.; Schreckenghost, Debra; Bonasso, Pete; Fleming, Land D.; MacMahon, Matt; Thronesbery, Carroll

2000-01-01

An architecture of interoperating agents has been developed to provide control and fault management for advanced life support systems in space. In this adjustable autonomy architecture, software agents coordinate with human agents and provide support in novel fault management situations. This architecture combines the Livingstone model-based mode identification and reconfiguration (MIR) system with the 3T architecture for autonomous flexible command and control. The MIR software agent performs model-based state identification and diagnosis. MIR identifies novel recovery configurations and the set of commands required for the recovery. The AZT procedural executive and the human operator use the diagnoses and recovery recommendations, and provide command sequencing. User interface extensions have been developed to support human monitoring of both AZT and MIR data and activities. This architecture has been demonstrated performing control and fault management for an oxygen production system for air revitalization in space. The software operates in a dynamic simulation testbed.

Software Productivity of Field Experiments Using the Mobile Agents Open Architecture with Workflow Interoperability

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Clancey, William J.; Lowry, Michael R.; Nado, Robert Allen; Sierhuis, Maarten

2011-01-01

We analyzed a series of ten systematically developed surface exploration systems that integrated a variety of hardware and software components. Design, development, and testing data suggest that incremental buildup of an exploration system for long-duration capabilities is facilitated by an open architecture with appropriate-level APIs, specifically designed to facilitate integration of new components. This improves software productivity by reducing changes required for reconfiguring an existing system.

CrossTalk. The Journal of Defense Software Engineering. Volume 23, Number 6, Nov/Dec 2010

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-11-01

Model of archi- tectural design. It guides developers to apply effort to their software architecture commensurate with the risks faced by...Driven Model is the promotion of risk to prominence. It is possible to apply the Risk-Driven Model to essentially any software development process...succeed without any planned architecture work, while many high-risk projects would fail without it . The Risk-Driven Model walks a middle path

BEAGLE: an application programming interface and high-performance computing library for statistical phylogenetics.

PubMed

Ayres, Daniel L; Darling, Aaron; Zwickl, Derrick J; Beerli, Peter; Holder, Mark T; Lewis, Paul O; Huelsenbeck, John P; Ronquist, Fredrik; Swofford, David L; Cummings, Michael P; Rambaut, Andrew; Suchard, Marc A

2012-01-01

Phylogenetic inference is fundamental to our understanding of most aspects of the origin and evolution of life, and in recent years, there has been a concentration of interest in statistical approaches such as Bayesian inference and maximum likelihood estimation. Yet, for large data sets and realistic or interesting models of evolution, these approaches remain computationally demanding. High-throughput sequencing can yield data for thousands of taxa, but scaling to such problems using serial computing often necessitates the use of nonstatistical or approximate approaches. The recent emergence of graphics processing units (GPUs) provides an opportunity to leverage their excellent floating-point computational performance to accelerate statistical phylogenetic inference. A specialized library for phylogenetic calculation would allow existing software packages to make more effective use of available computer hardware, including GPUs. Adoption of a common library would also make it easier for other emerging computing architectures, such as field programmable gate arrays, to be used in the future. We present BEAGLE, an application programming interface (API) and library for high-performance statistical phylogenetic inference. The API provides a uniform interface for performing phylogenetic likelihood calculations on a variety of compute hardware platforms. The library includes a set of efficient implementations and can currently exploit hardware including GPUs using NVIDIA CUDA, central processing units (CPUs) with Streaming SIMD Extensions and related processor supplementary instruction sets, and multicore CPUs via OpenMP. To demonstrate the advantages of a common API, we have incorporated the library into several popular phylogenetic software packages. The BEAGLE library is free open source software licensed under the Lesser GPL and available from http://beagle-lib.googlecode.com. An example client program is available as public domain software.

BEAGLE: An Application Programming Interface and High-Performance Computing Library for Statistical Phylogenetics

PubMed Central

Ayres, Daniel L.; Darling, Aaron; Zwickl, Derrick J.; Beerli, Peter; Holder, Mark T.; Lewis, Paul O.; Huelsenbeck, John P.; Ronquist, Fredrik; Swofford, David L.; Cummings, Michael P.; Rambaut, Andrew; Suchard, Marc A.

2012-01-01

Abstract Phylogenetic inference is fundamental to our understanding of most aspects of the origin and evolution of life, and in recent years, there has been a concentration of interest in statistical approaches such as Bayesian inference and maximum likelihood estimation. Yet, for large data sets and realistic or interesting models of evolution, these approaches remain computationally demanding. High-throughput sequencing can yield data for thousands of taxa, but scaling to such problems using serial computing often necessitates the use of nonstatistical or approximate approaches. The recent emergence of graphics processing units (GPUs) provides an opportunity to leverage their excellent floating-point computational performance to accelerate statistical phylogenetic inference. A specialized library for phylogenetic calculation would allow existing software packages to make more effective use of available computer hardware, including GPUs. Adoption of a common library would also make it easier for other emerging computing architectures, such as field programmable gate arrays, to be used in the future. We present BEAGLE, an application programming interface (API) and library for high-performance statistical phylogenetic inference. The API provides a uniform interface for performing phylogenetic likelihood calculations on a variety of compute hardware platforms. The library includes a set of efficient implementations and can currently exploit hardware including GPUs using NVIDIA CUDA, central processing units (CPUs) with Streaming SIMD Extensions and related processor supplementary instruction sets, and multicore CPUs via OpenMP. To demonstrate the advantages of a common API, we have incorporated the library into several popular phylogenetic software packages. The BEAGLE library is free open source software licensed under the Lesser GPL and available from http://beagle-lib.googlecode.com. An example client program is available as public domain software. PMID:21963610

Overview and Software Architecture of the Copernicus Trajectory Design and Optimization System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Williams, Jacob; Senent, Juan S.; Ocampo, Cesar; Mathur, Ravi; Davis, Elizabeth C.

2010-01-01

The Copernicus Trajectory Design and Optimization System represents an innovative and comprehensive approach to on-orbit mission design, trajectory analysis and optimization. Copernicus integrates state of the art algorithms in optimization, interactive visualization, spacecraft state propagation, and data input-output interfaces, allowing the analyst to design spacecraft missions to all possible Solar System destinations. All of these features are incorporated within a single architecture that can be used interactively via a comprehensive GUI interface, or passively via external interfaces that execute batch processes. This paper describes the Copernicus software architecture together with the challenges associated with its implementation. Additionally, future development and planned new capabilities are discussed. Key words: Copernicus, Spacecraft Trajectory Optimization Software.

Conceptual Modeling in the Time of the Revolution: Part II

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mylopoulos, John

Conceptual Modeling was a marginal research topic at the very fringes of Computer Science in the 60s and 70s, when the discipline was dominated by topics focusing on programs, systems and hardware architectures. Over the years, however, the field has moved to centre stage and has come to claim a central role both in Computer Science research and practice in diverse areas, such as Software Engineering, Databases, Information Systems, the Semantic Web, Business Process Management, Service-Oriented Computing, Multi-Agent Systems, Knowledge Management, and more. The transformation was greatly aided by the adoption of standards in modeling languages (e.g., UML), and model-based methodologies (e.g., Model-Driven Architectures) by the Object Management Group (OMG) and other standards organizations. We briefly review the history of the field over the past 40 years, focusing on the evolution of key ideas. We then note some open challenges and report on-going research, covering topics such as the representation of variability in conceptual models, capturing model intentions, and models of laws.

The RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) Architecture and Computer Performance Evaluation.

DTIC Science & Technology

1986-03-01

time where the main emphasis of the evaluation process is put on the software . The model is intended to provide a tool for computer architects to use...program, or 3) Was to be implemented in random logic more effec- tively than the equivalent sequence of software instructions. Both data and address...definition is the IEEE standard 729-1983 stating Computer Architecture as: " The process of defining a collection of hardware and software components and

Traveler Trustworthy Autonomy

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Skoog, Mark A.

2016-01-01

NASAs Armstrong Flight Research Center has been engaged in the development of highly automatic safety systems for aviation since the mid 80s. For the past three years under Seedling and Center Innovation funding this work has moved toward the development of a software architecture applicable to autonomous safety. This work is now broadening and accelerating to address the airworthiness issues surrounding making a case for trustworthy autonomy. This software architecture is called the expandable variable-autonomy architecture (EVAA) and utilizes a run-time assurance approach to safety assurance.

Hypercluster Parallel Processor

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Blech, Richard A.; Cole, Gary L.; Milner, Edward J.; Quealy, Angela

1992-01-01

Hypercluster computer system includes multiple digital processors, operation of which coordinated through specialized software. Configurable according to various parallel-computing architectures of shared-memory or distributed-memory class, including scalar computer, vector computer, reduced-instruction-set computer, and complex-instruction-set computer. Designed as flexible, relatively inexpensive system that provides single programming and operating environment within which one can investigate effects of various parallel-computing architectures and combinations on performance in solution of complicated problems like those of three-dimensional flows in turbomachines. Hypercluster software and architectural concepts are in public domain.

Software system architecture for corporate user support

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sukhopluyeva, V. S.; Kuznetsov, D. Y.

2017-01-01

In this article, several existing ready-to-use solutions for the HelpDesk are reviewed. Advantages and disadvantages of these systems are identified. Architecture of software solution for a corporate user support system is presented in a form of the use case, state, and component diagrams described by using a unified modeling language (UML).

Architecture of web services in the enhancement of real-time 3D video virtualization in cloud environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bada, Adedayo; Wang, Qi; Alcaraz-Calero, Jose M.; Grecos, Christos

2016-04-01

This paper proposes a new approach to improving the application of 3D video rendering and streaming by jointly exploring and optimizing both cloud-based virtualization and web-based delivery. The proposed web service architecture firstly establishes a software virtualization layer based on QEMU (Quick Emulator), an open-source virtualization software that has been able to virtualize system components except for 3D rendering, which is still in its infancy. The architecture then explores the cloud environment to boost the speed of the rendering at the QEMU software virtualization layer. The capabilities and inherent limitations of Virgil 3D, which is one of the most advanced 3D virtual Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) available, are analyzed through benchmarking experiments and integrated into the architecture to further speed up the rendering. Experimental results are reported and analyzed to demonstrate the benefits of the proposed approach.

RT-Syn: A real-time software system generator

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Setliff, Dorothy E.

1992-01-01

This paper presents research into providing highly reusable and maintainable components by using automatic software synthesis techniques. This proposal uses domain knowledge combined with automatic software synthesis techniques to engineer large-scale mission-critical real-time software. The hypothesis centers on a software synthesis architecture that specifically incorporates application-specific (in this case real-time) knowledge. This architecture synthesizes complex system software to meet a behavioral specification and external interaction design constraints. Some examples of these external constraints are communication protocols, precisions, timing, and space limitations. The incorporation of application-specific knowledge facilitates the generation of mathematical software metrics which are used to narrow the design space, thereby making software synthesis tractable. Success has the potential to dramatically reduce mission-critical system life-cycle costs not only by reducing development time, but more importantly facilitating maintenance, modifications, and extensions of complex mission-critical software systems, which are currently dominating life cycle costs.

A Unified Approach to Model-Based Planning and Execution

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Muscettola, Nicola; Dorais, Gregory A.; Fry, Chuck; Levinson, Richard; Plaunt, Christian; Norvig, Peter (Technical Monitor)

2000-01-01

Writing autonomous software is complex, requiring the coordination of functionally and technologically diverse software modules. System and mission engineers must rely on specialists familiar with the different software modules to translate requirements into application software. Also, each module often encodes the same requirement in different forms. The results are high costs and reduced reliability due to the difficulty of tracking discrepancies in these encodings. In this paper we describe a unified approach to planning and execution that we believe provides a unified representational and computational framework for an autonomous agent. We identify the four main components whose interplay provides the basis for the agent's autonomous behavior: the domain model, the plan database, the plan running module, and the planner modules. This representational and problem solving approach can be applied at all levels of the architecture of a complex agent, such as Remote Agent. In the rest of the paper we briefly describe the Remote Agent architecture. The new agent architecture proposed here aims at achieving the full Remote Agent functionality. We then give the fundamental ideas behind the new agent architecture and point out some implication of the structure of the architecture, mainly in the area of reactivity and interaction between reactive and deliberative decision making. We conclude with related work and current status.

NASA Integrated Network Monitor and Control Software Architecture

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shames, Peter; Anderson, Michael; Kowal, Steve; Levesque, Michael; Sindiy, Oleg; Donahue, Kenneth; Barnes, Patrick

2012-01-01

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Space Communications and Navigation office (SCaN) has commissioned a series of trade studies to define a new architecture intended to integrate the three existing networks that it operates, the Deep Space Network (DSN), Space Network (SN), and Near Earth Network (NEN), into one integrated network that offers users a set of common, standardized, services and interfaces. The integrated monitor and control architecture utilizes common software and common operator interfaces that can be deployed at all three network elements. This software uses state-of-the-art concepts such as a pool of re-programmable equipment that acts like a configurable software radio, distributed hierarchical control, and centralized management of the whole SCaN integrated network. For this trade space study a model-based approach using SysML was adopted to describe and analyze several possible options for the integrated network monitor and control architecture. This model was used to refine the design and to drive the costing of the four different software options. This trade study modeled the three existing self standing network elements at point of departure, and then described how to integrate them using variations of new and existing monitor and control system components for the different proposed deployments under consideration. This paper will describe the trade space explored, the selected system architecture, the modeling and trade study methods, and some observations on useful approaches to implementing such model based trade space representation and analysis.

Observatory software for the Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vermeulen, Tom; Isani, Sidik; Withington, Kanoa; Ho, Kevin; Szeto, Kei; Murowinski, Rick

2016-07-01

The Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope is currently in the conceptual design phase to redevelop its facility into the new Maunakea Spectroscopic Explorer (MSE). MSE is designed to be the largest non-ELT optical/NIR astronomical telescope, and will be a fully dedicated facility for multi-object spectroscopy over a broad range of spectral resolutions. This paper outlines the software and control architecture envisioned for the new facility. The architecture will be designed around much of the existing software infrastructure currently used at CFHT as well as the latest proven opensource software. CFHT plans to minimize risk and development time by leveraging existing technology.

Model Driven Engineering

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gaševic, Dragan; Djuric, Dragan; Devedžic, Vladan

A relevant initiative from the software engineering community called Model Driven Engineering (MDE) is being developed in parallel with the Semantic Web (Mellor et al. 2003a). The MDE approach to software development suggests that one should first develop a model of the system under study, which is then transformed into the real thing (i.e., an executable software entity). The most important research initiative in this area is the Model Driven Architecture (MDA), which is Model Driven Architecture being developed under the umbrella of the Object Management Group (OMG). This chapter describes the basic concepts of this software engineering effort.

Partitioning Strategy Using Static Analysis Techniques

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Seo, Yongjin; Soo Kim, Hyeon

2016-08-01

Flight software is software used in satellites' on-board computers. It has requirements such as real time and reliability. The IMA architecture is used to satisfy these requirements. The IMA architecture has the concept of partitions and this affected the configuration of flight software. That is, situations occurred in which software that had been loaded on one system was divided into many partitions when being loaded. For new issues, existing studies use experience based partitioning methods. However, these methods have a problem that they cannot be reused. In this respect, this paper proposes a partitioning method that is reusable and consistent.

Architecture, Design, Implementatio

DTIC Science & Technology

2003-05-01

The terms architecture , design , and implementation are typically used informally in partitioning software specifications into three coarse strata of...we formalize the Intension and the Locality criteria, which imply that the distinction between architecture , design , and implementation is

Space Generic Open Avionics Architecture (SGOAA) reference model technical guide

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wray, Richard B.; Stovall, John R.

1993-01-01

This report presents a full description of the Space Generic Open Avionics Architecture (SGOAA). The SGOAA consists of a generic system architecture for the entities in spacecraft avionics, a generic processing architecture, and a six class model of interfaces in a hardware/software system. The purpose of the SGOAA is to provide an umbrella set of requirements for applying the generic architecture interface model to the design of specific avionics hardware/software systems. The SGOAA defines a generic set of system interface points to facilitate identification of critical interfaces and establishes the requirements for applying appropriate low level detailed implementation standards to those interface points. The generic core avionics system and processing architecture models provided herein are robustly tailorable to specific system applications and provide a platform upon which the interface model is to be applied.

Integrated System Health Management: Pilot Operational Implementation in a Rocket Engine Test Stand

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Figueroa, Fernando; Schmalzel, John L.; Morris, Jonathan A.; Turowski, Mark P.; Franzl, Richard

2010-01-01

This paper describes a credible implementation of integrated system health management (ISHM) capability, as a pilot operational system. Important core elements that make possible fielding and evolution of ISHM capability have been validated in a rocket engine test stand, encompassing all phases of operation: stand-by, pre-test, test, and post-test. The core elements include an architecture (hardware/software) for ISHM, gateways for streaming real-time data from the data acquisition system into the ISHM system, automated configuration management employing transducer electronic data sheets (TEDS?s) adhering to the IEEE 1451.4 Standard for Smart Sensors and Actuators, broadcasting and capture of sensor measurements and health information adhering to the IEEE 1451.1 Standard for Smart Sensors and Actuators, user interfaces for management of redlines/bluelines, and establishment of a health assessment database system (HADS) and browser for extensive post-test analysis. The ISHM system was installed in the Test Control Room, where test operators were exposed to the capability. All functionalities of the pilot implementation were validated during testing and in post-test data streaming through the ISHM system. The implementation enabled significant improvements in awareness about the status of the test stand, and events and their causes/consequences. The architecture and software elements embody a systems engineering, knowledge-based approach; in conjunction with object-oriented environments. These qualities are permitting systematic augmentation of the capability and scaling to encompass other subsystems.

The software architecture of the camera for the ASTRI SST-2M prototype for the Cherenkov Telescope Array

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sangiorgi, Pierluca; Capalbi, Milvia; Gimenes, Renato; La Rosa, Giovanni; Russo, Francesco; Segreto, Alberto; Sottile, Giuseppe; Catalano, Osvaldo

2016-07-01

The purpose of this contribution is to present the current status of the software architecture of the ASTRI SST-2M Cherenkov Camera. The ASTRI SST-2M telescope is an end-to-end prototype for the Small Size Telescope of the Cherenkov Telescope Array. The ASTRI camera is an innovative instrument based on SiPM detectors and has several internal hardware components. In this contribution we will give a brief description of the hardware components of the camera of the ASTRI SST-2M prototype and of their interconnections. Then we will present the outcome of the software architectural design process that we carried out in order to identify the main structural components of the camera software system and the relationships among them. We will analyze the architectural model that describes how the camera software is organized as a set of communicating blocks. Finally, we will show where these blocks are deployed in the hardware components and how they interact. We will describe in some detail, the physical communication ports and external ancillary devices management, the high precision time-tag management, the fast data collection and the fast data exchange between different camera subsystems, and the interfacing with the external systems.

Control software and electronics architecture design in the framework of the E-ELT instrumentation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Di Marcantonio, P.; Coretti, I.; Cirami, R.; Comari, M.; Santin, P.; Pucillo, M.

2010-07-01

During the last years the European Southern Observatory (ESO), in collaboration with other European astronomical institutes, has started several feasibility studies for the E-ELT (European-Extremely Large Telescope) instrumentation and post-focal adaptive optics. The goal is to create a flexible suite of instruments to deal with the wide variety of scientific questions astronomers would like to see solved in the coming decades. In this framework INAF-Astronomical Observatory of Trieste (INAF-AOTs) is currently responsible of carrying out the analysis and the preliminary study of the architecture of the electronics and control software of three instruments: CODEX (control software and electronics) and OPTIMOS-EVE/OPTIMOS-DIORAMAS (control software). To cope with the increased complexity and new requirements for stability, precision, real-time latency and communications among sub-systems imposed by these instruments, new solutions have been investigated by our group. In this paper we present the proposed software and electronics architecture based on a distributed common framework centered on the Component/Container model that uses OPC Unified Architecture as a standard layer to communicate with COTS components of three different vendors. We describe three working prototypes that have been set-up in our laboratory and discuss their performances, integration complexity and ease of deployment.

Enhancing User Customization through Novel Software Architecture for Utility Scale Solar Siting Software

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Brant Peery; Sam Alessi; Randy Lee

2014-06-01

There is a need for a spatial decision support application that allows users to create customized metrics for comparing proposed locations of a new solar installation. This document discusses how PVMapper was designed to overcome the customization problem through the development of loosely coupled spatial and decision components in a JavaScript plugin architecture. This allows the user to easily add functionality and data to the system. The paper also explains how PVMapper provides the user with a dynamic and customizable decision tool that enables them to visually modify the formulas that are used in the decision algorithms that convert datamore » to comparable metrics. The technologies that make up the presentation and calculation software stack are outlined. This document also explains the architecture that allows the tool to grow through custom plugins created by the software users. Some discussion is given on the difficulties encountered while designing the system.« less

Orthographic Software Modelling: A Novel Approach to View-Based Software Engineering

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Atkinson, Colin

The need to support multiple views of complex software architectures, each capturing a different aspect of the system under development, has been recognized for a long time. Even the very first object-oriented analysis/design methods such as the Booch method and OMT supported a number of different diagram types (e.g. structural, behavioral, operational) and subsequent methods such as Fusion, Kruchten's 4+1 views and the Rational Unified Process (RUP) have added many more views over time. Today's leading modeling languages such as the UML and SysML, are also oriented towards supporting different views (i.e. diagram types) each able to portray a different facets of a system's architecture. More recently, so called enterprise architecture frameworks such as the Zachman Framework, TOGAF and RM-ODP have become popular. These add a whole set of new non-functional views to the views typically emphasized in traditional software engineering environments.

The computational structural mechanics testbed architecture. Volume 5: The Input-Output Manager DMGASP

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Felippa, Carlos A.

1989-01-01

This is the fifth of a set of five volumes which describe the software architecture for the Computational Structural Mechanics Testbed. Derived from NICE, an integrated software system developed at Lockheed Palo Alto Research Laboratory, the architecture is composed of the command language (CLAMP), the command language interpreter (CLIP), and the data manager (GAL). Volumes 1, 2, and 3 (NASA CR's 178384, 178385, and 178386, respectively) describe CLAMP and CLIP and the CLIP-processor interface. Volumes 4 and 5 (NASA CR's 178387 and 178388, respectively) describe GAL and its low-level I/O. CLAMP, an acronym for Command Language for Applied Mechanics Processors, is designed to control the flow of execution of processors written for NICE. Volume 5 describes the low-level data management component of the NICE software. It is intended only for advanced programmers involved in maintenance of the software.

Study of fault-tolerant software technology

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Slivinski, T.; Broglio, C.; Wild, C.; Goldberg, J.; Levitt, K.; Hitt, E.; Webb, J.

1984-01-01

Presented is an overview of the current state of the art of fault-tolerant software and an analysis of quantitative techniques and models developed to assess its impact. It examines research efforts as well as experience gained from commercial application of these techniques. The paper also addresses the computer architecture and design implications on hardware, operating systems and programming languages (including Ada) of using fault-tolerant software in real-time aerospace applications. It concludes that fault-tolerant software has progressed beyond the pure research state. The paper also finds that, although not perfectly matched, newer architectural and language capabilities provide many of the notations and functions needed to effectively and efficiently implement software fault-tolerance.

The Ozone Widget Framework: towards modularity of C2 human interfaces

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hellar, David Benjamin; Vega, Laurian C.

2012-05-01

The Ozone Widget Framework (OWF) is a common webtop environment for distribution across the enterprise. A key mission driver for OWF is to enable rapid capability delivery by lowering time-to-market with lightweight components. OWF has been released as Government Open Source Software and has been deployed in a variety of C2 net-centric contexts ranging from real-time analytics, cyber-situational awareness, to strategic and operational planning. This paper discusses the current and future evolution of OWF including the availability of the OZONE Marketplace (OMP), useractivity driven metrics, and architecture enhancements for accessibility. Together, OWF is moving towards the rapid delivery of modular human interfaces supporting modern and future command and control contexts.

Network-based collaborative research environment LDRD final report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Davies, B.R.; McDonald, M.J.

1997-09-01

The Virtual Collaborative Environment (VCE) and Distributed Collaborative Workbench (DCW) are new technologies that make it possible for diverse users to synthesize and share mechatronic, sensor, and information resources. Using these technologies, university researchers, manufacturers, design firms, and others can directly access and reconfigure systems located throughout the world. The architecture for implementing VCE and DCW has been developed based on the proposed National Information Infrastructure or Information Highway and a tool kit of Sandia-developed software. Further enhancements to the VCE and DCW technologies will facilitate access to other mechatronic resources. This report describes characteristics of VCE and DCW andmore » also includes background information about the evolution of these technologies.« less

Design and Acquisition of Software for Defense Systems

DTIC Science & Technology

2018-02-14

enterprise business systems and related information technology (IT) services, the role software plays in enabling and enhancing weapons systems often...3 The information in this chart was compiled from Christian Hagen, Jeff Sorenson, Steven Hurt...understanding to make an informed choice of final architecture. The Task Force found commercial practice starts with several competing architectures and

A Simple Example of an SADMT (SDI-Strategic Defense Initiative) Architecture Dataflow Modeling Technique) Architecture Specification. Version 1.5.

DTIC Science & Technology

1988-04-21

Layton Senior Software Engineer Martin Marietta Denver Aerospace MS L0425 P.O. Box 179 Denver, CO 80201 Larry L. Lehman Integrated Systems Inc. 2500...Mission College Road Santa Clara, CA 95054 Eric Leighninger Dynamics Research 60 Frontage Road Andover, MA 01810 . Peter Lempp Software Products and

Software control architecture for autonomous vehicles

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nelson, Michael L.; DeAnda, Juan R.; Fox, Richard K.; Meng, Xiannong

1999-07-01

The Strategic-Tactical-Execution Software Control Architecture (STESCA) is a tri-level approach to controlling autonomous vehicles. Using an object-oriented approach, STESCA has been developed as a generalization of the Rational Behavior Model (RBM). STESCA was initially implemented for the Phoenix Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (Naval Postgraduate School -- Monterey, CA), and is currently being implemented for the Pioneer AT land-based wheeled vehicle. The goals of STESCA are twofold. First is to create a generic framework to simplify the process of creating a software control architecture for autonomous vehicles of any type. Second is to allow for mission specification system by 'anyone' with minimal training to control the overall vehicle functionality. This paper describes the prototype implementation of STESCA for the Pioneer AT.

Practical Application of Model-based Programming and State-based Architecture to Space Missions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Horvath, Gregory A.; Ingham, Michel D.; Chung, Seung; Martin, Oliver; Williams, Brian

2006-01-01

Innovative systems and software engineering solutions are required to meet the increasingly challenging demands of deep-space robotic missions. While recent advances in the development of an integrated systems and software engineering approach have begun to address some of these issues, they are still at the core highly manual and, therefore, error-prone. This paper describes a task aimed at infusing MIT's model-based executive, Titan, into JPL's Mission Data System (MDS), a unified state-based architecture, systems engineering process, and supporting software framework. Results of the task are presented, including a discussion of the benefits and challenges associated with integrating mature model-based programming techniques and technologies into a rigorously-defined domain specific architecture.

Re-Engineering JPL's Mission Planning Ground System Architecture for Cost Efficient Operations in the 21st Century

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Fordyce, Jess

1996-01-01

Work carried out to re-engineer the mission analysis segment of JPL's mission planning ground system architecture is reported on. The aim is to transform the existing software tools, originally developed for specific missions on different support environments, into an integrated, general purpose, multi-mission tool set. The issues considered are: the development of a partnership between software developers and users; the definition of key mission analysis functions; the development of a consensus based architecture; the move towards evolutionary change instead of revolutionary replacement; software reusability, and the minimization of future maintenance costs. The current status and aims of new developments are discussed and specific examples of cost savings and improved productivity are presented.

Software Defined Networking (SDN) controlled all optical switching networks with multi-dimensional switching architecture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhao, Yongli; Ji, Yuefeng; Zhang, Jie; Li, Hui; Xiong, Qianjin; Qiu, Shaofeng

2014-08-01

Ultrahigh throughout capacity requirement is challenging the current optical switching nodes with the fast development of data center networks. Pbit/s level all optical switching networks need to be deployed soon, which will cause the high complexity of node architecture. How to control the future network and node equipment together will become a new problem. An enhanced Software Defined Networking (eSDN) control architecture is proposed in the paper, which consists of Provider NOX (P-NOX) and Node NOX (N-NOX). With the cooperation of P-NOX and N-NOX, the flexible control of the entire network can be achieved. All optical switching network testbed has been experimentally demonstrated with efficient control of enhanced Software Defined Networking (eSDN). Pbit/s level all optical switching nodes in the testbed are implemented based on multi-dimensional switching architecture, i.e. multi-level and multi-planar. Due to the space and cost limitation, each optical switching node is only equipped with four input line boxes and four output line boxes respectively. Experimental results are given to verify the performance of our proposed control and switching architecture.

The Generalized Support Software (GSS) Domain Engineering Process: An Object-Oriented Implementation and Reuse Success at Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Condon, Steven; Hendrick, Robert; Stark, Michael E.; Steger, Warren

1997-01-01

The Flight Dynamics Division (FDD) of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) recently embarked on a far-reaching revision of its process for developing and maintaining satellite support software. The new process relies on an object-oriented software development method supported by a domain specific library of generalized components. This Generalized Support Software (GSS) Domain Engineering Process is currently in use at the NASA GSFC Software Engineering Laboratory (SEL). The key facets of the GSS process are (1) an architecture for rapid deployment of FDD applications, (2) a reuse asset library for FDD classes, and (3) a paradigm shift from developing software to configuring software for mission support. This paper describes the GSS architecture and process, results of fielding the first applications, lessons learned, and future directions

Architectural Design of a LMS with LTSA-Conformance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sengupta, Souvik; Dasgupta, Ranjan

2017-01-01

This paper illustrates an approach for architectural design of a Learning Management System (LMS), which is verifiable against the Learning Technology System Architecture (LTSA) conformance rules. We introduce a new method for software architectural design that extends the Unified Modeling Language (UML) component diagram with the formal…

Automated Synthesis of Architecture of Avionic Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Chau, Savio; Xu, Joseph; Dang, Van; Lu, James F.

2006-01-01

The Architecture Synthesis Tool (AST) is software that automatically synthesizes software and hardware architectures of avionic systems. The AST is expected to be most helpful during initial formulation of an avionic-system design, when system requirements change frequently and manual modification of architecture is time-consuming and susceptible to error. The AST comprises two parts: (1) an architecture generator, which utilizes a genetic algorithm to create a multitude of architectures; and (2) a functionality evaluator, which analyzes the architectures for viability, rejecting most of the non-viable ones. The functionality evaluator generates and uses a viability tree a hierarchy representing functions and components that perform the functions such that the system as a whole performs system-level functions representing the requirements for the system as specified by a user. Architectures that survive the functionality evaluator are further evaluated by the selection process of the genetic algorithm. Architectures found to be most promising to satisfy the user s requirements and to perform optimally are selected as parents to the next generation of architectures. The foregoing process is iterated as many times as the user desires. The final output is one or a few viable architectures that satisfy the user s requirements.

Robot Electronics Architecture

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Garrett, Michael; Magnone, Lee; Aghazarian, Hrand; Baumgartner, Eric; Kennedy, Brett

2008-01-01

An electronics architecture has been developed to enable the rapid construction and testing of prototypes of robotic systems. This architecture is designed to be a research vehicle of great stability, reliability, and versatility. A system according to this architecture can easily be reconfigured (including expanded or contracted) to satisfy a variety of needs with respect to input, output, processing of data, sensing, actuation, and power. The architecture affords a variety of expandable input/output options that enable ready integration of instruments, actuators, sensors, and other devices as independent modular units. The separation of different electrical functions onto independent circuit boards facilitates the development of corresponding simple and modular software interfaces. As a result, both hardware and software can be made to expand or contract in modular fashion while expending a minimum of time and effort.

The CMS High Level Trigger System: Experience and Future Development

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bauer, G.; Behrens, U.; Bowen, M.; Branson, J.; Bukowiec, S.; Cittolin, S.; Coarasa, J. A.; Deldicque, C.; Dobson, M.; Dupont, A.; Erhan, S.; Flossdorf, A.; Gigi, D.; Glege, F.; Gomez-Reino, R.; Hartl, C.; Hegeman, J.; Holzner, A.; Hwong, Y. L.; Masetti, L.; Meijers, F.; Meschi, E.; Mommsen, R. K.; O'Dell, V.; Orsini, L.; Paus, C.; Petrucci, A.; Pieri, M.; Polese, G.; Racz, A.; Raginel, O.; Sakulin, H.; Sani, M.; Schwick, C.; Shpakov, D.; Simon, S.; Spataru, A. C.; Sumorok, K.

2012-12-01

The CMS experiment at the LHC features a two-level trigger system. Events accepted by the first level trigger, at a maximum rate of 100 kHz, are read out by the Data Acquisition system (DAQ), and subsequently assembled in memory in a farm of computers running a software high-level trigger (HLT), which selects interesting events for offline storage and analysis at a rate of order few hundred Hz. The HLT algorithms consist of sequences of offline-style reconstruction and filtering modules, executed on a farm of 0(10000) CPU cores built from commodity hardware. Experience from the operation of the HLT system in the collider run 2010/2011 is reported. The current architecture of the CMS HLT, its integration with the CMS reconstruction framework and the CMS DAQ, are discussed in the light of future development. The possible short- and medium-term evolution of the HLT software infrastructure to support extensions of the HLT computing power, and to address remaining performance and maintenance issues, are discussed.

Preliminary Design of ArchE: A Software Architecture Design Assistant

DTIC Science & Technology

2003-09-01

This report presents a procedure for moving from a set of quality attribute scenarios to an architecture design that satisfies those scenarios. This...procedure is embodied in a preliminary design for an architecture design assistant named ArchE (Architecture Expert), which will be implemented on a

Architecture Synthesis and Reduced-Cost Architectures for Human Exploration Missions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Woodcock, Gordon

2004-01-01

Development of architectures for human exploration missions has been pursued in the international aerospace community for a long time. This paper attempts a different approach and way of looking at architectures. Most of the emphasis is on lunar architectures with a brief look at Mars. The first step is to set forth overarching gods in order to understand origins of requirements. Then, principles and guidelines are developed for architecture formulation. It is argued that safety and cost are the primary factors. Alternative mission profiles are examined for adherence to the principles, and specific architectures formulated according to the guidelines. The guidelines themselves indicate preferred evolution paths from lunar to Mars architectures. Results of example calculations are given to illustrate the process, and an evolution path is recommended. Safety and cost criteria tend to conflict, but it is shown that cost-efficient architectures can be enhanced for good safety ratings at modest cost.

An Update on Design Tools for Optimization of CMC 3D Fiber Architectures

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lang, J.; DiCarlo, J.

2012-01-01

Objective: Describe and up-date progress for NASA's efforts to develop 3D architectural design tools for CMC in general and for SIC/SiC composites in particular. Describe past and current sequential work efforts aimed at: Understanding key fiber and tow physical characteristics in conventional 2D and 3D woven architectures as revealed by microstructures in the literature. Developing an Excel program for down-selecting and predicting key geometric properties and resulting key fiber-controlled properties for various conventional 3D architectures. Developing a software tool for accurately visualizing all the key geometric details of conventional 3D architectures. Validating tools by visualizing and predicting the Internal geometry and key mechanical properties of a NASA SIC/SIC panel with a 3D orthogonal architecture. Applying the predictive and visualization tools toward advanced 3D orthogonal SiC/SIC composites, and combining them into a user-friendly software program.

Specializing architectures for the type 2 diabetes mellitus care use cases with a focus on process management.

PubMed

Uribe, Gustavo A; Blobel, Bernd; López, Diego M; Ruiz, Alonso A

2015-01-01

The development of software supporting inter-disciplinary systems like the type 2 diabetes mellitus care requires the deployment of methodologies designed for this type of interoperability. The GCM framework allows the architectural description of such systems and the development of software solutions based on it. A first step of the GCM methodology is the definition of a generic architecture, followed by its specialization for specific use cases. This paper describes the specialization of the generic architecture of a system, supporting Type 2 diabetes mellitus glycemic control, for a pharmacotherapy use case. It focuses on the behavioral aspect of the system, i.e. the policy domain and the definition of the rules governing the system. The design of this architecture reflects the inter-disciplinary feature of the methodology. Finally, the resulting architecture allows building adaptive, intelligent and complete systems.

Software Architecture to Support the Evolution of the ISRU RESOLVE Engineering Breadboard Unit 2 (EBU2)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Moss, Thomas; Nurge, Mark; Perusich, Stephen

2011-01-01

The In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) Regolith & Environmental Science and Oxygen & Lunar Volatiles Extraction (RESOLVE) software provides operation of the physical plant from a remote location with a high-level interface that can access and control the data from external software applications of other subsystems. This software allows autonomous control over the entire system with manual computer control of individual system/process components. It gives non-programmer operators the capability to easily modify the high-level autonomous sequencing while the software is in operation, as well as the ability to modify the low-level, file-based sequences prior to the system operation. Local automated control in a distributed system is also enabled where component control is maintained during the loss of network connectivity with the remote workstation. This innovation also minimizes network traffic. The software architecture commands and controls the latest generation of RESOLVE processes used to obtain, process, and quantify lunar regolith. The system is grouped into six sub-processes: Drill, Crush, Reactor, Lunar Water Resource Demonstration (LWRD), Regolith Volatiles Characterization (RVC) (see example), and Regolith Oxygen Extraction (ROE). Some processes are independent, some are dependent on other processes, and some are independent but run concurrently with other processes. The first goal is to analyze the volatiles emanating from lunar regolith, such as water, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, ammonia, hydrogen, and others. This is done by heating the soil and analyzing and capturing the volatilized product. The second goal is to produce water by reducing the soil at high temperatures with hydrogen. This is done by raising the reactor temperature in the range of 800 to 900 C, causing the reaction to progress by adding hydrogen, and then capturing the water product in a desiccant bed. The software needs to run the entire unit and all sub-processes; however, throughout testing, many variables and parameters need to be changed as more is learned about the system operation. The Master Events Controller (MEC) is run on a standard laptop PC using Windows XP. This PC runs in parallel to another laptop that monitors the GC, and a third PC that monitors the drilling/ crushing operation. These three PCs interface to the process through a CompactRIO, OPC Servers, and modems.

A Scalable Software Architecture Booting and Configuring Nodes in the Whitney Commodity Computing Testbed

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Fineberg, Samuel A.; Kutler, Paul (Technical Monitor)

1997-01-01

The Whitney project is integrating commodity off-the-shelf PC hardware and software technology to build a parallel supercomputer with hundreds to thousands of nodes. To build such a system, one must have a scalable software model, and the installation and maintenance of the system software must be completely automated. We describe the design of an architecture for booting, installing, and configuring nodes in such a system with particular consideration given to scalability and ease of maintenance. This system has been implemented on a 40-node prototype of Whitney and is to be used on the 500 processor Whitney system to be built in 1998.

Requirements for a multifunctional code architecture

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Tiihonen, O.; Juslin, K.

1997-07-01

The present paper studies a set of requirements for a multifunctional simulation software architecture in the light of experiences gained in developing and using the APROS simulation environment. The huge steps taken in the development of computer hardware and software during the last ten years are changing the status of the traditional nuclear safety analysis software. The affordable computing power on the safety analysts table by far exceeds the possibilities offered to him/her ten years ago. At the same time the features of everyday office software tend to set standards to the way the input data and calculational results aremore » managed.« less

Construction of integrated case environments.

PubMed

Losavio, Francisca; Matteo, Alfredo; Pérez, María

2003-01-01

The main goal of Computer-Aided Software Engineering (CASE) technology is to improve the entire software system development process. The CASE approach is not merely a technology; it involves a fundamental change in the process of software development. The tendency of the CASE approach, technically speaking, is the integration of tools that assist in the application of specific methods. In this sense, the environment architecture, which includes the platform and the system's hardware and software, constitutes the base of the CASE environment. The problem of tools integration has been proposed for two decades. Current integration efforts emphasize the interoperability of tools, especially in distributed environments. In this work we use the Brown approach. The environment resulting from the application of this model is called a federative environment, focusing on the fact that this architecture pays special attention to the connections among the components of the environment. This approach is now being used in component-based design. This paper describes a concrete experience in civil engineering and architecture fields, for the construction of an integrated CASE environment. A generic architectural framework based on an intermediary architectural pattern is applied to achieve the integration of the different tools. This intermediary represents the control perspective of the PAC (Presentation-Abstraction-Control) style, which has been implemented as a Mediator pattern and it has been used in the interactive systems domain. In addition, a process is given to construct the integrated CASE.

Terra Harvest software architecture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Humeniuk, Dave; Klawon, Kevin

2012-06-01

Under the Terra Harvest Program, the DIA has the objective of developing a universal Controller for the Unattended Ground Sensor (UGS) community. The mission is to define, implement, and thoroughly document an open architecture that universally supports UGS missions, integrating disparate systems, peripherals, etc. The Controller's inherent interoperability with numerous systems enables the integration of both legacy and future UGS System (UGSS) components, while the design's open architecture supports rapid third-party development to ensure operational readiness. The successful accomplishment of these objectives by the program's Phase 3b contractors is demonstrated via integration of the companies' respective plug-'n'-play contributions that include controllers, various peripherals, such as sensors, cameras, etc., and their associated software drivers. In order to independently validate the Terra Harvest architecture, L-3 Nova Engineering, along with its partner, the University of Dayton Research Institute, is developing the Terra Harvest Open Source Environment (THOSE), a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) running on an embedded Linux Operating System. The Use Cases on which the software is developed support the full range of UGS operational scenarios such as remote sensor triggering, image capture, and data exfiltration. The Team is additionally developing an ARM microprocessor-based evaluation platform that is both energy-efficient and operationally flexible. The paper describes the overall THOSE architecture, as well as the design decisions for some of the key software components. Development process for THOSE is discussed as well.

External Dependencies-Driven Architecture Discovery and Analysis of Implemented Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ganesan, Dharmalingam; Lindvall, Mikael; Ron, Monica

2014-01-01

A method for architecture discovery and analysis of implemented systems (AIS) is disclosed. The premise of the method is that architecture decisions are inspired and influenced by the external entities that the software system makes use of. Examples of such external entities are COTS components, frameworks, and ultimately even the programming language itself and its libraries. Traces of these architecture decisions can thus be found in the implemented software and is manifested in the way software systems use such external entities. While this fact is often ignored in contemporary reverse engineering methods, the AIS method actively leverages and makes use of the dependencies to external entities as a starting point for the architecture discovery. The AIS method is demonstrated using the NASA's Space Network Access System (SNAS). The results show that, with abundant evidence, the method offers reusable and repeatable guidelines for discovering the architecture and locating potential risks (e.g. low testability, decreased performance) that are hidden deep in the implementation. The analysis is conducted by using external dependencies to identify, classify and review a minimal set of key source code files. Given the benefits of analyzing external dependencies as a way to discover architectures, it is argued that external dependencies deserve to be treated as first-class citizens during reverse engineering. The current structure of a knowledge base of external entities and analysis questions with strategies for getting answers is also discussed.

Next-generation digital camera integration and software development issues

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Venkataraman, Shyam; Peters, Ken; Hecht, Richard

1998-04-01

This paper investigates the complexities associated with the development of next generation digital cameras due to requirements in connectivity and interoperability. Each successive generation of digital camera improves drastically in cost, performance, resolution, image quality and interoperability features. This is being accomplished by advancements in a number of areas: research, silicon, standards, etc. As the capabilities of these cameras increase, so do the requirements for both hardware and software. Today, there are two single chip camera solutions in the market including the Motorola MPC 823 and LSI DCAM- 101. Real time constraints for a digital camera may be defined by the maximum time allowable between capture of images. Constraints in the design of an embedded digital camera include processor architecture, memory, processing speed and the real-time operating systems. This paper will present the LSI DCAM-101, a single-chip digital camera solution. It will present an overview of the architecture and the challenges in hardware and software for supporting streaming video in such a complex device. Issues presented include the development of the data flow software architecture, testing and integration on this complex silicon device. The strategy for optimizing performance on the architecture will also be presented.

SNPHunter: a bioinformatic software for single nucleotide polymorphism data acquisition and management.

PubMed

Wang, Lin; Liu, Simin; Niu, Tianhua; Xu, Xin

2005-03-18

Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) provide an important tool in pinpointing susceptibility genes for complex diseases and in unveiling human molecular evolution. Selection and retrieval of an optimal SNP set from publicly available databases have emerged as the foremost bottlenecks in designing large-scale linkage disequilibrium studies, particularly in case-control settings. We describe the architectural structure and implementations of a novel software program, SNPHunter, which allows for both ad hoc-mode and batch-mode SNP search, automatic SNP filtering, and retrieval of SNP data, including physical position, function class, flanking sequences at user-defined lengths, and heterozygosity from NCBI dbSNP. The SNP data extracted from dbSNP via SNPHunter can be exported and saved in plain text format for further down-stream analyses. As an illustration, we applied SNPHunter for selecting SNPs for 10 major candidate genes for type 2 diabetes, including CAPN10, FABP4, IL6, NOS3, PPARG, TNF, UCP2, CRP, ESR1, and AR. SNPHunter constitutes an efficient and user-friendly tool for SNP screening, selection, and acquisition. The executable and user's manual are available at http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/ppg/software.htm

Space station needs, attributes and architectural options. Volume 4, attachment 1: Task 2 and 3 mission implementation and cost

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1983-01-01

Mission scenario analysis and architectural concepts, alternative systems concepts, mission operations and architectural development, architectural analysis trades, evolution, configuration, and technology development are assessed.

PyEvolve: a toolkit for statistical modelling of molecular evolution.

PubMed

Butterfield, Andrew; Vedagiri, Vivek; Lang, Edward; Lawrence, Cath; Wakefield, Matthew J; Isaev, Alexander; Huttley, Gavin A

2004-01-05

Examining the distribution of variation has proven an extremely profitable technique in the effort to identify sequences of biological significance. Most approaches in the field, however, evaluate only the conserved portions of sequences - ignoring the biological significance of sequence differences. A suite of sophisticated likelihood based statistical models from the field of molecular evolution provides the basis for extracting the information from the full distribution of sequence variation. The number of different problems to which phylogeny-based maximum likelihood calculations can be applied is extensive. Available software packages that can perform likelihood calculations suffer from a lack of flexibility and scalability, or employ error-prone approaches to model parameterisation. Here we describe the implementation of PyEvolve, a toolkit for the application of existing, and development of new, statistical methods for molecular evolution. We present the object architecture and design schema of PyEvolve, which includes an adaptable multi-level parallelisation schema. The approach for defining new methods is illustrated by implementing a novel dinucleotide model of substitution that includes a parameter for mutation of methylated CpG's, which required 8 lines of standard Python code to define. Benchmarking was performed using either a dinucleotide or codon substitution model applied to an alignment of BRCA1 sequences from 20 mammals, or a 10 species subset. Up to five-fold parallel performance gains over serial were recorded. Compared to leading alternative software, PyEvolve exhibited significantly better real world performance for parameter rich models with a large data set, reducing the time required for optimisation from approximately 10 days to approximately 6 hours. PyEvolve provides flexible functionality that can be used either for statistical modelling of molecular evolution, or the development of new methods in the field. The toolkit can be used interactively or by writing and executing scripts. The toolkit uses efficient processes for specifying the parameterisation of statistical models, and implements numerous optimisations that make highly parameter rich likelihood functions solvable within hours on multi-cpu hardware. PyEvolve can be readily adapted in response to changing computational demands and hardware configurations to maximise performance. PyEvolve is released under the GPL and can be downloaded from http://cbis.anu.edu.au/software.

Modeling the evolution of protein domain architectures using maximum parsimony.

PubMed

Fong, Jessica H; Geer, Lewis Y; Panchenko, Anna R; Bryant, Stephen H

2007-02-09

Domains are basic evolutionary units of proteins and most proteins have more than one domain. Advances in domain modeling and collection are making it possible to annotate a large fraction of known protein sequences by a linear ordering of their domains, yielding their architecture. Protein domain architectures link evolutionarily related proteins and underscore their shared functions. Here, we attempt to better understand this association by identifying the evolutionary pathways by which extant architectures may have evolved. We propose a model of evolution in which architectures arise through rearrangements of inferred precursor architectures and acquisition of new domains. These pathways are ranked using a parsimony principle, whereby scenarios requiring the fewest number of independent recombination events, namely fission and fusion operations, are assumed to be more likely. Using a data set of domain architectures present in 159 proteomes that represent all three major branches of the tree of life allows us to estimate the history of over 85% of all architectures in the sequence database. We find that the distribution of rearrangement classes is robust with respect to alternative parsimony rules for inferring the presence of precursor architectures in ancestral species. Analyzing the most parsimonious pathways, we find 87% of architectures to gain complexity over time through simple changes, among which fusion events account for 5.6 times as many architectures as fission. Our results may be used to compute domain architecture similarities, for example, based on the number of historical recombination events separating them. Domain architecture "neighbors" identified in this way may lead to new insights about the evolution of protein function.

Modeling the Evolution of Protein Domain Architectures Using Maximum Parsimony

PubMed Central

Fong, Jessica H.; Geer, Lewis Y.; Panchenko, Anna R.; Bryant, Stephen H.

2007-01-01

Domains are basic evolutionary units of proteins and most proteins have more than one domain. Advances in domain modeling and collection are making it possible to annotate a large fraction of known protein sequences by a linear ordering of their domains, yielding their architecture. Protein domain architectures link evolutionarily related proteins and underscore their shared functions. Here, we attempt to better understand this association by identifying the evolutionary pathways by which extant architectures may have evolved. We propose a model of evolution in which architectures arise through rearrangements of inferred precursor architectures and acquisition of new domains. These pathways are ranked using a parsimony principle, whereby scenarios requiring the fewest number of independent recombination events, namely fission and fusion operations, are assumed to be more likely. Using a data set of domain architectures present in 159 proteomes that represent all three major branches of the tree of life allows us to estimate the history of over 85% of all architectures in the sequence database. We find that the distribution of rearrangement classes is robust with respect to alternative parsimony rules for inferring the presence of precursor architectures in ancestral species. Analyzing the most parsimonious pathways, we find 87% of architectures to gain complexity over time through simple changes, among which fusion events account for 5.6 times as many architectures as fission. Our results may be used to compute domain architecture similarities, for example, based on the number of historical recombination events separating them. Domain architecture “neighbors” identified in this way may lead to new insights about the evolution of protein function. PMID:17166515

Reconfigurable Autonomy for Future Planetary Rovers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Burroughes, Guy

Extra-terrestrial Planetary rover systems are uniquely remote, placing constraints in regard to communication, environmental uncertainty, and limited physical resources, and requiring a high level of fault tolerance and resistance to hardware degradation. This thesis presents a novel self-reconfiguring autonomous software architecture designed to meet the needs of extraterrestrial planetary environments. At runtime it can safely reconfigure low-level control systems, high-level decisional autonomy systems, and managed software architecture. The architecture can perform automatic Verification and Validation of self-reconfiguration at run-time, and enables a system to be self-optimising, self-protecting, and self-healing. A novel self-monitoring system, which is non-invasive, efficient, tunable, and autonomously deploying, is also presented. The architecture was validated through the use-case of a highly autonomous extra-terrestrial planetary exploration rover. Three major forms of reconfiguration were demonstrated and tested: first, high level adjustment of system internal architecture and goal; second, software module modification; and third, low level alteration of hardware control in response to degradation of hardware and environmental change. The architecture was demonstrated to be robust and effective in a Mars sample return mission use-case testing the operational aspects of a novel, reconfigurable guidance, navigation, and control system for a planetary rover, all operating in concert through a scenario that required reconfiguration of all elements of the system.

An Object-Oriented Network-Centric Software Architecture for Physical Computing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Palmer, Richard

1997-08-01

Recent developments in object-oriented computer languages and infrastructure such as the Internet, Web browsers, and the like provide an opportunity to define a more productive computational environment for scientific programming that is based more closely on the underlying mathematics describing physics than traditional programming languages such as FORTRAN or C++. In this talk I describe an object-oriented software architecture for representing physical problems that includes classes for such common mathematical objects as geometry, boundary conditions, partial differential and integral equations, discretization and numerical solution methods, etc. In practice, a scientific program written using this architecture looks remarkably like the mathematics used to understand the problem, is typically an order of magnitude smaller than traditional FORTRAN or C++ codes, and hence easier to understand, debug, describe, etc. All objects in this architecture are ``network-enabled,'' which means that components of a software solution to a physical problem can be transparently loaded from anywhere on the Internet or other global network. The architecture is expressed as an ``API,'' or application programmers interface specification, with reference embeddings in Java, Python, and C++. A C++ class library for an early version of this API has been implemented for machines ranging from PC's to the IBM SP2, meaning that phidentical codes run on all architectures.

Systems Architecture for Fully Autonomous Space Missions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Esper, Jamie; Schnurr, R.; VanSteenberg, M.; Brumfield, Mark (Technical Monitor)

2002-01-01

The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is working to develop a revolutionary new system architecture concept in support of fully autonomous missions. As part of GSFC's contribution to the New Millenium Program (NMP) Space Technology 7 Autonomy and on-Board Processing (ST7-A) Concept Definition Study, the system incorporates the latest commercial Internet and software development ideas and extends them into NASA ground and space segment architectures. The unique challenges facing the exploration of remote and inaccessible locales and the need to incorporate corresponding autonomy technologies within reasonable cost necessitate the re-thinking of traditional mission architectures. A measure of the resiliency of this architecture in its application to a broad range of future autonomy missions will depend on its effectiveness in leveraging from commercial tools developed for the personal computer and Internet markets. Specialized test stations and supporting software come to past as spacecraft take advantage of the extensive tools and research investments of billion-dollar commercial ventures. The projected improvements of the Internet and supporting infrastructure go hand-in-hand with market pressures that provide continuity in research. By taking advantage of consumer-oriented methods and processes, space-flight missions will continue to leverage on investments tailored to provide better services at reduced cost. The application of ground and space segment architectures each based on Local Area Networks (LAN), the use of personal computer-based operating systems, and the execution of activities and operations through a Wide Area Network (Internet) enable a revolution in spacecraft mission formulation, implementation, and flight operations. Hardware and software design, development, integration, test, and flight operations are all tied-in closely to a common thread that enables the smooth transitioning between program phases. The application of commercial software development techniques lays the foundation for delivery of product-oriented flight software modules and models. Software can then be readily applied to support the on-board autonomy required for mission self-management. An on-board intelligent system, based on advanced scripting languages, facilitates the mission autonomy required to offload ground system resources, and enables the spacecraft to manage itself safely through an efficient and effective process of reactive planning, science data acquisition, synthesis, and transmission to the ground. Autonomous ground systems in turn coordinate and support schedule contact times with the spacecraft. Specific autonomy software modules on-board include mission and science planners, instrument and subsystem control, and fault tolerance response software, all residing within a distributed computing environment supported through the flight LAN. Autonomy also requires the minimization of human intervention between users on the ground and the spacecraft, and hence calls for the elimination of the traditional operations control center as a funnel for data manipulation. Basic goal-oriented commands are sent directly from the user to the spacecraft through a distributed internet-based payload operations "center". The ensuing architecture calls for the use of spacecraft as point extensions on the Internet. This paper will detail the system architecture implementation chosen to enable cost-effective autonomous missions with applicability to a broad range of conditions. It will define the structure needed for implementation of such missions, including software and hardware infrastructures. The overall architecture is then laid out as a common thread in the mission life cycle from formulation through implementation and flight operations.

The Software Architecture of Global Climate Models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alexander, K. A.; Easterbrook, S. M.

2011-12-01

It has become common to compare and contrast the output of multiple global climate models (GCMs), such as in the Climate Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). However, intercomparisons of the software architecture of GCMs are almost nonexistent. In this qualitative study of seven GCMs from Canada, the United States, and Europe, we attempt to fill this gap in research. We describe the various representations of the climate system as computer programs, and account for architectural differences between models. Most GCMs now practice component-based software engineering, where Earth system components (such as the atmosphere or land surface) are present as highly encapsulated sub-models. This architecture facilitates a mix-and-match approach to climate modelling that allows for convenient sharing of model components between institutions, but it also leads to difficulty when choosing where to draw the lines between systems that are not encapsulated in the real world, such as sea ice. We also examine different styles of couplers in GCMs, which manage interaction and data flow between components. Finally, we pay particular attention to the varying levels of complexity in GCMs, both between and within models. Many GCMs have some components that are significantly more complex than others, a phenomenon which can be explained by the respective institution's research goals as well as the origin of the model components. In conclusion, although some features of software architecture have been adopted by every GCM we examined, other features show a wide range of different design choices and strategies. These architectural differences may provide new insights into variability and spread between models.

System on chip module configured for event-driven architecture

DOEpatents

Robbins, Kevin; Brady, Charles E.; Ashlock, Tad A.

2017-10-17

A system on chip (SoC) module is described herein, wherein the SoC modules comprise a processor subsystem and a hardware logic subsystem. The processor subsystem and hardware logic subsystem are in communication with one another, and transmit event messages between one another. The processor subsystem executes software actors, while the hardware logic subsystem includes hardware actors, the software actors and hardware actors conform to an event-driven architecture, such that the software actors receive and generate event messages and the hardware actors receive and generate event messages.

Design and reliability analysis of DP-3 dynamic positioning control architecture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Fang; Wan, Lei; Jiang, Da-Peng; Xu, Yu-Ru

2011-12-01

As the exploration and exploitation of oil and gas proliferate throughout deepwater area, the requirements on the reliability of dynamic positioning system become increasingly stringent. The control objective ensuring safety operation at deep water will not be met by a single controller for dynamic positioning. In order to increase the availability and reliability of dynamic positioning control system, the triple redundancy hardware and software control architectures were designed and developed according to the safe specifications of DP-3 classification notation for dynamically positioned ships and rigs. The hardware redundant configuration takes the form of triple-redundant hot standby configuration including three identical operator stations and three real-time control computers which connect each other through dual networks. The function of motion control and redundancy management of control computers were implemented by software on the real-time operating system VxWorks. The software realization of task loose synchronization, majority voting and fault detection were presented in details. A hierarchical software architecture was planed during the development of software, consisting of application layer, real-time layer and physical layer. The behavior of the DP-3 dynamic positioning control system was modeled by a Markov model to analyze its reliability. The effects of variation in parameters on the reliability measures were investigated. The time domain dynamic simulation was carried out on a deepwater drilling rig to prove the feasibility of the proposed control architecture.

Studying the laws of software evolution in a long-lived FLOSS project.

PubMed

Gonzalez-Barahona, Jesus M; Robles, Gregorio; Herraiz, Israel; Ortega, Felipe

2014-07-01

Some free, open-source software projects have been around for quite a long time, the longest living ones dating from the early 1980s. For some of them, detailed information about their evolution is available in source code management systems tracking all their code changes for periods of more than 15 years. This paper examines in detail the evolution of one of such projects, glibc, with the main aim of understanding how it evolved and how it matched Lehman's laws of software evolution. As a result, we have developed a methodology for studying the evolution of such long-lived projects based on the information in their source code management repository, described in detail several aspects of the history of glibc, including some activity and size metrics, and found how some of the laws of software evolution may not hold in this case. © 2013 The Authors. Journal of Software: Evolution and Process published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Studying the laws of software evolution in a long-lived FLOSS project

PubMed Central

Gonzalez-Barahona, Jesus M; Robles, Gregorio; Herraiz, Israel; Ortega, Felipe

2014-01-01

Some free, open-source software projects have been around for quite a long time, the longest living ones dating from the early 1980s. For some of them, detailed information about their evolution is available in source code management systems tracking all their code changes for periods of more than 15 years. This paper examines in detail the evolution of one of such projects, glibc, with the main aim of understanding how it evolved and how it matched Lehman's laws of software evolution. As a result, we have developed a methodology for studying the evolution of such long-lived projects based on the information in their source code management repository, described in detail several aspects of the history of glibc, including some activity and size metrics, and found how some of the laws of software evolution may not hold in this case. © 2013 The Authors. Journal of Software: Evolution and Process published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. PMID:25893093

Software reconfigurable processor technologies: the key to long-life infrastructure for future space missions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Srinivasan, J.; Farrington, A.; Gray, A.

2001-01-01

They present an overview of long-life reconfigurable processor technologies and of a specific architecture for implementing a software reconfigurable (software-defined) network processor for space applications.

LTSA Conformance Testing to Architectural Design of LMS Using Ontology

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sengupta, Souvik; Dasgupta, Ranjan

2017-01-01

This paper proposes a new methodology for checking conformance of the software architectural design of Learning Management System (LMS) to Learning Technology System Architecture (LTSA). In our approach, the architectural designing of LMS follows the formal modeling style of Acme. An ontology is built to represent the LTSA rules and the software…

Review of integrated digital systems: evolution and adoption

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fritz, Lawrence W.

The factors that are influencing the evolution of photogrammetric and remote sensing technology to transition into fully integrated digital systems are reviewed. These factors include societal pressures for new, more timely digital products from the Spatial Information Sciencesand the adoption of rapid technological advancements in digital processing hardware and software. Current major developments in leading government mapping agencies of the USA, such as the Digital Production System (DPS) modernization programme at the Defense Mapping Agency, and the Automated Nautical Charting System II (ANCS-II) programme and Integrated Digital Photogrammetric Facility (IDPF) at NOAA/National Ocean Service, illustrate the significant benefits to be realized. These programmes are examples of different levels of integrated systems that have been designed to produce digital products. They provide insights to the management complexities to be considered for very large integrated digital systems. In recognition of computer industry trends, a knowledge-based architecture for managing the complexity of the very large spatial information systems of the future is proposed.

Model-Drive Architecture for Agent-Based Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gradanin, Denis; Singh, H. Lally; Bohner, Shawn A.; Hinchey, Michael G.

2004-01-01

The Model Driven Architecture (MDA) approach uses a platform-independent model to define system functionality, or requirements, using some specification language. The requirements are then translated to a platform-specific model for implementation. An agent architecture based on the human cognitive model of planning, the Cognitive Agent Architecture (Cougaar) is selected for the implementation platform. The resulting Cougaar MDA prescribes certain kinds of models to be used, how those models may be prepared and the relationships of the different kinds of models. Using the existing Cougaar architecture, the level of application composition is elevated from individual components to domain level model specifications in order to generate software artifacts. The software artifacts generation is based on a metamodel. Each component maps to a UML structured component which is then converted into multiple artifacts: Cougaar/Java code, documentation, and test cases.

Software structure for Vega/Chara instrument

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Clausse, J.-M.

2008-07-01

VEGA (Visible spEctroGraph and polArimeter) is one of the focal instruments of the CHARA array at Mount Wilson near Los Angeles. Its control system is based on techniques developed on the GI2T interferometer (Grand Interferometre a 2 Telescopes) and on the SIRIUS fibered hyper telescope testbed at OCA (Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur). This article describes the software and electronics architecture of the instrument. It is based on local network architecture and uses also Virtual Private Network connections. The server part is based on Windows XP (VC++). The control software is on Linux (C, GTK). For the control of the science detector and the fringe tracking systems, distributed API use real-time techniques. The control software gathers all the necessary informations of the instrument. It allows an automatic management of the instrument by using an original task scheduler. This architecture intends to drive the instrument from remote sites, such as our institute in South of France.

Software Architecture for a Virtual Environment for Nano Scale Assembly (VENSA).

PubMed

Lee, Yong-Gu; Lyons, Kevin W; Feng, Shaw C

2004-01-01

A Virtual Environment (VE) uses multiple computer-generated media to let a user experience situations that are temporally and spatially prohibiting. The information flow between the user and the VE is bidirectional and the user can influence the environment. The software development of a VE requires orchestrating multiple peripherals and computers in a synchronized way in real time. Although a multitude of useful software components for VEs exists, many of these are packaged within a complex framework and can not be used separately. In this paper, an architecture is presented which is designed to let multiple frameworks work together while being shielded from the application program. This architecture, which is called the Virtual Environment for Nano Scale Assembly (VENSA), has been constructed for interfacing with an optical tweezers instrument for nanotechnology development. However, this approach can be generalized for most virtual environments. Through the use of VENSA, the programmer can rely on existing solutions and concentrate more on the application software design.

Software Architecture for a Virtual Environment for Nano Scale Assembly (VENSA)

PubMed Central

Lee, Yong-Gu; Lyons, Kevin W.; Feng, Shaw C.

2004-01-01

A Virtual Environment (VE) uses multiple computer-generated media to let a user experience situations that are temporally and spatially prohibiting. The information flow between the user and the VE is bidirectional and the user can influence the environment. The software development of a VE requires orchestrating multiple peripherals and computers in a synchronized way in real time. Although a multitude of useful software components for VEs exists, many of these are packaged within a complex framework and can not be used separately. In this paper, an architecture is presented which is designed to let multiple frameworks work together while being shielded from the application program. This architecture, which is called the Virtual Environment for Nano Scale Assembly (VENSA), has been constructed for interfacing with an optical tweezers instrument for nanotechnology development. However, this approach can be generalized for most virtual environments. Through the use of VENSA, the programmer can rely on existing solutions and concentrate more on the application software design. PMID:27366610

JPL Facilities and Software for Collaborative Design: 1994 - Present

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

DeFlorio, Paul A.

2004-01-01

The viewgraph presentation provides an overview of the history of the JPL Project Design Center (PDC) and, since 2000, the Center for Space Mission Architecture and Design (CSMAD). The discussion includes PDC objectives and scope; mission design metrics; distributed design; a software architecture timeline; facility design principles; optimized design for group work; CSMAD plan view, facility design, and infrastructure; and distributed collaboration tools.

Interactive Nonlinear Structural Analysis: Enhancement.

DTIC Science & Technology

1981-07-31

3251 Hanover Street Palo Alto, California 94304 i "඙ 8 17 040 . G IS T GRAPHICS- INTERACTIVE STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS VIA THE GIFTS /STAGS SOFTWARE ASSEMBLY...GIST Software Components Page Section 3.0 Introduction * 2 3.1 GIFTS Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3.2 STAGS Architecture . . . 5 3.3 The... GIFTS ->STAGS Adaptor . . . . . . . . . . 6 3.4 The STAGS-> GIFTS Adaptor . . . . . . . . . . 37 3.5 The GIST Control Module . . . . . . . . . . 55 GIST

Architecting for Sustainable Software Delivery

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-06-01

14 CrossTalk—May/June 2012 RAPID AND AGILE STABILITY Architecting for Sustainable Software Delivery Ronald J. Koontz , Boeing Robert L. Nord...Figure 2, and additional architecture documentation can be found in the work of Koontz [9, 10, 11]. Designing for extensibility promotes continued...Mapping of Practices to Agile and Architecture Criteria CrossTalk—May/June 2012 19 RAPID AND AGILE STABILITY ABOUT THE AUTHORS Ronald J. Koontz

Power, Avionics and Software Communication Network Architecture

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ivancic, William D.; Sands, Obed S.; Bakula, Casey J.; Oldham, Daniel R.; Wright, Ted; Bradish, Martin A.; Klebau, Joseph M.

2014-01-01

This document describes the communication architecture for the Power, Avionics and Software (PAS) 2.0 subsystem for the Advanced Extravehicular Mobile Unit (AEMU). The following systems are described in detail: Caution Warn- ing and Control System, Informatics, Storage, Video, Audio, Communication, and Monitoring Test and Validation. This document also provides some background as well as the purpose and goals of the PAS project at Glenn Research Center (GRC).

Generic Software for Emulating Multiprocessor Architectures.

DTIC Science & Technology

1985-05-01

RD-A157 662 GENERIC SOFTWARE FOR EMULATING MULTIPROCESSOR 1/2 AlRCHITECTURES(J) MASSACHUSETTS INST OF TECH CAMBRIDGE U LRS LAB FOR COMPUTER SCIENCE R...AREA & WORK UNIT NUMBERS MIT Laboratory for Computer Science 545 Technology Square Cambridge, MA 02139 ____________ I I. CONTROLLING OFFICE NAME AND...aide If neceeasy end Identify by block number) Computer architecture, emulation, simulation, dataf low 20. ABSTRACT (Continue an reverse slde It

Relating Business Goals to Architecturally Significant Requirements for Software Systems

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-05-01

must respond within five seconds” [ EPF 2010]. A major source of architecturally significant requirements is the set of business goals that led to the...Projects for Competitive Advantage, Center for Business Practices, 1999. [ EPF 2010] Eclipse Process Framework Project. Concept: Architecturally

Function-selective domain architecture plasticity potentials in eukaryotic genome evolution

PubMed Central

Linkeviciute, Viktorija; Rackham, Owen J.L.; Gough, Julian; Oates, Matt E.; Fang, Hai

2015-01-01

To help evaluate how protein function impacts on genome evolution, we introduce a new concept of ‘architecture plasticity potential’ – the capacity to form distinct domain architectures – both for an individual domain, or more generally for a set of domains grouped by shared function. We devise a scoring metric to measure the plasticity potential for these domain sets, and evaluate how function has changed over time for different species. Applying this metric to a phylogenetic tree of eukaryotic genomes, we find that the involvement of each function is not random but highly selective. For certain lineages there is strong bias for evolution to involve domains related to certain functions. In general eukaryotic genomes, particularly animals, expand complex functional activities such as signalling and regulation, but at the cost of reducing metabolic processes. We also observe differential evolution of transcriptional regulation and a unique evolutionary role of channel regulators; crucially this is only observable in terms of the architecture plasticity potential. Our findings provide a new layer of information to understand the significance of function in eukaryotic genome evolution. A web search tool, available at http://supfam.org/Pevo, offers a wide spectrum of options for exploring functional importance in eukaryotic genome evolution. PMID:25980317

A federated design for a neurobiological simulation engine: the CBI federated software architecture.

PubMed

Cornelis, Hugo; Coop, Allan D; Bower, James M

2012-01-01

Simulator interoperability and extensibility has become a growing requirement in computational biology. To address this, we have developed a federated software architecture. It is federated by its union of independent disparate systems under a single cohesive view, provides interoperability through its capability to communicate, execute programs, or transfer data among different independent applications, and supports extensibility by enabling simulator expansion or enhancement without the need for major changes to system infrastructure. Historically, simulator interoperability has relied on development of declarative markup languages such as the neuron modeling language NeuroML, while simulator extension typically occurred through modification of existing functionality. The software architecture we describe here allows for both these approaches. However, it is designed to support alternative paradigms of interoperability and extensibility through the provision of logical relationships and defined application programming interfaces. They allow any appropriately configured component or software application to be incorporated into a simulator. The architecture defines independent functional modules that run stand-alone. They are arranged in logical layers that naturally correspond to the occurrence of high-level data (biological concepts) versus low-level data (numerical values) and distinguish data from control functions. The modular nature of the architecture and its independence from a given technology facilitates communication about similar concepts and functions for both users and developers. It provides several advantages for multiple independent contributions to software development. Importantly, these include: (1) Reduction in complexity of individual simulator components when compared to the complexity of a complete simulator, (2) Documentation of individual components in terms of their inputs and outputs, (3) Easy removal or replacement of unnecessary or obsoleted components, (4) Stand-alone testing of components, and (5) Clear delineation of the development scope of new components.

A Federated Design for a Neurobiological Simulation Engine: The CBI Federated Software Architecture

PubMed Central

Cornelis, Hugo; Coop, Allan D.; Bower, James M.

2012-01-01

Simulator interoperability and extensibility has become a growing requirement in computational biology. To address this, we have developed a federated software architecture. It is federated by its union of independent disparate systems under a single cohesive view, provides interoperability through its capability to communicate, execute programs, or transfer data among different independent applications, and supports extensibility by enabling simulator expansion or enhancement without the need for major changes to system infrastructure. Historically, simulator interoperability has relied on development of declarative markup languages such as the neuron modeling language NeuroML, while simulator extension typically occurred through modification of existing functionality. The software architecture we describe here allows for both these approaches. However, it is designed to support alternative paradigms of interoperability and extensibility through the provision of logical relationships and defined application programming interfaces. They allow any appropriately configured component or software application to be incorporated into a simulator. The architecture defines independent functional modules that run stand-alone. They are arranged in logical layers that naturally correspond to the occurrence of high-level data (biological concepts) versus low-level data (numerical values) and distinguish data from control functions. The modular nature of the architecture and its independence from a given technology facilitates communication about similar concepts and functions for both users and developers. It provides several advantages for multiple independent contributions to software development. Importantly, these include: (1) Reduction in complexity of individual simulator components when compared to the complexity of a complete simulator, (2) Documentation of individual components in terms of their inputs and outputs, (3) Easy removal or replacement of unnecessary or obsoleted components, (4) Stand-alone testing of components, and (5) Clear delineation of the development scope of new components. PMID:22242154

Analyzing and designing object-oriented missile simulations with concurrency

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Randorf, Jeffrey Allen

2000-11-01

A software object model for the six degree-of-freedom missile modeling domain is presented. As a precursor, a domain analysis of the missile modeling domain was started, based on the Feature-Oriented Domain Analysis (FODA) technique described by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI). It was subsequently determined the FODA methodology is functionally equivalent to the Object Modeling Technique. The analysis used legacy software documentation and code from the ENDOSIM, KDEC, and TFrames 6-DOF modeling tools, including other technical literature. The SEI Object Connection Architecture (OCA) was the template for designing the object model. Three variants of the OCA were considered---a reference structure, a recursive structure, and a reference structure with augmentation for flight vehicle modeling. The reference OCA design option was chosen for maintaining simplicity while not compromising the expressive power of the OMT model. The missile architecture was then analyzed for potential areas of concurrent computing. It was shown how protected objects could be used for data passing between OCA object managers, allowing concurrent access without changing the OCA reference design intent or structure. The implementation language was the 1995 release of Ada. OCA software components were shown how to be expressed as Ada child packages. While acceleration of several low level and other high operations level are possible on proper hardware, there was a 33% degradation of 4th order Runge-Kutta integrator performance of two simultaneous ordinary differential equations using Ada tasking on a single processor machine. The Defense Department's High Level Architecture was introduced and explained in context with the OCA. It was shown the HLA and OCA were not mutually exclusive architectures, but complimentary. HLA was shown as an interoperability solution, with the OCA as an architectural vehicle for software reuse. Further directions for implementing a 6-DOF missile modeling environment are discussed.

Software Defined Radio with Parallelized Software Architecture

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Heckler, Greg

2013-01-01

This software implements software-defined radio procession over multicore, multi-CPU systems in a way that maximizes the use of CPU resources in the system. The software treats each processing step in either a communications or navigation modulator or demodulator system as an independent, threaded block. Each threaded block is defined with a programmable number of input or output buffers; these buffers are implemented using POSIX pipes. In addition, each threaded block is assigned a unique thread upon block installation. A modulator or demodulator system is built by assembly of the threaded blocks into a flow graph, which assembles the processing blocks to accomplish the desired signal processing. This software architecture allows the software to scale effortlessly between single CPU/single-core computers or multi-CPU/multi-core computers without recompilation. NASA spaceflight and ground communications systems currently rely exclusively on ASICs or FPGAs. This software allows low- and medium-bandwidth (100 bps to approx.50 Mbps) software defined radios to be designed and implemented solely in C/C++ software, while lowering development costs and facilitating reuse and extensibility.

Software Defined Radio with Parallelized Software Architecture

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Heckler, Greg

2013-01-01

This software implements software-defined radio procession over multi-core, multi-CPU systems in a way that maximizes the use of CPU resources in the system. The software treats each processing step in either a communications or navigation modulator or demodulator system as an independent, threaded block. Each threaded block is defined with a programmable number of input or output buffers; these buffers are implemented using POSIX pipes. In addition, each threaded block is assigned a unique thread upon block installation. A modulator or demodulator system is built by assembly of the threaded blocks into a flow graph, which assembles the processing blocks to accomplish the desired signal processing. This software architecture allows the software to scale effortlessly between single CPU/single-core computers or multi-CPU/multi-core computers without recompilation. NASA spaceflight and ground communications systems currently rely exclusively on ASICs or FPGAs. This software allows low- and medium-bandwidth (100 bps to .50 Mbps) software defined radios to be designed and implemented solely in C/C++ software, while lowering development costs and facilitating reuse and extensibility.

PICNIC Architecture.

PubMed

Saranummi, Niilo

2005-01-01

The PICNIC architecture aims at supporting inter-enterprise integration and the facilitation of collaboration between healthcare organisations. The concept of a Regional Health Economy (RHE) is introduced to illustrate the varying nature of inter-enterprise collaboration between healthcare organisations collaborating in providing health services to citizens and patients in a regional setting. The PICNIC architecture comprises a number of PICNIC IT Services, the interfaces between them and presents a way to assemble these into a functioning Regional Health Care Network meeting the needs and concerns of its stakeholders. The PICNIC architecture is presented through a number of views relevant to different stakeholder groups. The stakeholders of the first view are national and regional health authorities and policy makers. The view describes how the architecture enables the implementation of national and regional health policies, strategies and organisational structures. The stakeholders of the second view, the service viewpoint, are the care providers, health professionals, patients and citizens. The view describes how the architecture supports and enables regional care delivery and process management including continuity of care (shared care) and citizen-centred health services. The stakeholders of the third view, the engineering view, are those that design, build and implement the RHCN. The view comprises four sub views: software engineering, IT services engineering, security and data. The proposed architecture is founded into the main stream of how distributed computing environments are evolving. The architecture is realised using the web services approach. A number of well established technology platforms and generic standards exist that can be used to implement the software components. The software components that are specified in PICNIC are implemented in Open Source.

Genetic architecture underlying convergent evolution of egg-laying behavior in a seed-feeding beetle.

PubMed

Fox, Charles W; Wagner, James D; Cline, Sara; Thomas, Frances Ann; Messina, Frank J

2009-05-01

Independent populations subjected to similar environments often exhibit convergent evolution. An unresolved question is the frequency with which such convergence reflects parallel genetic mechanisms. We examined the convergent evolution of egg-laying behavior in the seed-feeding beetle Callosobruchus maculatus. Females avoid ovipositing on seeds bearing conspecific eggs, but the degree of host discrimination varies among geographic populations. In a previous experiment, replicate lines switched from a small host to a large one evolved reduced discrimination after 40 generations. We used line crosses to determine the genetic architecture underlying this rapid response. The most parsimonious genetic models included dominance and/or epistasis for all crosses. The genetic architecture underlying reduced discrimination in two lines was not significantly different from the architecture underlying differences between geographic populations, but the architecture underlying the divergence of a third line differed from all others. We conclude that convergence of this complex trait may in some cases involve parallel genetic mechanisms.

The computational structural mechanics testbed architecture. Volume 4: The global-database manager GAL-DBM

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wright, Mary A.; Regelbrugge, Marc E.; Felippa, Carlos A.

1989-01-01

This is the fourth of a set of five volumes which describe the software architecture for the Computational Structural Mechanics Testbed. Derived from NICE, an integrated software system developed at Lockheed Palo Alto Research Laboratory, the architecture is composed of the command language CLAMP, the command language interpreter CLIP, and the data manager GAL. Volumes 1, 2, and 3 (NASA CR's 178384, 178385, and 178386, respectively) describe CLAMP and CLIP and the CLIP-processor interface. Volumes 4 and 5 (NASA CR's 178387 and 178388, respectively) describe GAL and its low-level I/O. CLAMP, an acronym for Command Language for Applied Mechanics Processors, is designed to control the flow of execution of processors written for NICE. Volume 4 describes the nominal-record data management component of the NICE software. It is intended for all users.

The Orion GN and C Data-Driven Flight Software Architecture for Automated Sequencing and Fault Recovery

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

King, Ellis; Hart, Jeremy; Odegard, Ryan

2010-01-01

The Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle (CET) is being designed to include significantly more automation capability than either the Space Shuttle or the International Space Station (ISS). In particular, the vehicle flight software has requirements to accommodate increasingly automated missions throughout all phases of flight. A data-driven flight software architecture will provide an evolvable automation capability to sequence through Guidance, Navigation & Control (GN&C) flight software modes and configurations while maintaining the required flexibility and human control over the automation. This flexibility is a key aspect needed to address the maturation of operational concepts, to permit ground and crew operators to gain trust in the system and mitigate unpredictability in human spaceflight. To allow for mission flexibility and reconfrgurability, a data driven approach is being taken to load the mission event plan as well cis the flight software artifacts associated with the GN&C subsystem. A database of GN&C level sequencing data is presented which manages and tracks the mission specific and algorithm parameters to provide a capability to schedule GN&C events within mission segments. The flight software data schema for performing automated mission sequencing is presented with a concept of operations for interactions with ground and onboard crew members. A prototype architecture for fault identification, isolation and recovery interactions with the automation software is presented and discussed as a forward work item.

UAF: a generic OPC unified architecture framework

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pessemier, Wim; Deconinck, Geert; Raskin, Gert; Saey, Philippe; Van Winckel, Hans

2012-09-01

As an emerging Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) specically designed for industrial automation and process control, the OPC Unied Architecture specication should be regarded as an attractive candidate for controlling scientic instrumentation. Even though an industry-backed standard such as OPC UA can oer substantial added value to these projects, its inherent complexity poses an important obstacle for adopting the technology. Building OPC UA applications requires considerable eort, even when taking advantage of a COTS Software Development Kit (SDK). The OPC Unied Architecture Framework (UAF) attempts to reduce this burden by introducing an abstraction layer between the SDK and the application code in order to achieve a better separation of the technical and the functional concerns. True to its industrial origin, the primary requirement of the framework is to maintain interoperability by staying close to the standard specications, and by expecting the minimum compliance from other OPC UA servers and clients. UAF can therefore be regarded as a software framework to quickly and comfortably develop and deploy OPC UA-based applications, while remaining compatible to third party OPC UA-compliant toolkits, servers (such as PLCs) and clients (such as SCADA software). In the rst phase, as covered by this paper, only the client-side of UAF has been tackled in order to transparently handle discovery, session management, subscriptions, monitored items etc. We describe the design principles and internal architecture of our open-source software project, the rst results of the framework running at the Mercator Telescope, and we give a preview of the planned server-side implementation.

An Auto-Configuration System for the GMSEC Architecture and API

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Moholt, Joseph; Mayorga, Arturo

2007-01-01

A viewgraph presentation on an automated configuration concept for The Goddard Mission Services Evolution Center (GMSEC) architecture and Application Program Interface (API) is shown. The topics include: 1) The Goddard Mission Services Evolution Center (GMSEC); 2) Automated Configuration Concept; 3) Implementation Approach; and 4) Key Components and Benefits.

Using ArchE in the Classroom: One Experience

DTIC Science & Technology

2007-09-01

The Architecture Expert (ArchE) tool serves as a software architecture design assistant. It embodies knowledge of quality attributes and the relation...between the achievement of quality attribute requirements and architecture design . This technical note describes the use of a pre-alpha release of

Generalized Information Architecture for Managing Requirements in IBM?s Rational DOORS(r) Application.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Aragon, Kathryn M.; Eaton, Shelley M.; McCornack, Marjorie Turner

When a requirements engineering effort fails to meet expectations, often times the requirements management tool is blamed. Working with numerous project teams at Sandia National Laboratories over the last fifteen years has shown us that the tool is rarely the culprit; usually it is the lack of a viable information architecture with well- designed processes to support requirements engineering. This document illustrates design concepts with rationale, as well as a proven information architecture to structure and manage information in support of requirements engineering activities for any size or type of project. This generalized information architecture is specific to IBM's Rationalmore » DOORS (Dynamic Object Oriented Requirements System) software application, which is the requirements management tool in Sandia's CEE (Common Engineering Environment). This generalized information architecture can be used as presented or as a foundation for designing a tailored information architecture for project-specific needs. It may also be tailored for another software tool. Version 1.0 4 November 201« less

Modernization and optimization of a legacy open-source CFD code for high-performance computing architectures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gel, Aytekin; Hu, Jonathan; Ould-Ahmed-Vall, ElMoustapha; Kalinkin, Alexander A.

2017-02-01

Legacy codes remain a crucial element of today's simulation-based engineering ecosystem due to the extensive validation process and investment in such software. The rapid evolution of high-performance computing architectures necessitates the modernization of these codes. One approach to modernization is a complete overhaul of the code. However, this could require extensive investments, such as rewriting in modern languages, new data constructs, etc., which will necessitate systematic verification and validation to re-establish the credibility of the computational models. The current study advocates using a more incremental approach and is a culmination of several modernization efforts of the legacy code MFIX, which is an open-source computational fluid dynamics code that has evolved over several decades, widely used in multiphase flows and still being developed by the National Energy Technology Laboratory. Two different modernization approaches,'bottom-up' and 'top-down', are illustrated. Preliminary results show up to 8.5x improvement at the selected kernel level with the first approach, and up to 50% improvement in total simulated time with the latter were achieved for the demonstration cases and target HPC systems employed.

Architecting the Human Space Flight Program with Systems Modeling Language (SysML)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Jackson, Maddalena M.; Fernandez, Michela Munoz; McVittie, Thomas I.; Sindiy, Oleg V.

2012-01-01

The next generation of missions in NASA's Human Space Flight program focuses on the development and deployment of highly complex systems (e.g., Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, Space Launch System, 21st Century Ground System) that will enable astronauts to venture beyond low Earth orbit and explore the moon, near-Earth asteroids, and beyond. Architecting these highly complex system-of-systems requires formal systems engineering techniques for managing the evolution of the technical features in the information exchange domain (e.g., data exchanges, communication networks, ground software) and also, formal correlation of the technical architecture to stakeholders' programmatic concerns (e.g., budget, schedule, risk) and design development (e.g., assumptions, constraints, trades, tracking of unknowns). This paper will describe how the authors have applied System Modeling Language (SysML) to implement model-based systems engineering for managing the description of the End-to-End Information System (EEIS) architecture and associated development activities and ultimately enables stakeholders to understand, reason, and answer questions about the EEIS under design for proposed lunar Exploration Missions 1 and 2 (EM-1 and EM-2).

Towards the Use of Unmanned Aerial Systems for Providing Sustainable Services in Smart Cities

PubMed Central

Conejero, José M.; Rodríguez-Echeverría, Roberto

2017-01-01

Sustainability is at the heart of many application fields where the use of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) is becoming more and more important (e.g., agriculture, fire detection and prediction, environmental surveillance, mapping, etc.). However, their usage and evolution are highly conditioned by the specific application field they are designed for, and thus, they cannot be easily reused among different application fields. From this point of view, being that they are not multipurpose, we can say that they are not fully sustainable. Bearing this in mind, the objective of this paper is two-fold: on the one hand, to identify the whole set of features that must be provided by a UAS to be considered sustainable and to show that there is no UAS satisfying all these features; on the other hand, to present an open and sustainable UAS architecture that may be used to build UAS on demand to provide the features needed in each application field. Since this architecture is mainly based on software and hardware adaptability, it contributes to the technical sustainability of cities. PMID:29280984

Towards the Use of Unmanned Aerial Systems for Providing Sustainable Services in Smart Cities.

PubMed

Moguel, Enrique; Conejero, José M; Sánchez-Figueroa, Fernando; Hernández, Juan; Preciado, Juan C; Rodríguez-Echeverría, Roberto

2017-12-27

Sustainability is at the heart of many application fields where the use of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) is becoming more and more important (e.g., agriculture, fire detection and prediction, environmental surveillance, mapping, etc.). However, their usage and evolution are highly conditioned by the specific application field they are designed for, and thus, they cannot be easily reused among different application fields. From this point of view, being that they are not multipurpose, we can say that they are not fully sustainable. Bearing this in mind, the objective of this paper is two-fold: on the one hand, to identify the whole set of features that must be provided by a UAS to be considered sustainable and to show that there is no UAS satisfying all these features; on the other hand, to present an open and sustainable UAS architecture that may be used to build UAS on demand to provide the features needed in each application field. Since this architecture is mainly based on software and hardware adaptability, it contributes to the technical sustainability of cities.

An International Survey of Industrial Applications of Formal Methods. Volume 1: Purpose, Approach, Analysis, and Conclusions

DTIC Science & Technology

1993-09-30

97 Accesion For NTIS CRA&I DTIC TAB Unannounced 0 Justification ----- ---.......................... Ry Di. t ,:; t,.: 1...months of effort. The product was important for demonstrating to IBM management the potential of the Cleanroom methodology. 3.2.4 Software Architecture ...for Oscilloscopes Using Z (Tektronix) Tektronix in Beaverton, Oregon, used Z to develop a reusable software architecture to be shared among a number

Irregular Applications: Architectures & Algorithms

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Feo, John T.; Villa, Oreste; Tumeo, Antonino

Irregular applications are characterized by irregular data structures, control and communication patterns. Novel irregular high performance applications which deal with large data sets and require have recently appeared. Unfortunately, current high performance systems and software infrastructures executes irregular algorithms poorly. Only coordinated efforts by end user, area specialists and computer scientists that consider both the architecture and the software stack may be able to provide solutions to the challenges of modern irregular applications.

A software architecture for hard real-time execution of automatically synthesized plans or control laws

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Schoppers, Marcel

1994-01-01

The design of a flexible, real-time software architecture for trajectory planning and automatic control of redundant manipulators is described. Emphasis is placed on a technique of designing control systems that are both flexible and robust yet have good real-time performance. The solution presented involves an artificial intelligence algorithm that dynamically reprograms the real-time control system while planning system behavior.

GBU-X bounding requirements for highly flexible munitions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bagby, Patrick T.; Shaver, Jonathan; White, Reed; Cafarelli, Sergio; Hébert, Anthony J.

2017-04-01

This paper will present the results of an investigation into requirements for existing software and hardware solutions for open digital communication architectures that support weapon subsystem integration. The underlying requirements of such a communication architecture would be to achieve the lowest latency possible at a reasonable cost point with respect to the mission objective of the weapon. The determination of the latency requirements of the open architecture software and hardware were derived through the use of control system and stability margins analyses. Studies were performed on the throughput and latency of different existing communication transport methods. The two architectures that were tested in this study include Data Distribution Service (DDS) and Modular Open Network Architecture (MONARCH). This paper defines what levels of latency can be achieved with current technology and how this capability may translate to future weapons. The requirements moving forward within communications solutions are discussed.

Practical Application of Model-based Programming and State-based Architecture to Space Missions

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Horvath, Gregory; Ingham, Michel; Chung, Seung; Martin, Oliver; Williams, Brian

2006-01-01

A viewgraph presentation to develop models from systems engineers that accomplish mission objectives and manage the health of the system is shown. The topics include: 1) Overview; 2) Motivation; 3) Objective/Vision; 4) Approach; 5) Background: The Mission Data System; 6) Background: State-based Control Architecture System; 7) Background: State Analysis; 8) Overview of State Analysis; 9) Background: MDS Software Frameworks; 10) Background: Model-based Programming; 10) Background: Titan Model-based Executive; 11) Model-based Execution Architecture; 12) Compatibility Analysis of MDS and Titan Architectures; 13) Integrating Model-based Programming and Execution into the Architecture; 14) State Analysis and Modeling; 15) IMU Subsystem State Effects Diagram; 16) Titan Subsystem Model: IMU Health; 17) Integrating Model-based Programming and Execution into the Software IMU; 18) Testing Program; 19) Computationally Tractable State Estimation & Fault Diagnosis; 20) Diagnostic Algorithm Performance; 21) Integration and Test Issues; 22) Demonstrated Benefits; and 23) Next Steps

The Nebula Standard Computer Architecture,

DTIC Science & Technology

good target for high level languages, the designers also adopted a visibility approach in architecture design that provides more freedom for the hardware implementor while still maintaining software portability. (Author)

A conceptual model for megaprogramming

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Tracz, Will

1990-01-01

Megaprogramming is component-based software engineering and life-cycle management. Magaprogramming and its relationship to other research initiatives (common prototyping system/common prototyping language, domain specific software architectures, and software understanding) are analyzed. The desirable attributes of megaprogramming software components are identified and a software development model and resulting prototype megaprogramming system (library interconnection language extended by annotated Ada) are described.

The software architecture to control the Cherenkov Telescope Array

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Oya, I.; Füßling, M.; Antonino, P. O.; Conforti, V.; Hagge, L.; Melkumyan, D.; Morgenstern, A.; Tosti, G.; Schwanke, U.; Schwarz, J.; Wegner, P.; Colomé, J.; Lyard, E.

2016-07-01

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) project is an initiative to build two large arrays of Cherenkov gamma- ray telescopes. CTA will be deployed as two installations, one in the northern and the other in the southern hemisphere, containing dozens of telescopes of different sizes. CTA is a big step forward in the field of ground- based gamma-ray astronomy, not only because of the expected scientific return, but also due to the order-of- magnitude larger scale of the instrument to be controlled. The performance requirements associated with such a large and distributed astronomical installation require a thoughtful analysis to determine the best software solutions. The array control and data acquisition (ACTL) work-package within the CTA initiative will deliver the software to control and acquire the data from the CTA instrumentation. In this contribution we present the current status of the formal ACTL system decomposition into software building blocks and the relationships among them. The system is modelled via the Systems Modelling Language (SysML) formalism. To cope with the complexity of the system, this architecture model is sub-divided into different perspectives. The relationships with the stakeholders and external systems are used to create the first perspective, the context of the ACTL software system. Use cases are employed to describe the interaction of those external elements with the ACTL system and are traced to a hierarchy of functionalities (abstract system functions) describing the internal structure of the ACTL system. These functions are then traced to fully specified logical elements (software components), the deployment of which as technical elements, is also described. This modelling approach allows us to decompose the ACTL software in elements to be created and the ow of information within the system, providing us with a clear way to identify sub-system interdependencies. This architectural approach allows us to build the ACTL system model and trace requirements to deliverables (source code, documentation, etc.), and permits the implementation of a flexible use-case driven software development approach thanks to the traceability from use cases to the logical software elements. The Alma Common Software (ACS) container/component framework, used for the control of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is the basis for the ACTL software and as such it is considered as an integral part of the software architecture.

Software architecture of the III/FBI segment of the FBI's integrated automated identification system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Booker, Brian T.

1997-02-01

This paper will describe the software architecture of the Interstate Identification Index (III/FBI) Segment of the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS). IAFIS is currently under development, with deployment to begin in 1998. III/FBI will provide the repository of criminal history and photographs for criminal subjects, as well as identification data for military and civilian federal employees. Services provided by III/FBI include maintenance of the criminal and civil data, subject search of the criminal and civil data, and response generation services for IAFIS. III/FBI software will be comprised of both COTS and an estimated 250,000 lines of developed C code. This paper will describe the following: (1) the high-level requirements of the III/FBI software; (2) the decomposition of the III/FBI software into Computer Software Configuration Items (CSCIs); (3) the top-level design of the III/FBI CSCIs; and (4) the relationships among the developed CSCIs and the COTS products that will comprise the III/FBI software.

Emerging Neuromorphic Computing Architectures & Enabling Hardware for Cognitive Information Processing Applications

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-06-01

DATES COVEREDAPR 2009 – JAN 2010 (From - To) APR 2009 – JAN 2010 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE EMERGING NEUROMORPHIC COMPUTING ARCHITECTURES AND ENABLING...14. ABSTRACT The highly cross-disciplinary emerging field of neuromorphic computing architectures for cognitive information processing applications...belief systems, software, computer engineering, etc. In our effort to develop cognitive systems atop a neuromorphic computing architecture, we explored

Formal Foundations for the Specification of Software Architecture.

DTIC Science & Technology

1995-03-01

Architectures For- mally: A Case-Study Using KWIC." Kestrel Institute, Palo Alto, CA 94304, April 1994. 58. Kang, Kyo C. Feature-Oriented Domain Analysis ( FODA ...6.3.5 Constraint-Based Architectures ................. 6-60 6.4 Summary ......... ............................. 6-63 VII. Analysis of Process-Based...between these architec- ture theories were investigated. A feasibility analysis on an image processing application demonstrated that architecture theories

An Agent-Based Dynamic Model for Analysis of Distributed Space Exploration Architectures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sindiy, Oleg V.; DeLaurentis, Daniel A.; Stein, William B.

2009-07-01

A range of complex challenges, but also potentially unique rewards, underlie the development of exploration architectures that use a distributed, dynamic network of resources across the solar system. From a methodological perspective, the prime challenge is to systematically model the evolution (and quantify comparative performance) of such architectures, under uncertainty, to effectively direct further study of specialized trajectories, spacecraft technologies, concept of operations, and resource allocation. A process model for System-of-Systems Engineering is used to define time-varying performance measures for comparative architecture analysis and identification of distinguishing patterns among interoperating systems. Agent-based modeling serves as the means to create a discrete-time simulation that generates dynamics for the study of architecture evolution. A Solar System Mobility Network proof-of-concept problem is introduced representing a set of longer-term, distributed exploration architectures. Options within this set revolve around deployment of human and robotic exploration and infrastructure assets, their organization, interoperability, and evolution, i.e., a system-of-systems. Agent-based simulations quantify relative payoffs for a fully distributed architecture (which can be significant over the long term), the latency period before they are manifest, and the up-front investment (which can be substantial compared to alternatives). Verification and sensitivity results provide further insight on development paths and indicate that the framework and simulation modeling approach may be useful in architectural design of other space exploration mass, energy, and information exchange settings.

An Object Oriented Extensible Architecture for Affordable Aerospace Propulsion Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Follen, Gregory J.

2003-01-01

Driven by a need to explore and develop propulsion systems that exceeded current computing capabilities, NASA Glenn embarked on a novel strategy leading to the development of an architecture that enables propulsion simulations never thought possible before. Full engine 3 Dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamic propulsion system simulations were deemed impossible due to the impracticality of the hardware and software computing systems required. However, with a software paradigm shift and an embracing of parallel and distributed processing, an architecture was designed to meet the needs of future propulsion system modeling. The author suggests that the architecture designed at the NASA Glenn Research Center for propulsion system modeling has potential for impacting the direction of development of affordable weapons systems currently under consideration by the Applied Vehicle Technology Panel (AVT).

Towards an Open, Distributed Software Architecture for UxS Operations

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cross, Charles D.; Motter, Mark A.; Neilan, James H.; Qualls, Garry D.; Rothhaar, Paul M.; Tran, Loc; Trujillo, Anna C.; Allen, B. Danette

2015-01-01

To address the growing need to evaluate, test, and certify an ever expanding ecosystem of UxS platforms in preparation of cultural integration, NASA Langley Research Center's Autonomy Incubator (AI) has taken on the challenge of developing a software framework in which UxS platforms developed by third parties can be integrated into a single system which provides evaluation and testing, mission planning and operation, and out-of-the-box autonomy and data fusion capabilities. This software framework, named AEON (Autonomous Entity Operations Network), has two main goals. The first goal is the development of a cross-platform, extensible, onboard software system that provides autonomy at the mission execution and course-planning level, a highly configurable data fusion framework sensitive to the platform's available sensor hardware, and plug-and-play compatibility with a wide array of computer systems, sensors, software, and controls hardware. The second goal is the development of a ground control system that acts as a test-bed for integration of the proposed heterogeneous fleet, and allows for complex mission planning, tracking, and debugging capabilities. The ground control system should also be highly extensible and allow plug-and-play interoperability with third party software systems. In order to achieve these goals, this paper proposes an open, distributed software architecture which utilizes at its core the Data Distribution Service (DDS) standards, established by the Object Management Group (OMG), for inter-process communication and data flow. The design decisions proposed herein leverage the advantages of existing robotics software architectures and the DDS standards to develop software that is scalable, high-performance, fault tolerant, modular, and readily interoperable with external platforms and software.

Architecture of a framework for providing information services for public transport.

PubMed

García, Carmelo R; Pérez, Ricardo; Lorenzo, Alvaro; Quesada-Arencibia, Alexis; Alayón, Francisco; Padrón, Gabino

2012-01-01

This paper presents OnRoute, a framework for developing and running ubiquitous software that provides information services to passengers of public transportation, including payment systems and on-route guidance services. To achieve a high level of interoperability, accessibility and context awareness, OnRoute uses the ubiquitous computing paradigm. To guarantee the quality of the software produced, the reliable software principles used in critical contexts, such as automotive systems, are also considered by the framework. The main components of its architecture (run-time, system services, software components and development discipline) and how they are deployed in the transportation network (stations and vehicles) are described in this paper. Finally, to illustrate the use of OnRoute, the development of a guidance service for travellers is explained.

Simulator for concurrent processing data flow architectures

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Malekpour, Mahyar R.; Stoughton, John W.; Mielke, Roland R.

1992-01-01

A software simulator capability of simulating execution of an algorithm graph on a given system under the Algorithm to Architecture Mapping Model (ATAMM) rules is presented. ATAMM is capable of modeling the execution of large-grained algorithms on distributed data flow architectures. Investigating the behavior and determining the performance of an ATAMM based system requires the aid of software tools. The ATAMM Simulator presented is capable of determining the performance of a system without having to build a hardware prototype. Case studies are performed on four algorithms to demonstrate the capabilities of the ATAMM Simulator. Simulated results are shown to be comparable to the experimental results of the Advanced Development Model System.

Reconfigurable firmware-defined radios synthesized from standard digital logic cells

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Faisal, Muhammad; Park, Youngmin; Wentzloff, David D.

2011-06-01

This paper presents recent work on reconfigurable all-digital radio architectures. We leverage the flexibility and scalability of synthesized digital cells to construct reconfigurable radio architectures that consume significantly less power than a software defined radio implementing similar architectures. We present two prototypes of such architectures that can receive and demodulate FM and FRS band signals. Moreover, a radio architecture based on a reconfigurable alldigital phase-locked loop for coherent demodulation is presented.

The Domain-Specific Software Architecture Program

DTIC Science & Technology

1992-06-01

Kang, K.C; Cohen, S.C: Jess, J.A; Novak, W.E; Peterson, A.S. Feature- Oriented Domain Analysis ( FODA ) Feasibility Study. (CMU/SEI-90-TR-21, ADA235785...perspective of a con- trols engineer solving a problem using an iterative process of simulation and analysis . The CMU/SEI-92-SR-9 1 I ~math AnalysislP...for schedulability analysis and Markov processes for the determination of reliability. Software architectures are derived from these formal models. ORA

Software Architecture of Sensor Data Distribution In Planetary Exploration

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lee, Charles; Alena, Richard; Stone, Thom; Ossenfort, John; Walker, Ed; Notario, Hugo

2006-01-01

Data from mobile and stationary sensors will be vital in planetary surface exploration. The distribution and collection of sensor data in an ad-hoc wireless network presents a challenge. Irregular terrain, mobile nodes, new associations with access points and repeaters with stronger signals as the network reconfigures to adapt to new conditions, signal fade and hardware failures can cause: a) Data errors; b) Out of sequence packets; c) Duplicate packets; and d) Drop out periods (when node is not connected). To mitigate the effects of these impairments, a robust and reliable software architecture must be implemented. This architecture must also be tolerant of communications outages. This paper describes such a robust and reliable software infrastructure that meets the challenges of a distributed ad hoc network in a difficult environment and presents the results of actual field experiments testing the principles and actual code developed.

Evolutionary Telemetry and Command Processor (TCP) architecture

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Schneider, John R.

1992-01-01

A low cost, modular, high performance, and compact Telemetry and Command Processor (TCP) is being built as the foundation of command and data handling subsystems for the next generation of satellites. The TCP product line will support command and telemetry requirements for small to large spacecraft and from low to high rate data transmission. It is compatible with the latest TDRSS, STDN and SGLS transponders and provides CCSDS protocol communications in addition to standard TDM formats. Its high performance computer provides computing resources for hosted flight software. Layered and modular software provides common services using standardized interfaces to applications thereby enhancing software re-use, transportability, and interoperability. The TCP architecture is based on existing standards, distributed networking, distributed and open system computing, and packet technology. The first TCP application is planned for the 94 SDIO SPAS 3 mission. The architecture enhances rapid tailoring of functions thereby reducing costs and schedules developed for individual spacecraft missions.

Frances: A Tool for Understanding Computer Architecture and Assembly Language

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sondag, Tyler; Pokorny, Kian L.; Rajan, Hridesh

2012-01-01

Students in all areas of computing require knowledge of the computing device including software implementation at the machine level. Several courses in computer science curricula address these low-level details such as computer architecture and assembly languages. For such courses, there are advantages to studying real architectures instead of…

78 FR 70848 - Special Conditions: Boeing Model 777-200, -300, and -300ER Series Airplanes; Aircraft Electronic...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-11-27

... the EFB architecture and existing airplane network systems. The applicable airworthiness regulations..., software-configurable avionics, and fiber-optic avionics networks. The proposed Class 3 EFB architecture is... existing regulations and guidance material did not anticipate this type of system architecture or...

78 FR 70849 - Special Conditions: Boeing Model 777-200, -300, and -300ER Series Airplanes; Aircraft Electronic...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-11-27

... the EFB architecture and existing airplane network systems. The applicable airworthiness regulations..., software-configurable avionics, and fiber-optic avionics networks. The proposed Class 3 EFB architecture is... existing regulations and guidance material did not anticipate this type of system architecture or...

Manned/Unmanned Common Architecture Program (MCAP) net centric flight tests

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Johnson, Dale

2009-04-01

Properly architected avionics systems can reduce the costs of periodic functional improvements, maintenance, and obsolescence. With this in mind, the U.S. Army Aviation Applied Technology Directorate (AATD) initiated the Manned/Unmanned Common Architecture Program (MCAP) in 2003 to develop an affordable, high-performance embedded mission processing architecture for potential application to multiple aviation platforms. MCAP analyzed Army helicopter and unmanned air vehicle (UAV) missions, identified supporting subsystems, surveyed advanced hardware and software technologies, and defined computational infrastructure technical requirements. The project selected a set of modular open systems standards and market-driven commercial-off-theshelf (COTS) electronics and software, and, developed experimental mission processors, network architectures, and software infrastructures supporting the integration of new capabilities, interoperability, and life cycle cost reductions. MCAP integrated the new mission processing architecture into an AH-64D Apache Longbow and participated in Future Combat Systems (FCS) network-centric operations field experiments in 2006 and 2007 at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR), New Mexico and at the Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR) in 2008. The MCAP Apache also participated in PM C4ISR On-the-Move (OTM) Capstone Experiments 2007 (E07) and 2008 (E08) at Ft. Dix, NJ and conducted Mesa, Arizona local area flight tests in December 2005, February 2006, and June 2008.

Video sensor architecture for surveillance applications.

PubMed

Sánchez, Jordi; Benet, Ginés; Simó, José E

2012-01-01

This paper introduces a flexible hardware and software architecture for a smart video sensor. This sensor has been applied in a video surveillance application where some of these video sensors are deployed, constituting the sensory nodes of a distributed surveillance system. In this system, a video sensor node processes images locally in order to extract objects of interest, and classify them. The sensor node reports the processing results to other nodes in the cloud (a user or higher level software) in the form of an XML description. The hardware architecture of each sensor node has been developed using two DSP processors and an FPGA that controls, in a flexible way, the interconnection among processors and the image data flow. The developed node software is based on pluggable components and runs on a provided execution run-time. Some basic and application-specific software components have been developed, in particular: acquisition, segmentation, labeling, tracking, classification and feature extraction. Preliminary results demonstrate that the system can achieve up to 7.5 frames per second in the worst case, and the true positive rates in the classification of objects are better than 80%.

Design and Testing of Space Telemetry SCA Waveform

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mortensen, Dale J.; Handler, Louis M.; Quinn, Todd M.

2006-01-01

A Software Communications Architecture (SCA) Waveform for space telemetry is being developed at the NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC). The space telemetry waveform is implemented in a laboratory testbed consisting of general purpose processors, field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), and digital-to-analog converters (DACs). The radio hardware is integrated with an SCA Core Framework and other software development tools. The waveform design is described from both the bottom-up signal processing and top-down software component perspectives. Simulations and model-based design techniques used for signal processing subsystems are presented. Testing with legacy hardware-based modems verifies proper design implementation and dynamic waveform operations. The waveform development is part of an effort by NASA to define an open architecture for space based reconfigurable transceivers. Use of the SCA as a reference has increased understanding of software defined radio architectures. However, since space requirements put a premium on size, mass, and power, the SCA may be impractical for today s space ready technology. Specific requirements for an SCA waveform and other lessons learned from this development are discussed.

Generic Software Architecture for Launchers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Carre, Emilien; Gast, Philippe; Hiron, Emmanuel; Leblanc, Alain; Lesens, David; Mescam, Emmanuelle; Moro, Pierre

2015-09-01

The definition and reuse of generic software architecture for launchers is not so usual for several reasons: the number of European launcher families is very small (Ariane 5 and Vega for these last decades); the real time constraints (reactivity and determinism needs) are very hard; low levels of versatility are required (implying often an ad hoc development of the launcher mission). In comparison, satellites are often built on a generic platform made up of reusable hardware building blocks (processors, star-trackers, gyroscopes, etc.) and reusable software building blocks (middleware, TM/TC, On Board Control Procedure, etc.). If some of these reasons are still valid (e.g. the limited number of development), the increase of the available CPU power makes today an approach based on a generic time triggered middleware (ensuring the full determinism of the system) and a centralised mission and vehicle management (offering more flexibility in the design and facilitating the long term maintenance) achievable. This paper presents an example of generic software architecture which could be envisaged for future launchers, based on the previously described principles and supported by model driven engineering and automatic code generation.

Video Sensor Architecture for Surveillance Applications

PubMed Central

Sánchez, Jordi; Benet, Ginés; Simó, José E.

2012-01-01

This paper introduces a flexible hardware and software architecture for a smart video sensor. This sensor has been applied in a video surveillance application where some of these video sensors are deployed, constituting the sensory nodes of a distributed surveillance system. In this system, a video sensor node processes images locally in order to extract objects of interest, and classify them. The sensor node reports the processing results to other nodes in the cloud (a user or higher level software) in the form of an XML description. The hardware architecture of each sensor node has been developed using two DSP processors and an FPGA that controls, in a flexible way, the interconnection among processors and the image data flow. The developed node software is based on pluggable components and runs on a provided execution run-time. Some basic and application-specific software components have been developed, in particular: acquisition, segmentation, labeling, tracking, classification and feature extraction. Preliminary results demonstrate that the system can achieve up to 7.5 frames per second in the worst case, and the true positive rates in the classification of objects are better than 80%. PMID:22438723

Opening up Architectures of Software-Intensive Systems: A Functional Decomposition to Support System Comprehension

DTIC Science & Technology

2007-10-01

Architecture ................................................................................ 14 Figure 2. Eclipse Java Model...16 Figure 3. Eclipse Java Model at the Source Code Level...24 Figure 9. Java Source Code

Considerations for the Next Revision of NASA's Space Telecommunications Radio System Architecture

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Johnson, Sandra K.; Handler, Louis M.; Briones, Janette C.

2016-01-01

Development of NASA's Software Defined Radio architecture, the Space Telecommunication Radio System (STRS), was initiated in 2004 with a goal of reducing the cost, risk and schedule when implementing Software Defined Radios (SDR) for National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) space missions. Since STRS was first flown in 2012 on three Software Defined Radios on the Space Communication and Navigation (SCaN) Testbed, only minor changes have been made to the architecture. Multiple entities have since implemented the architecture and provided significant feedback for consideration for the next revision of the standard. The focus for the first set of updates to the architecture is items that enhance application portability. Items that require modifications to existing applications before migrating to the updated architecture will only be considered if there is compelling reasons to make the change. The significant suggestions that were further evaluated for consideration include expanding and clarifying the timing Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), improving handle name and identification (ID) definitions and use, and multiple items related to implementation of STRS Devices. In addition to ideas suggested while implementing STRS, SDR technology has evolved significantly and this impact to the architecture needs to be considered. These include incorporating cognitive concepts - learning from past decisions and making new decisions that the radio can act upon. SDRs are also being developed that do not contain a General Purpose Module - which is currently required for the platform to be STRS compliant. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the comments received, provide a summary of the evaluation considerations, and examine planned dispositions.

AADL and Model-based Engineering

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-10-20

and MBE Feiler, Oct 20, 2014 © 2014 Carnegie Mellon University We Rely on Software for Safe Aircraft Operation Embedded software systems ...D eveloper Compute Platform Runtime Architecture Application Software Embedded SW System Engineer Data Stream Characteristics Latency...confusion Hardware Engineer Why do system level failures still occur despite fault tolerance techniques being deployed in systems ? Embedded software

WISE: Automated support for software project management and measurement. M.S. Thesis

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ramakrishnan, Sudhakar

1995-01-01

One important aspect of software development and IV&V is measurement. Unless a software development effort is measured in some way, it is difficult to judge the effectiveness of current efforts and predict future performances. Collection of metrics and adherence to a process are difficult tasks in a software project. Change activity is a powerful indicator of project status. Automated systems that can handle change requests, issues, and other process documents provide an excellent platform for tracking the status of the project. A World Wide Web based architecture is developed for (a) making metrics collection an implicit part of the software process, (b) providing metric analysis dynamically, (c) supporting automated tools that can complement current practices of in-process improvement, and (d) overcoming geographical barrier. An operational system (WISE) instantiates this architecture allowing for the improvement of software process in a realistic environment. The tool tracks issues in software development process, provides informal communication between the users with different roles, supports to-do lists (TDL), and helps in software process improvement. WISE minimizes the time devoted to metrics collection, analysis, and captures software change data. Automated tools like WISE focus on understanding and managing the software process. The goal is improvement through measurement.

Second Generation Product Line Engineering Takes Hold in the DoD

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-01-01

Feature- Oriented Domain Analysis ( FODA ) Feasibility Study” (CMU/SEI-90- TR-021, ADA235785). Pittsburgh, PA: Software Engineering Institute...software product line engineering and software architecture documentation and analysis . Clements is co-author of three practitioner-oriented books about

Evolution of genetic architecture under directional selection.

PubMed

Hansen, Thomas F; Alvarez-Castro, José M; Carter, Ashley J R; Hermisson, Joachim; Wagner, Günter P

2006-08-01

We investigate the multilinear epistatic model under mutation-limited directional selection. We confirm previous results that only directional epistasis, in which genes on average reinforce or diminish each other's effects, contribute to the initial evolution of mutational effects. Thus, either canalization or decanalization can occur under directional selection, depending on whether positive or negative epistasis is prevalent. We then focus on the evolution of the epistatic coefficients themselves. In the absence of higher-order epistasis, positive pairwise epistasis will tend to weaken relative to additive effects, while negative pairwise epistasis will tend to become strengthened. Positive third-order epistasis will counteract these effects, while negative third-order epistasis will reinforce them. More generally, gene interactions of all orders have an inherent tendency for negative changes under directional selection, which can only be modified by higher-order directional epistasis. We identify three types of nonadditive quasi-equilibrium architectures that, although not strictly stable, can be maintained for an extended time: (1) nondirectional epistatic architectures; (2) canalized architectures with strong epistasis; and (3) near-additive architectures in which additive effects keep increasing relative to epistasis.

Composable Framework Support for Software-FMEA Through Model Execution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kocsis, Imre; Patricia, Andras; Brancati, Francesco; Rossi, Francesco

2016-08-01

Performing Failure Modes and Effect Analysis (FMEA) during software architecture design is becoming a basic requirement in an increasing number of domains; however, due to the lack of standardized early design phase model execution, classic SW-FMEA approaches carry significant risks and are human effort-intensive even in processes that use Model-Driven Engineering.Recently, modelling languages with standardized executable semantics have emerged. Building on earlier results, this paper describes framework support for generating executable error propagation models from such models during software architecture design. The approach carries the promise of increased precision, decreased risk and more automated execution for SW-FMEA during dependability- critical system development.

Space station needs, attributes and architectural options. Volume 1, attachment 1: Executive summary NASA

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1983-01-01

User alignment plan, physical and life sciences and applications, commercial requirements national security, space operations, user needs, foreign contacts, mission scenario analysis and architectural concepts, alternative systems concepts, mission operations architectural development, architectural analysis trades, evolution, configuration, and technology development are discussed.

Working Notes from the 1992 AAAI Workshop on Automating Software Design. Theme: Domain Specific Software Design

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Keller, Richard M. (Editor); Barstow, David; Lowry, Michael R.; Tong, Christopher H.

1992-01-01

The goal of this workshop is to identify different architectural approaches to building domain-specific software design systems and to explore issues unique to domain-specific (vs. general-purpose) software design. Some general issues that cut across the particular software design domain include: (1) knowledge representation, acquisition, and maintenance; (2) specialized software design techniques; and (3) user interaction and user interface.

Cost Estimation of Software Development and the Implications for the Program Manager

DTIC Science & Technology

1992-06-01

Software Lifecycle Model (SLIM), the Jensen System-4 model, the Software Productivity, Quality, and Reliability Estimator ( SPQR \\20), the Constructive...function models in current use are the Software Productivity, Quality, and Reliability Estimator ( SPQR /20) and the Software Architecture Sizing and...Estimator ( SPQR /20) was developed by T. Capers Jones of Software Productivity Research, Inc., in 1985. The model is intended to estimate the outcome

Taking advantage of ground data systems attributes to achieve quality results in testing software

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sigman, Clayton B.; Koslosky, John T.; Hageman, Barbara H.

1994-01-01

During the software development life cycle process, basic testing starts with the development team. At the end of the development process, an acceptance test is performed for the user to ensure that the deliverable is acceptable. Ideally, the delivery is an operational product with zero defects. However, the goal of zero defects is normally not achieved but is successful to various degrees. With the emphasis on building low cost ground support systems while maintaining a quality product, a key element in the test process is simulator capability. This paper reviews the Transportable Payload Operations Control Center (TPOCC) Advanced Spacecraft Simulator (TASS) test tool that is used in the acceptance test process for unmanned satellite operations control centers. The TASS is designed to support the development, test and operational environments of the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) operations control centers. The TASS uses the same basic architecture as the operations control center. This architecture is characterized by its use of distributed processing, industry standards, commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware and software components, and reusable software. The TASS uses much of the same TPOCC architecture and reusable software that the operations control center developer uses. The TASS also makes use of reusable simulator software in the mission specific versions of the TASS. Very little new software needs to be developed, mainly mission specific telemetry communication and command processing software. By taking advantage of the ground data system attributes, successful software reuse for operational systems provides the opportunity to extend the reuse concept into the test area. Consistency in test approach is a major step in achieving quality results.

Space-Based Reconfigurable Software Defined Radio Test Bed Aboard International Space Station

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Reinhart, Richard C.; Lux, James P.

2014-01-01

The National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA) recently launched a new software defined radio research test bed to the International Space Station. The test bed, sponsored by the Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) Office within NASA is referred to as the SCaN Testbed. The SCaN Testbed is a highly capable communications system, composed of three software defined radios, integrated into a flight system, and mounted to the truss of the International Space Station. Software defined radios offer the future promise of in-flight reconfigurability, autonomy, and eventually cognitive operation. The adoption of software defined radios offers space missions a new way to develop and operate space transceivers for communications and navigation. Reconfigurable or software defined radios with communications and navigation functions implemented in software or VHDL (Very High Speed Hardware Description Language) provide the capability to change the functionality of the radio during development or after launch. The ability to change the operating characteristics of a radio through software once deployed to space offers the flexibility to adapt to new science opportunities, recover from anomalies within the science payload or communication system, and potentially reduce development cost and risk by adapting generic space platforms to meet specific mission requirements. The software defined radios on the SCaN Testbed are each compliant to NASA's Space Telecommunications Radio System (STRS) Architecture. The STRS Architecture is an open, non-proprietary architecture that defines interfaces for the connections between radio components. It provides an operating environment to abstract the communication waveform application from the underlying platform specific hardware such as digital-to-analog converters, analog-to-digital converters, oscillators, RF attenuators, automatic gain control circuits, FPGAs, general-purpose processors, etc. and the interconnections among different radio components.

Enhancement of computer system for applications software branch

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bykat, Alex

1987-01-01

Presented is a compilation of the history of a two-month project concerned with a survey, evaluation, and specification of a new computer system for the Applications Software Branch of the Software and Data Management Division of Information and Electronic Systems Laboratory of Marshall Space Flight Center, NASA. Information gathering consisted of discussions and surveys of branch activities, evaluation of computer manufacturer literature, and presentations by vendors. Information gathering was followed by evaluation of their systems. The criteria of the latter were: the (tentative) architecture selected for the new system, type of network architecture supported, software tools, and to some extent the price. The information received from the vendors, as well as additional research, lead to detailed design of a suitable system. This design included considerations of hardware and software environments as well as personnel issues such as training. Design of the system culminated in a recommendation for a new computing system for the Branch.

The Golden Age of Software Architecture: A Comprehensive Survey

DTIC Science & Technology

2006-02-01

UML [14], under the leadership of (at the time) Rational, has integrated a number of design notations and developed a method for applying them...yes 97 survey, model Garlan. Research directions in SA [28] 54 yes 93 specific domains Cremer et al. The SA for scenario control in the Iowa...Environment of the Domain-Specific Software Architecture Project, ADAGE-IBM-92-11, Version 2.0, November, 1993 [23] J. Cremer , J. Kearney, Y. Papelis, and

Assessment of an Onboard EO Sensor to Enable Detect-and-Sense Capability for UAVs Operating in a Cluttered Environment

DTIC Science & Technology

2017-09-01

via visual sensors onboard the UAV. Both the hardware and software architecture design are discussed at length. Then, a series of tests that were...visual sensors onboard the UAV. Both the hardware and software architecture design are discussed at length. Then, a series of tests that were conducted...and representing the change in time . (1) Horn and Schunck (1981) further simplified this equation by taking the Taylor series

Algorithms and software for solving finite element equations on serial and parallel architectures

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

George, Alan

1989-01-01

Over the past 15 years numerous new techniques have been developed for solving systems of equations and eigenvalue problems arising in finite element computations. A package called SPARSPAK has been developed by the author and his co-workers which exploits these new methods. The broad objective of this research project is to incorporate some of this software in the Computational Structural Mechanics (CSM) testbed, and to extend the techniques for use on multiprocessor architectures.

EASY-SIM: A Visual Simulation System Software Architecture with an ADA 9X Application Framework

DTIC Science & Technology

1994-12-01

devop -_ ment of software systems within a domain. Because an architecture promotes reuse at the design level, systems developers do not have to devote...physically separated actors into a battlefield situation, The interaction be- tween the various simulators is accomplished by means of network connec...realized that it would be more productive to make reusable components from scratch (Sny93,31-32]. Of notable exception were the network communications

Achieving High Performance With TCP Over 40 GbE on NUMA Architectures for CMS Data Acquisition

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Bawej, Tomasz; et al.

2014-01-01

TCP and the socket abstraction have barely changed over the last two decades, but at the network layer there has been a giant leap from a few megabits to 100 gigabits in bandwidth. At the same time, CPU architectures have evolved into the multicore era and applications are expected to make full use of all available resources. Applications in the data acquisition domain based on the standard socket library running in a Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) architecture are unable to reach full efficiency and scalability without the software being adequately aware about the IRQ (Interrupt Request), CPU and memory affinities.more » During the first long shutdown of LHC, the CMS DAQ system is going to be upgraded for operation from 2015 onwards and a new software component has been designed and developed in the CMS online framework for transferring data with sockets. This software attempts to wrap the low-level socket library to ease higher-level programming with an API based on an asynchronous event driven model similar to the DAT uDAPL API. It is an event-based application with NUMA optimizations, that allows for a high throughput of data across a large distributed system. This paper describes the architecture, the technologies involved and the performance measurements of the software in the context of the CMS distributed event building.« less

A reprogrammable receiver architecture for wireless signal interception

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yao, Timothy S.

2003-09-01

In this paper, a re-programmable receiver architecture, based on software-defined-radio concept, for wireless signal interception is presented. The radio-frequency (RF) signal that the receiver would like to intercept may come from a terrestrial cellular network or communication satellites, which their carrier frequency are in the range from 800 MHz (civilian mobile) to 15 GHz (Ku band). To intercept signals from such a wide range of frequency in these variant communication systems, the traditional way is to deploy multiple receivers to scan and detect the desired signal. This traditional approach is obviously unattractive due to the cost, efficiency, and accuracy. Instead, we propose a universal receiver, which is software-driven and re-configurable, to intercept signals of interest. The software-defined-radio based receiver first intercepts RF energy of wide spectrum (25MHz) through antenna, performs zero-IF down conversion (homodyne architecture) to baseband, and digital channelizes the baseband signal. The channelization module is a bank of high performance digital filters. The bandwidth of the filter bank is programmable according to the wireless communication protocol under watch. In the baseband processing, high-performance digital signal processors carry out the detection process and microprocessors handle the communication protocols. The baseband processing is also re-configurable for different wireless standards and protocol. The advantages of the software-defined-radio architecture over traditional RF receiver make it a favorable technology for the communication signal interception and surveillance.

An Approach for On-Board Software Building Blocks Cooperation and Interfaces Definition

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pascucci, Dario; Campolo, Giovanni; Candia, Sante; Lisio, Giovanni

2010-08-01

This paper provides an insight on the Avionic SW architecture developed by Thales Alenia Space Italy (TAS-I) to achieve structuring of the OBSW as a set of self-standing and re-usable building blocks. It is initially described the underlying framework for building blocks cooperation, which is based on ECSSE-70 packets forwarding (for services request to a building block) and standard parameters exchange for data communication. Subsequently it is discussed the high level of flexibility and scalability of the resulting architecture, reporting as example an implementation of the Failure Detection, Isolation and Recovery (FDIR) function which exploits the proposed architecture. The presented approach evolves from avionic SW architecture developed in the scope of the project PRIMA (Mult-Purpose Italian Re-configurable Platform) and has been adopted for the Sentinel-1 Avionic Software (ASW).

Mark 4A antenna control system data handling architecture study

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Briggs, H. C.; Eldred, D. B.

1991-01-01

A high-level review was conducted to provide an analysis of the existing architecture used to handle data and implement control algorithms for NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) antennas and to make system-level recommendations for improving this architecture so that the DSN antennas can support the ever-tightening requirements of the next decade and beyond. It was found that the existing system is seriously overloaded, with processor utilization approaching 100 percent. A number of factors contribute to this overloading, including dated hardware, inefficient software, and a message-passing strategy that depends on serial connections between machines. At the same time, the system has shortcomings and idiosyncrasies that require extensive human intervention. A custom operating system kernel and an obscure programming language exacerbate the problems and should be modernized. A new architecture is presented that addresses these and other issues. Key features of the new architecture include a simplified message passing hierarchy that utilizes a high-speed local area network, redesign of particular processing function algorithms, consolidation of functions, and implementation of the architecture in modern hardware and software using mainstream computer languages and operating systems. The system would also allow incremental hardware improvements as better and faster hardware for such systems becomes available, and costs could potentially be low enough that redundancy would be provided economically. Such a system could support DSN requirements for the foreseeable future, though thorough consideration must be given to hard computational requirements, porting existing software functionality to the new system, and issues of fault tolerance and recovery.

Considerations for the Next Revision of STRS

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Johnson, Sandra K.; Handler, Louis M.; Briones, Janette C.

2016-01-01

Development of NASAs Software Defined Radio architecture, the Space Telecommunication Radio System (STRS), was initiated in 2004 with a goal of reducing the cost, risk and schedule when implementing Software Defined Radios (SDR) for NASA space missions. Since STRS was first flown in 2012 on three Software Defined Radios on the Space Communication and Navigation (SCaN) Testbed, only minor changes have been made to the architecture. Multiple entities have since implemented the architecture and have provided significant feedback for consideration for the next revision of the standard. The focus for the first set of updates to the architecture is items that enhance application portability. Items that require modifications to existing applications before migrating to the updated architecture will only be considered if there is compelling reasons to make the change. The significant suggestions that were further evaluated for consideration include expanding and clarifying the timing Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), improving handle name and identification (ID) definitions and use, and multiple items related to implementation of STRS Devices. In addition to ideas suggested while implementing STRS, SDR technology has evolved significantly and this impact to the architecture needs to be considered. These include incorporating cognitive concepts - learning from past decisions and making new decisions that the radio can act upon. SDRs are also being developed that do not contain a General Purpose Module which is currently required for the platform to be STRS compliant. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the comments received, provide a summary of the evaluation considerations, and examine planned dispositions

An Experiment in the Use of Computer-Based Education to Teach Energy Considerations in Architectural Design.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Arumi, Francisco N.

Computer programs capable of describing the thermal behavior of buildings are used to help architectural students understand environmental systems. The Numerical Simulation Laboratory at the Architectural School of the University of Texas at Austin was developed to provide the necessary software capable of simulating the energy transactions…

APRON: A Cellular Processor Array Simulation and Hardware Design Tool

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barr, David R. W.; Dudek, Piotr

2009-12-01

We present a software environment for the efficient simulation of cellular processor arrays (CPAs). This software (APRON) is used to explore algorithms that are designed for massively parallel fine-grained processor arrays, topographic multilayer neural networks, vision chips with SIMD processor arrays, and related architectures. The software uses a highly optimised core combined with a flexible compiler to provide the user with tools for the design of new processor array hardware architectures and the emulation of existing devices. We present performance benchmarks for the software processor array implemented on standard commodity microprocessors. APRON can be configured to use additional processing hardware if necessary and can be used as a complete graphical user interface and development environment for new or existing CPA systems, allowing more users to develop algorithms for CPA systems.

Architected Agile Solutions for Software-Reliant Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Boehm, Barry; Lane, Jo Ann; Koolmanojwong, Supannika; Turner, Richard

Systems are becoming increasingly reliant on software due to needs for rapid fielding of “70% capabilities,” interoperability, net-centricity, and rapid adaptation to change. The latter need has led to increased interest in agile methods of software development, in which teams rely on shared tacit interpersonal knowledge rather than explicit documented knowledge. However, such systems often need to be scaled up to higher level of performance and assurance, requiring stronger architectural support. Several organizations have recently transformed themselves by developing successful combinations of agility and architecture that can scale to projects of up to 100 personnel. This chapter identifies a set of key principles for such architected agile solutions for software-reliant systems, provides guidance for how much architecting is enough, and illustrates the key principles with several case studies.

Applying an MVC Framework for The System Development Life Cycle with Waterfall Model Extended

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hardyanto, W.; Purwinarko, A.; Sujito, F.; Masturi; Alighiri, D.

2017-04-01

This paper describes the extension of the waterfall model using MVC architectural pattern for software development. The waterfall model is the based model of the most widely used in software development, yet there are still many problems in it. The general issue usually happens on data changes that cause the delays on the process itself. On the other hand, the security factor on the software as well as one of the major problems. This study uses PHP programming language for implementation. Although this model can be implemented in several programming languages with the same concept. This study is based on MVC architecture so that it can improve the performance of both software development and maintenance, especially concerning security, validation, database access, and routing.

Architecture of a Framework for Providing Information Services for Public Transport

PubMed Central

García, Carmelo R.; Pérez, Ricardo; Lorenzo, Álvaro; Quesada-Arencibia, Alexis; Alayón, Francisco; Padrón, Gabino

2012-01-01

This paper presents OnRoute, a framework for developing and running ubiquitous software that provides information services to passengers of public transportation, including payment systems and on-route guidance services. To achieve a high level of interoperability, accessibility and context awareness, OnRoute uses the ubiquitous computing paradigm. To guarantee the quality of the software produced, the reliable software principles used in critical contexts, such as automotive systems, are also considered by the framework. The main components of its architecture (run-time, system services, software components and development discipline) and how they are deployed in the transportation network (stations and vehicles) are described in this paper. Finally, to illustrate the use of OnRoute, the development of a guidance service for travellers is explained. PMID:22778585

CONRAD Software Architecture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guzman, J. C.; Bennett, T.

2008-08-01

The Convergent Radio Astronomy Demonstrator (CONRAD) is a collaboration between the computing teams of two SKA pathfinder instruments, MeerKAT (South Africa) and ASKAP (Australia). Our goal is to produce the required common software to operate, process and store the data from the two instruments. Both instruments are synthesis arrays composed of a large number of antennas (40 - 100) operating at centimeter wavelengths with wide-field capabilities. Key challenges are the processing of high volume of data in real-time as well as the remote mode of operations. Here we present the software architecture for CONRAD. Our design approach is to maximize the use of open solutions and third-party software widely deployed in commercial applications, such as SNMP and LDAP, and to utilize modern web-based technologies for the user interfaces, such as AJAX.

Advanced Information Processing System (AIPS)-based fault tolerant avionics architecture for launch vehicles

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lala, Jaynarayan H.; Harper, Richard E.; Jaskowiak, Kenneth R.; Rosch, Gene; Alger, Linda S.; Schor, Andrei L.

1990-01-01

An avionics architecture for the advanced launch system (ALS) that uses validated hardware and software building blocks developed under the advanced information processing system program is presented. The AIPS for ALS architecture defined is preliminary, and reliability requirements can be met by the AIPS hardware and software building blocks that are built using the state-of-the-art technology available in the 1992-93 time frame. The level of detail in the architecture definition reflects the level of detail available in the ALS requirements. As the avionics requirements are refined, the architecture can also be refined and defined in greater detail with the help of analysis and simulation tools. A useful methodology is demonstrated for investigating the impact of the avionics suite to the recurring cost of the ALS. It is shown that allowing the vehicle to launch with selected detected failures can potentially reduce the recurring launch costs. A comparative analysis shows that validated fault-tolerant avionics built out of Class B parts can result in lower life-cycle-cost in comparison to simplex avionics built out of Class S parts or other redundant architectures.

NASA Data Acquisitions System (NDAS) Software Architecture

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Davis, Dawn; Duncan, Michael; Franzl, Richard; Holladay, Wendy; Marshall, Peggi; Morris, Jon; Turowski, Mark

2012-01-01

The NDAS Software Project is for the development of common low speed data acquisition system software to support NASA's rocket propulsion testing facilities at John C. Stennis Space Center (SSC), White Sands Test Facility (WSTF), Plum Brook Station (PBS), and Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC).

Gregory Hayman | NREL

Science.gov Websites

-7024 Greg's expertise is in the design and development of software for engineering applications. His experience includes project management, software architectural design, various software development the pre- and post-processors used in the analysis of data from both land-based and offshore wind

Teaching Software Componentization: A Bar Chart Java Bean

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mitri, Michel

2010-01-01

In the current object-oriented paradigm, software construction increasingly involves creating and utilizing "software components". These components can serve a variety of functions, from common algorithmic processes to database connectivity to graphical interfaces. The advantage of component architectures is that programmers can use pre-existing…

Component-based integration of chemistry and optimization software.

PubMed

Kenny, Joseph P; Benson, Steven J; Alexeev, Yuri; Sarich, Jason; Janssen, Curtis L; McInnes, Lois Curfman; Krishnan, Manojkumar; Nieplocha, Jarek; Jurrus, Elizabeth; Fahlstrom, Carl; Windus, Theresa L

2004-11-15

Typical scientific software designs make rigid assumptions regarding programming language and data structures, frustrating software interoperability and scientific collaboration. Component-based software engineering is an emerging approach to managing the increasing complexity of scientific software. Component technology facilitates code interoperability and reuse. Through the adoption of methodology and tools developed by the Common Component Architecture Forum, we have developed a component architecture for molecular structure optimization. Using the NWChem and Massively Parallel Quantum Chemistry packages, we have produced chemistry components that provide capacity for energy and energy derivative evaluation. We have constructed geometry optimization applications by integrating the Toolkit for Advanced Optimization, Portable Extensible Toolkit for Scientific Computation, and Global Arrays packages, which provide optimization and linear algebra capabilities. We present a brief overview of the component development process and a description of abstract interfaces for chemical optimizations. The components conforming to these abstract interfaces allow the construction of applications using different chemistry and mathematics packages interchangeably. Initial numerical results for the component software demonstrate good performance, and highlight potential research enabled by this platform.

JPL Space Telecommunications Radio System Operating Environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lux, James P.; Lang, Minh; Peters, Kenneth J.; Taylor, Gregory H.; Duncan, Courtney B.; Orozco, David S.; Stern, Ryan A.; Ahten, Earl R.; Girard, Mike

2013-01-01

A flight-qualified implementation of a Software Defined Radio (SDR) Operating Environment for the JPL-SDR built for the CoNNeCT Project has been developed. It is compliant with the NASA Space Telecommunications Radio System (STRS) Architecture Standard, and provides the software infrastructure for STRS compliant waveform applications. This software provides a standards-compliant abstracted view of the JPL-SDR hardware platform. It uses industry standard POSIX interfaces for most functions, as well as exposing the STRS API (Application Programming In terface) required by the standard. This software includes a standardized interface for IP components instantiated within a Xilinx FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array). The software provides a standardized abstracted interface to platform resources such as data converters, file system, etc., which can be used by STRS standards conformant waveform applications. It provides a generic SDR operating environment with a much smaller resource footprint than similar products such as SCA (Software Communications Architecture) compliant implementations, or the DoD Joint Tactical Radio Systems (JTRS).

Semantic Entity-Component State Management Techniques to Enhance Software Quality for Multimodal VR-Systems.

PubMed

Fischbach, Martin; Wiebusch, Dennis; Latoschik, Marc Erich

2017-04-01

Modularity, modifiability, reusability, and API usability are important software qualities that determine the maintainability of software architectures. Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality (VR, AR, MR) systems, modern computer games, as well as interactive human-robot systems often include various dedicated input-, output-, and processing subsystems. These subsystems collectively maintain a real-time simulation of a coherent application state. The resulting interdependencies between individual state representations, mutual state access, overall synchronization, and flow of control implies a conceptual close coupling whereas software quality asks for a decoupling to develop maintainable solutions. This article presents five semantics-based software techniques that address this contradiction: Semantic grounding, code from semantics, grounded actions, semantic queries, and decoupling by semantics. These techniques are applied to extend the well-established entity-component-system (ECS) pattern to overcome some of this pattern's deficits with respect to the implied state access. A walk-through of central implementation aspects of a multimodal (speech and gesture) VR-interface is used to highlight the techniques' benefits. This use-case is chosen as a prototypical example of complex architectures with multiple interacting subsystems found in many VR, AR and MR architectures. Finally, implementation hints are given, lessons learned regarding maintainability pointed-out, and performance implications discussed.

OASIS: a data and software distribution service for Open Science Grid

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bockelman, B.; Caballero Bejar, J.; De Stefano, J.; Hover, J.; Quick, R.; Teige, S.

2014-06-01

The Open Science Grid encourages the concept of software portability: a user's scientific application should be able to run at as many sites as possible. It is necessary to provide a mechanism for OSG Virtual Organizations to install software at sites. Since its initial release, the OSG Compute Element has provided an application software installation directory to Virtual Organizations, where they can create their own sub-directory, install software into that sub-directory, and have the directory shared on the worker nodes at that site. The current model has shortcomings with regard to permissions, policies, versioning, and the lack of a unified, collective procedure or toolset for deploying software across all sites. Therefore, a new mechanism for data and software distributing is desirable. The architecture for the OSG Application Software Installation Service (OASIS) is a server-client model: the software and data are installed only once in a single place, and are automatically distributed to all client sites simultaneously. Central file distribution offers other advantages, including server-side authentication and authorization, activity records, quota management, data validation and inspection, and well-defined versioning and deletion policies. The architecture, as well as a complete analysis of the current implementation, will be described in this paper.

IPAD products and implications for the future

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Miller, R. E., Jr.

1980-01-01

The betterment of productivity through the improvement of product quality and the reduction of cost is addressed. Productivity improvement is sought through (1) reduction of required resources, (2) improved ask results through the management of such saved resources, (3) reduced downstream costs through manufacturing-oriented engineering, and (4) lowered risks in the making of product design decisions. The IPAD products are both hardware architecture and software distributed over a number of heterogeneous computers in this architecture. These IPAD products are described in terms of capability and engineering usefulness. The future implications of state-of-the-art IPAD hardware and software architectures are discussed in terms of their impact on the functions and on structures of organizations concerned with creating products.

Development and evaluation of a fault-tolerant multiprocessor (FTMP) computer. Volume 4: FTMP executive summary

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Smith, T. B., III; Lala, J. H.

1984-01-01

The FTMP architecture is a high reliability computer concept modeled after a homogeneous multiprocessor architecture. Elements of the FTMP are operated in tight synchronism with one another and hardware fault-detection and fault-masking is provided which is transparent to the software. Operating system design and user software design is thus greatly simplified. Performance of the FTMP is also comparable to that of a simplex equivalent due to the efficiency of fault handling hardware. The FTMP project constructed an engineering module of the FTMP, programmed the machine and extensively tested the architecture through fault injection and other stress testing. This testing confirmed the soundness of the FTMP concepts.

ASAC Executive Assistant Architecture Description Summary

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Roberts, Eileen; Villani, James A.

1997-01-01

In this technical document, we describe the system architecture developed for the Aviation System Analysis Capability (ASAC) Executive Assistant (EA). We describe the genesis and role of the ASAC system, discuss the objectives of the ASAC system and provide an overview of components and models within the ASAC system, discuss our choice for an architecture methodology, the Domain Specific Software Architecture (DSSA), and the DSSA approach to developing a system architecture, and describe the development process and the results of the ASAC EA system architecture. The document has six appendices.

Coordinating space telescope operations in an integrated planning and scheduling architecture

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Muscettola, Nicola; Smith, Stephen F.; Cesta, Amedeo; D'Aloisi, Daniela

1992-01-01

The Heuristic Scheduling Testbed System (HSTS), a software architecture for integrated planning and scheduling, is discussed. The architecture has been applied to the problem of generating observation schedules for the Hubble Space Telescope. This problem is representative of the class of problems that can be addressed: their complexity lies in the interaction of resource allocation and auxiliary task expansion. The architecture deals with this interaction by viewing planning and scheduling as two complementary aspects of the more general process of constructing behaviors of a dynamical system. The principal components of the software architecture are described, indicating how to model the structure and dynamics of a system, how to represent schedules at multiple levels of abstraction in the temporal database, and how the problem solving machinery operates. A scheduler for the detailed management of Hubble Space Telescope operations that has been developed within HSTS is described. Experimental performance results are given that indicate the utility and practicality of the approach.

STRS Compliant FPGA Waveform Development

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Nappier, Jennifer; Downey, Joseph

2008-01-01

The Space Telecommunications Radio System (STRS) Architecture Standard describes a standard for NASA space software defined radios (SDRs). It provides a common framework that can be used to develop and operate a space SDR in a reconfigurable and reprogrammable manner. One goal of the STRS Architecture is to promote waveform reuse among multiple software defined radios. Many space domain waveforms are designed to run in the special signal processing (SSP) hardware. However, the STRS Architecture is currently incomplete in defining a standard for designing waveforms in the SSP hardware. Therefore, the STRS Architecture needs to be extended to encompass waveform development in the SSP hardware. A transmit waveform for space applications was developed to determine ways to extend the STRS Architecture to a field programmable gate array (FPGA). These extensions include a standard hardware abstraction layer for FPGAs and a standard interface between waveform functions running inside a FPGA. Current standards were researched and new standard interfaces were proposed. The implementation of the proposed standard interfaces on a laboratory breadboard SDR will be presented.

On the Inevitable Intertwining of Requirements and Architecture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sutcliffe, Alistair

The chapter investigates the relationship between architecture and requirements, arguing that architectural issues need to be addressed early in the RE process. Three trends are driving architectural implications for RE: the growth of intelligent, context-aware and adaptable systems. First the relationship between architecture and requirements is considered from a theoretical viewpoint of problem frames and abstract conceptual models. The relationships between architectural decisions and non-functional requirements is reviewed, and then the impact of architecture on the RE process is assessed using a case study of developing configurable, semi-intelligent software to support medical researchers in e-science domains.

INL Generic Robot Architecture

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

2005-03-30

The INL Generic Robot Architecture is a generic, extensible software framework that can be applied across a variety of different robot geometries, sensor suites and low-level proprietary control application programming interfaces (e.g. mobility, aria, aware, player, etc.).

GNC Architecture Design for ARES Simulation. Revision 3.0. Revision 3.0

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gay, Robert

2006-01-01

The purpose of this document is to describe the GNC architecture and associated interfaces for all ARES simulations. Establishing a common architecture facilitates development across the ARES simulations and provides an efficient mechanism for creating an end-to-end simulation capability. In general, the GNC architecture is the frame work in which all GNC development takes place, including sensor and effector models. All GNC software applications have a standard location within the architecture making integration easier and, thus more efficient.

Architectural Analysis of Dynamically Reconfigurable Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lindvall, Mikael; Godfrey, Sally; Ackermann, Chris; Ray, Arnab; Yonkwa, Lyly

2010-01-01

oTpics include: the problem (increased flexibility of architectural styles decrease analyzability, behavior emerges and varies depending on the configuration, does the resulting system run according to the intended design, and architectural decisions can impede or facilitate testing); top down approach to architecture analysis, detection of defects and deviations, and architecture and its testability; currently targeted projects GMSEC and CFS; analyzing software architectures; analyzing runtime events; actual architecture recognition; GMPUB in Dynamic SAVE; sample output from new approach; taking message timing delays into account; CFS examples of architecture and testability; some recommendations for improved testablity; and CFS examples of abstract interfaces and testability; CFS example of opening some internal details.

Computer Sciences and Data Systems, volume 1

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1987-01-01

Topics addressed include: software engineering; university grants; institutes; concurrent processing; sparse distributed memory; distributed operating systems; intelligent data management processes; expert system for image analysis; fault tolerant software; and architecture research.

Evolution of the PWWP-domain encoding genes in the plant and animal lineages

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background Conserved domains are recognized as the building blocks of eukaryotic proteins. Domains showing a tendency to occur in diverse combinations (‘promiscuous’ domains) are involved in versatile architectures in proteins with different functions. Current models, based on global-level analyses of domain combinations in multiple genomes, have suggested that the propensity of some domains to associate with other domains in high-level architectures increases with organismal complexity. Alternative models using domain-based phylogenetic trees propose that domains have become promiscuous independently in different lineages through convergent evolution and are, thus, random with no functional or structural preferences. Here we test whether complex protein architectures have occurred by accretion from simpler systems and whether the appearance of multidomain combinations parallels organismal complexity. As a model, we analyze the modular evolution of the PWWP domain and ask whether its appearance in combinations with other domains into multidomain architectures is linked with the occurrence of more complex life-forms. Whether high-level combinations of domains are conserved and transmitted as stable units (cassettes) through evolution is examined in the genomes of plant or metazoan species selected for their established position in the evolution of the respective lineages. Results Using the domain-tree approach, we analyze the evolutionary origins and distribution patterns of the promiscuous PWWP domain to understand the principles of its modular evolution and its existence in combination with other domains in higher-level protein architectures. We found that as a single module the PWWP domain occurs only in proteins with a limited, mainly, species-specific distribution. Earlier, it was suggested that domain promiscuity is a fast-changing (volatile) feature shaped by natural selection and that only a few domains retain their promiscuity status throughout evolution. In contrast, our data show that most of the multidomain PWWP combinations in extant multicellular organisms (humans or land plants) are present in their unicellular ancestral relatives suggesting they have been transmitted through evolution as conserved linear arrangements (‘cassettes’). Among the most interesting biologically relevant results is the finding that the genes of the two plant Trithorax family subgroups (ATX1/2 and ATX3/4/5) have different phylogenetic origins. The two subgroups occur together in the earliest land plants Physcomitrella patens and Selaginella moellendorffii. Conclusion Gain/loss of a single PWWP domain is observed throughout evolution reflecting dynamic lineage- or species-specific events. In contrast, higher-level protein architectures involving the PWWP domain have survived as stable arrangements driven by evolutionary descent. The association of PWWP domains with the DNA methyltransferases in O. tauri and in the metazoan lineage seems to have occurred independently consistent with convergent evolution. Our results do not support models wherein more complex protein architectures involving the PWWP domain occur with the appearance of more evolutionarily advanced life forms. PMID:22734652

Simplified programming and control of automated radiosynthesizers through unit operations.

PubMed

Claggett, Shane B; Quinn, Kevin M; Lazari, Mark; Moore, Melissa D; van Dam, R Michael

2013-07-15

Many automated radiosynthesizers for producing positron emission tomography (PET) probes provide a means for the operator to create custom synthesis programs. The programming interfaces are typically designed with the engineer rather than the radiochemist in mind, requiring lengthy programs to be created from sequences of low-level, non-intuitive hardware operations. In some cases, the user is even responsible for adding steps to update the graphical representation of the system. In light of these unnecessarily complex approaches, we have created software to perform radiochemistry on the ELIXYS radiosynthesizer with the goal of being intuitive and easy to use. Radiochemists were consulted, and a wide range of radiosyntheses were analyzed to determine a comprehensive set of basic chemistry unit operations. Based around these operations, we created a software control system with a client-server architecture. In an attempt to maximize flexibility, the client software was designed to run on a variety of portable multi-touch devices. The software was used to create programs for the synthesis of several 18F-labeled probes on the ELIXYS radiosynthesizer, with [18F]FDG detailed here. To gauge the user-friendliness of the software, program lengths were compared to those from other systems. A small sample group with no prior radiosynthesizer experience was tasked with creating and running a simple protocol. The software was successfully used to synthesize several 18F-labeled PET probes, including [18F]FDG, with synthesis times and yields comparable to literature reports. The resulting programs were significantly shorter and easier to debug than programs from other systems. The sample group of naive users created and ran a simple protocol within a couple of hours, revealing a very short learning curve. The client-server architecture provided reliability, enabling continuity of the synthesis run even if the computer running the client software failed. The architecture enabled a single user to control the hardware while others observed the run in progress or created programs for other probes. We developed a novel unit operation-based software interface to control automated radiosynthesizers that reduced the program length and complexity and also exhibited a short learning curve. The client-server architecture provided robustness and flexibility.

Simplified programming and control of automated radiosynthesizers through unit operations

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background Many automated radiosynthesizers for producing positron emission tomography (PET) probes provide a means for the operator to create custom synthesis programs. The programming interfaces are typically designed with the engineer rather than the radiochemist in mind, requiring lengthy programs to be created from sequences of low-level, non-intuitive hardware operations. In some cases, the user is even responsible for adding steps to update the graphical representation of the system. In light of these unnecessarily complex approaches, we have created software to perform radiochemistry on the ELIXYS radiosynthesizer with the goal of being intuitive and easy to use. Methods Radiochemists were consulted, and a wide range of radiosyntheses were analyzed to determine a comprehensive set of basic chemistry unit operations. Based around these operations, we created a software control system with a client–server architecture. In an attempt to maximize flexibility, the client software was designed to run on a variety of portable multi-touch devices. The software was used to create programs for the synthesis of several 18F-labeled probes on the ELIXYS radiosynthesizer, with [18F]FDG detailed here. To gauge the user-friendliness of the software, program lengths were compared to those from other systems. A small sample group with no prior radiosynthesizer experience was tasked with creating and running a simple protocol. Results The software was successfully used to synthesize several 18F-labeled PET probes, including [18F]FDG, with synthesis times and yields comparable to literature reports. The resulting programs were significantly shorter and easier to debug than programs from other systems. The sample group of naive users created and ran a simple protocol within a couple of hours, revealing a very short learning curve. The client–server architecture provided reliability, enabling continuity of the synthesis run even if the computer running the client software failed. The architecture enabled a single user to control the hardware while others observed the run in progress or created programs for other probes. Conclusions We developed a novel unit operation-based software interface to control automated radiosynthesizers that reduced the program length and complexity and also exhibited a short learning curve. The client–server architecture provided robustness and flexibility. PMID:23855995

A resilient and secure software platform and architecture for distributed spacecraft

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Otte, William R.; Dubey, Abhishek; Karsai, Gabor

2014-06-01

A distributed spacecraft is a cluster of independent satellite modules flying in formation that communicate via ad-hoc wireless networks. This system in space is a cloud platform that facilitates sharing sensors and other computing and communication resources across multiple applications, potentially developed and maintained by different organizations. Effectively, such architecture can realize the functions of monolithic satellites at a reduced cost and with improved adaptivity and robustness. Openness of these architectures pose special challenges because the distributed software platform has to support applications from different security domains and organizations, and where information flows have to be carefully managed and compartmentalized. If the platform is used as a robust shared resource its management, configuration, and resilience becomes a challenge in itself. We have designed and prototyped a distributed software platform for such architectures. The core element of the platform is a new operating system whose services were designed to restrict access to the network and the file system, and to enforce resource management constraints for all non-privileged processes Mixed-criticality applications operating at different security labels are deployed and controlled by a privileged management process that is also pre-configuring all information flows. This paper describes the design and objective of this layer.

Using Decision Structures for Policy Analysis in Software Product-line Evolution - A Case Study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sarang, Nita; Sanglikar, Mukund A.

Project management decisions are the primary basis for project success (or failure). Mostly, such decisions are based on an intuitive understanding of the underlying software engineering and management process and have a likelihood of being misjudged. Our problem domain is product-line evolution. We model the dynamics of the process by incorporating feedback loops appropriate to two decision structures: staffing policy, and the forces of growth associated with long-term software evolution. The model is executable and supports project managers to assess the long-term effects of possible actions. Our work also corroborates results from earlier studies of E-type systems, in particular the FEAST project and the rules for software evolution, planning and management.

A research on the security of wisdom campus based on geospatial big data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Haiying

2018-05-01

There are some difficulties in wisdom campus, such as geospatial big data sharing, function expansion, data management, analysis and mining geospatial big data for a characteristic, especially the problem of data security can't guarantee cause prominent attention increasingly. In this article we put forward a data-oriented software architecture which is designed by the ideology of orienting data and data as kernel, solve the problem of traditional software architecture broaden the campus space data research, develop the application of wisdom campus.

Using a software-defined computer in teaching the basics of computer architecture and operation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kosowska, Julia; Mazur, Grzegorz

2017-08-01

The paper describes the concept and implementation of SDC_One software-defined computer designed for experimental and didactic purposes. Equipped with extensive hardware monitoring mechanisms, the device enables the students to monitor the computer's operation on bus transfer cycle or instruction cycle basis, providing the practical illustration of basic aspects of computer's operation. In the paper, we describe the hardware monitoring capabilities of SDC_One and some scenarios of using it in teaching the basics of computer architecture and microprocessor operation.

AKM in Open Source Communities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stamelos, Ioannis; Kakarontzas, George

Previous chapters in this book have dealt with Architecture Knowledge Management in traditional Closed Source Software (CSS) projects. This chapterwill attempt to examine the ways that knowledge is shared among participants in Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS 1) projects and how architectural knowledge is managed w.r.t. CSS. FLOSS projects are organized and developed in a fundamentally different way than CSS projects. FLOSS projects simply do not develop code as CSS projects do. As a consequence, their knowledge management mechanisms are also based on different concepts and tools.

Integrating Software Modules For Robot Control

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Volpe, Richard A.; Khosla, Pradeep; Stewart, David B.

1993-01-01

Reconfigurable, sensor-based control system uses state variables in systematic integration of reusable control modules. Designed for open-architecture hardware including many general-purpose microprocessors, each having own local memory plus access to global shared memory. Implemented in software as extension of Chimera II real-time operating system. Provides transparent computing mechanism for intertask communication between control modules and generic process-module architecture for multiprocessor realtime computation. Used to control robot arm. Proves useful in variety of other control and robotic applications.

A Reference Software Architecture to Support Unmanned Aircraft Integration in the National Airspace System

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-07-01

and Avoid ( SAA ) testbed that provides some of the core services . This paper describes the general architecture and a SAA testbed implementation that...that provides data and software services to enable a set of Unmanned Aircraft (UA) platforms to operate in a wide range of air domains which may...implemented by MIT Lincoln Laboratory in the form of a Sense and Avoid ( SAA ) testbed that provides some of the core services . This paper describes the general

Space Shuttle GN and C Development History and Evolution

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Zimpfer, Douglas; Hattis, Phil; Ruppert, John; Gavert, Don

2011-01-01

Completion of the final Space Shuttle flight marks the end of a significant era in Human Spaceflight. Developed in the 1970 s, first launched in 1981, the Space Shuttle embodies many significant engineering achievements. One of these is the development and operation of the first extensive fly-by-wire human space transportation Guidance, Navigation and Control (GN&C) System. Development of the Space Shuttle GN&C represented first time inclusions of modern techniques for electronics, software, algorithms, systems and management in a complex system. Numerous technical design trades and lessons learned continue to drive current vehicle development. For example, the Space Shuttle GN&C system incorporated redundant systems, complex algorithms and flight software rigorously verified through integrated vehicle simulations and avionics integration testing techniques. Over the past thirty years, the Shuttle GN&C continued to go through a series of upgrades to improve safety, performance and to enable the complex flight operations required for assembly of the international space station. Upgrades to the GN&C ranged from the addition of nose wheel steering to modifications that extend capabilities to control of the large flexible configurations while being docked to the Space Station. This paper provides a history of the development and evolution of the Space Shuttle GN&C system. Emphasis is placed on key architecture decisions, design trades and the lessons learned for future complex space transportation system developments. Finally, some of the interesting flight operations experience is provided to inform future developers of flight experiences.

Simulation of Quantum Many-Body Dynamics for Generic Strongly-Interacting Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Meyer, Gregory; Machado, Francisco; Yao, Norman

2017-04-01

Recent experimental advances have enabled the bottom-up assembly of complex, strongly interacting quantum many-body systems from individual atoms, ions, molecules and photons. These advances open the door to studying dynamics in isolated quantum systems as well as the possibility of realizing novel out-of-equilibrium phases of matter. Numerical studies provide insight into these systems; however, computational time and memory usage limit common numerical methods such as exact diagonalization to relatively small Hilbert spaces of dimension 215 . Here we present progress toward a new software package for dynamical time evolution of large generic quantum systems on massively parallel computing architectures. By projecting large sparse Hamiltonians into a much smaller Krylov subspace, we are able to compute the evolution of strongly interacting systems with Hilbert space dimension nearing 230. We discuss and benchmark different design implementations, such as matrix-free methods and GPU based calculations, using both pre-thermal time crystals and the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model as examples. We also include a simple symbolic language to describe generic Hamiltonians, allowing simulation of diverse quantum systems without any modification of the underlying C and Fortran code.

Evolution-Based Functional Decomposition of Proteins

PubMed Central

Rivoire, Olivier; Reynolds, Kimberly A.; Ranganathan, Rama

2016-01-01

The essential biological properties of proteins—folding, biochemical activities, and the capacity to adapt—arise from the global pattern of interactions between amino acid residues. The statistical coupling analysis (SCA) is an approach to defining this pattern that involves the study of amino acid coevolution in an ensemble of sequences comprising a protein family. This approach indicates a functional architecture within proteins in which the basic units are coupled networks of amino acids termed sectors. This evolution-based decomposition has potential for new understandings of the structural basis for protein function. To facilitate its usage, we present here the principles and practice of the SCA and introduce new methods for sector analysis in a python-based software package (pySCA). We show that the pattern of amino acid interactions within sectors is linked to the divergence of functional lineages in a multiple sequence alignment—a model for how sector properties might be differentially tuned in members of a protein family. This work provides new tools for studying proteins and for generally testing the concept of sectors as the principal units of function and adaptive variation. PMID:27254668

Integrated System Health Management: Foundational Concepts, Approach, and Implementation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Figueroa, Fernando

2009-01-01

A sound basis to guide the community in the conception and implementation of ISHM (Integrated System Health Management) capability in operational systems was provided. The concept of "ISHM Model of a System" and a related architecture defined as a unique Data, Information, and Knowledge (DIaK) architecture were described. The ISHM architecture is independent of the typical system architecture, which is based on grouping physical elements that are assembled to make up a subsystem, and subsystems combine to form systems, etc. It was emphasized that ISHM capability needs to be implemented first at a low functional capability level (FCL), or limited ability to detect anomalies, diagnose, determine consequences, etc. As algorithms and tools to augment or improve the FCL are identified, they should be incorporated into the system. This means that the architecture, DIaK management, and software, must be modular and standards-based, in order to enable systematic augmentation of FCL (no ad-hoc modifications). A set of technologies (and tools) needed to implement ISHM were described. One essential tool is a software environment to create the ISHM Model. The software environment encapsulates DIaK, and an infrastructure to focus DIaK on determining health (detect anomalies, determine causes, determine effects, and provide integrated awareness of the system to the operator). The environment includes gateways to communicate in accordance to standards, specially the IEEE 1451.1 Standard for Smart Sensors and Actuators.

Evolution of the JPSS Ground Project Calibration and Validation System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Purcell, Patrick; Chander, Gyanesh; Jain, Peyush

2016-01-01

The Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) next-generation operational Earth observation Program that acquires and distributes global environmental data from multiple polar-orbiting satellites. The JPSS Program plays a critical role to NOAA's mission to understand and predict changes in weather, climate, oceans, coasts, and space environments, which supports the Nation's economy and protection of lives and property. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is acquiring and implementing the JPSS, comprised of flight and ground systems, on behalf of NOAA. The JPSS satellites are planned to fly in the afternoon orbit and will provide operational continuity of satellite-based observations and products for NOAA Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites (POES) and the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (SNPP) satellite. To support the JPSS Calibration and Validation (CalVal) node Government Resource for Algorithm Verification, Independent Test, and Evaluation (GRAVITE) services facilitate: Algorithm Integration and Checkout, Algorithm and Product Operational Tuning, Instrument Calibration, Product Validation, Algorithm Investigation, and Data Quality Support and Monitoring. GRAVITE is a mature, deployed system that currently supports the SNPP Mission and has been in operations since SNPP launch. This paper discusses the major re-architecture for Block 2.0 that incorporates SNPP lessons learned, architecture of the system, and demonstrates how GRAVITE has evolved as a system with increased performance. It is now a robust, stable, reliable, maintainable, scalable, and secure system that supports development, test, and production strings, replaces proprietary and custom software, uses open source software, and is compliant with NASA and NOAA standards.

GPU: the biggest key processor for AI and parallel processing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baji, Toru

2017-07-01

Two types of processors exist in the market. One is the conventional CPU and the other is Graphic Processor Unit (GPU). Typical CPU is composed of 1 to 8 cores while GPU has thousands of cores. CPU is good for sequential processing, while GPU is good to accelerate software with heavy parallel executions. GPU was initially dedicated for 3D graphics. However from 2006, when GPU started to apply general-purpose cores, it was noticed that this architecture can be used as a general purpose massive-parallel processor. NVIDIA developed a software framework Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) that make it possible to easily program the GPU for these application. With CUDA, GPU started to be used in workstations and supercomputers widely. Recently two key technologies are highlighted in the industry. The Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Autonomous Driving Cars. AI requires a massive parallel operation to train many-layers of neural networks. With CPU alone, it was impossible to finish the training in a practical time. The latest multi-GPU system with P100 makes it possible to finish the training in a few hours. For the autonomous driving cars, TOPS class of performance is required to implement perception, localization, path planning processing and again SoC with integrated GPU will play a key role there. In this paper, the evolution of the GPU which is one of the biggest commercial devices requiring state-of-the-art fabrication technology will be introduced. Also overview of the GPU demanding key application like the ones described above will be introduced.

Evolution of the JPSS Ground Project Calibration and Validation System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Chander, Gyanesh; Jain, Peyush

2014-01-01

The Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations (NOAA) next-generation operational Earth observation Program that acquires and distributes global environmental data from multiple polar-orbiting satellites. The JPSS Program plays a critical role to NOAAs mission to understand and predict changes in weather, climate, oceans, coasts, and space environments, which supports the Nation’s economy and protection of lives and property. The National Aerospace and Atmospheric Administration (NASA) is acquiring and implementing the JPSS, comprised of flight and ground systems on behalf of NOAA. The JPSS satellites are planned to fly in the afternoon orbit and will provide operational continuity of satellite-based observations and products for NOAA Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites (POES) and the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (SNPP) satellite. To support the JPSS Calibration and Validation (CalVal) node Government Resource for Algorithm Verification, Independent Test, and Evaluation (GRAVITE) services facilitate: Algorithm Integration and Checkout, Algorithm and Product Operational Tuning, Instrument Calibration, Product Validation, Algorithm Investigation, and Data Quality Support and Monitoring. GRAVITE is a mature, deployed system that currently supports the SNPP Mission and has been in operations since SNPP launch. This paper discusses the major re-architecture for Block 2.0 that incorporates SNPP lessons learned, architecture of the system, and demonstrates how GRAVITE has evolved as a system with increased performance. It is now a robust, stable, reliable, maintainable, scalable, and secure system that supports development, test, and production strings, replaces proprietary and custom software, uses open source software, and is compliant with NASA and NOAA standards.

Connecting Architecture and Implementation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Buchgeher, Georg; Weinreich, Rainer

Software architectures are still typically defined and described independently from implementation. To avoid architectural erosion and drift, architectural representation needs to be continuously updated and synchronized with system implementation. Existing approaches for architecture representation like informal architecture documentation, UML diagrams, and Architecture Description Languages (ADLs) provide only limited support for connecting architecture descriptions and implementations. Architecture management tools like Lattix, SonarJ, and Sotoarc and UML-tools tackle this problem by extracting architecture information directly from code. This approach works for low-level architectural abstractions like classes and interfaces in object-oriented systems but fails to support architectural abstractions not found in programming languages. In this paper we present an approach for linking and continuously synchronizing a formalized architecture representation to an implementation. The approach is a synthesis of functionality provided by code-centric architecture management and UML tools and higher-level architecture analysis approaches like ADLs.

Lifecycle Prognostics Architecture for Selected High-Cost Active Components

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

N. Lybeck; B. Pham; M. Tawfik

There are an extensive body of knowledge and some commercial products available for calculating prognostics, remaining useful life, and damage index parameters. The application of these technologies within the nuclear power community is still in its infancy. Online monitoring and condition-based maintenance is seeing increasing acceptance and deployment, and these activities provide the technological bases for expanding to add predictive/prognostics capabilities. In looking to deploy prognostics there are three key aspects of systems that are presented and discussed: (1) component/system/structure selection, (2) prognostic algorithms, and (3) prognostics architectures. Criteria are presented for component selection: feasibility, failure probability, consequences of failure,more » and benefits of the prognostics and health management (PHM) system. The basis and methods commonly used for prognostics algorithms are reviewed and summarized. Criteria for evaluating PHM architectures are presented: open, modular architecture; platform independence; graphical user interface for system development and/or results viewing; web enabled tools; scalability; and standards compatibility. Thirteen software products were identified and discussed in the context of being potentially useful for deployment in a PHM program applied to systems in a nuclear power plant (NPP). These products were evaluated by using information available from company websites, product brochures, fact sheets, scholarly publications, and direct communication with vendors. The thirteen products were classified into four groups of software: (1) research tools, (2) PHM system development tools, (3) deployable architectures, and (4) peripheral tools. Eight software tools fell into the deployable architectures category. Of those eight, only two employ all six modules of a full PHM system. Five systems did not offer prognostic estimates, and one system employed the full health monitoring suite but lacked operations and maintenance support. Each product is briefly described in Appendix A. Selection of the most appropriate software package for a particular application will depend on the chosen component, system, or structure. Ongoing research will determine the most appropriate choices for a successful demonstration of PHM systems in aging NPPs.« less

Judicious use of custom development in an open source component architecture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bristol, S.; Latysh, N.; Long, D.; Tekell, S.; Allen, J.

2014-12-01

Modern software engineering is not as much programming from scratch as innovative assembly of existing components. Seamlessly integrating disparate components into scalable, performant architecture requires sound engineering craftsmanship and can often result in increased cost efficiency and accelerated capabilities if software teams focus their creativity on the edges of the problem space. ScienceBase is part of the U.S. Geological Survey scientific cyberinfrastructure, providing data and information management, distribution services, and analysis capabilities in a way that strives to follow this pattern. ScienceBase leverages open source NoSQL and relational databases, search indexing technology, spatial service engines, numerous libraries, and one proprietary but necessary software component in its architecture. The primary engineering focus is cohesive component interaction, including construction of a seamless Application Programming Interface (API) across all elements. The API allows researchers and software developers alike to leverage the infrastructure in unique, creative ways. Scaling the ScienceBase architecture and core API with increasing data volume (more databases) and complexity (integrated science problems) is a primary challenge addressed by judicious use of custom development in the component architecture. Other data management and informatics activities in the earth sciences have independently resolved to a similar design of reusing and building upon established technology and are working through similar issues for managing and developing information (e.g., U.S. Geoscience Information Network; NASA's Earth Observing System Clearing House; GSToRE at the University of New Mexico). Recent discussions facilitated through the Earth Science Information Partners are exploring potential avenues to exploit the implicit relationships between similar projects for explicit gains in our ability to more rapidly advance global scientific cyberinfrastructure.

A qualitative approach to systemic diagnosis of the SSME

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bickmore, Timothy W.; Maul, William A.

1993-01-01

A generic software architecture has been developed for posttest diagnostics of rocket engines, and is presently being applied to the posttest analysis of the SSME. This investigation deals with the Systems Section module of the architecture, which is presently under development. Overviews of the manual SSME systems analysis process and the overall SSME diagnostic system architecture are presented.

Three-Dimensional Nanobiocomputing Architectures With Neuronal Hypercells

DTIC Science & Technology

2007-06-01

Neumann architectures, and CMOS fabrication. Novel solutions of massive parallel distributed computing and processing (pipelined due to systolic... and processing platforms utilizing molecular hardware within an enabling organization and architecture. The design technology is based on utilizing a...Microsystems and Nanotechnologies investigated a novel 3D3 (Hardware Software Nanotechnology) technology to design super-high performance computing

Modular digital holographic fringe data processing system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Downward, J. G.; Vavra, P. C.; Schebor, F. S.; Vest, C. M.

1985-01-01

A software architecture suitable for reducing holographic fringe data into useful engineering data is developed and tested. The results, along with a detailed description of the proposed architecture for a Modular Digital Fringe Analysis System, are presented.

Software architecture of biomimetic underwater vehicle

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Praczyk, Tomasz; Szymak, Piotr

2016-05-01

Autonomous underwater vehicles are vehicles that are entirely or partly independent of human decisions. In order to obtain operational independence, the vehicles have to be equipped with a specialized software. The main task of the software is to move the vehicle along a trajectory with collision avoidance. Moreover, the software has also to manage different devices installed on the vehicle board, e.g. to start and stop cameras, sonars etc. In addition to the software embedded on the vehicle board, the software responsible for managing the vehicle by the operator is also necessary. Its task is to define mission of the vehicle, to start, to stop the mission, to send emergency commands, to monitor vehicle parameters, and to control the vehicle in remotely operated mode. An important objective of the software is also to support development and tests of other software components. To this end, a simulation environment is necessary, i.e. simulation model of the vehicle and all its key devices, the model of the sea environment, and the software to visualize behavior of the vehicle. The paper presents architecture of the software designed for biomimetic autonomous underwater vehicle (BAUV) that is being constructed within the framework of the scientific project financed by Polish National Center of Research and Development.

Architecture for distributed design and fabrication

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McIlrath, Michael B.; Boning, Duane S.; Troxel, Donald E.

1997-01-01

We describe a flexible, distributed system architecture capable of supporting collaborative design and fabrication of semi-conductor devices and integrated circuits. Such capabilities are of particular importance in the development of new technologies, where both equipment and expertise are limited. Distributed fabrication enables direct, remote, physical experimentation in the development of leading edge technology, where the necessary manufacturing resources are new, expensive, and scarce. Computational resources, software, processing equipment, and people may all be widely distributed; their effective integration is essential in order to achieve the realization of new technologies for specific product requirements. Our architecture leverages is essential in order to achieve the realization of new technologies for specific product requirements. Our architecture leverages current vendor and consortia developments to define software interfaces and infrastructure based on existing and merging networking, CIM, and CAD standards. Process engineers and product designers access processing and simulation results through a common interface and collaborate across the distributed manufacturing environment.

Investigation of an advanced fault tolerant integrated avionics system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dunn, W. R.; Cottrell, D.; Flanders, J.; Javornik, A.; Rusovick, M.

1986-01-01

Presented is an advanced, fault-tolerant multiprocessor avionics architecture as could be employed in an advanced rotorcraft such as LHX. The processor structure is designed to interface with existing digital avionics systems and concepts including the Army Digital Avionics System (ADAS) cockpit/display system, navaid and communications suites, integrated sensing suite, and the Advanced Digital Optical Control System (ADOCS). The report defines mission, maintenance and safety-of-flight reliability goals as might be expected for an operational LHX aircraft. Based on use of a modular, compact (16-bit) microprocessor card family, results of a preliminary study examining simplex, dual and standby-sparing architectures is presented. Given the stated constraints, it is shown that the dual architecture is best suited to meet reliability goals with minimum hardware and software overhead. The report presents hardware and software design considerations for realizing the architecture including redundancy management requirements and techniques as well as verification and validation needs and methods.

The NASA Auralization Framework and Plugin Architecture

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Aumann, Aric R.; Tuttle, Brian C.; Chapin, William L.; Rizzi, Stephen A.

2015-01-01

NASA has a long history of investigating human response to aircraft flyover noise and in recent years has developed a capability to fully auralize the noise of aircraft during their design. This capability is particularly useful for unconventional designs with noise signatures significantly different from the current fleet. To that end, a flexible software architecture has been developed to facilitate rapid integration of new simulation techniques for noise source synthesis and propagation, and to foster collaboration amongst researchers through a common releasable code base. The NASA Auralization Framework (NAF) is a skeletal framework written in C++ with basic functionalities and a plugin architecture that allows users to mix and match NAF capabilities with their own methods through the development and use of dynamically linked libraries. This paper presents the NAF software architecture and discusses several advanced auralization techniques that have been implemented as plugins to the framework.

Distributed computing environments for future space control systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Viallefont, Pierre

1993-01-01

The aim of this paper is to present the results of a CNES research project on distributed computing systems. The purpose of this research was to study the impact of the use of new computer technologies in the design and development of future space applications. The first part of this study was a state-of-the-art review of distributed computing systems. One of the interesting ideas arising from this review is the concept of a 'virtual computer' allowing the distributed hardware architecture to be hidden from a software application. The 'virtual computer' can improve system performance by adapting the best architecture (addition of computers) to the software application without having to modify its source code. This concept can also decrease the cost and obsolescence of the hardware architecture. In order to verify the feasibility of the 'virtual computer' concept, a prototype representative of a distributed space application is being developed independently of the hardware architecture.

Service Oriented Robotic Architecture for Space Robotics: Design, Testing, and Lessons Learned

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Fluckiger, Lorenzo Jean Marc E; Utz, Hans Heinrich

2013-01-01

This paper presents the lessons learned from six years of experiments with planetary rover prototypes running the Service Oriented Robotic Architecture (SORA) developed by the Intelligent Robotics Group (IRG) at the NASA Ames Research Center. SORA relies on proven software engineering methods and technologies applied to space robotics. Based on a Service Oriented Architecture and robust middleware, SORA encompasses on-board robot control and a full suite of software tools necessary for remotely operated exploration missions. SORA has been eld tested in numerous scenarios of robotic lunar and planetary exploration. The experiments conducted by IRG with SORA exercise a large set of the constraints encountered in space applications: remote robotic assets, ight relevant science instruments, distributed operations, high network latencies and unreliable or intermittent communication links. In this paper, we present the results of these eld tests in regard to the developed architecture, and discuss its bene ts and limitations.

Achieving Better Buying Power through Acquisition of Open Architecture Software Systems: Volume 1

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-01-06

supporting “Bring Your Own Devices” (BYOD)? 22 New business models for OA software components ● Franchising ● Enterprise licensing ● Metered usage...paths IP and cybersecurity requirements will need continuous attention! 35 New business models for OA software components ● Franchising ● Enterprise

ArchE - An Architecture Design Assistant

DTIC Science & Technology

2007-08-02

Architecture Design Assistant Len Bass August 2, 2007 Report Documentation Page Form ApprovedOMB No. 0704-0188 Public reporting burden for the...ArchE - An Architecture Design Assistant 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER 6. AUTHOR(S) 5d. PROJECT NUMBER 5e. TASK...X, Module X 3 Author / Presenter, Date if Needed What is ArchE? ArchE is a software architecture design assistant, which: • Takes quality and

Planning for the V&V of infused software technologies for the Mars Science Laboratory Mission

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Feather, Martin S.; Fesq, Lorraine M.; Ingham, Michel D.; Klein, Suzanne L.; Nelson, Stacy D.

2004-01-01

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover mission is planning to make use of advanced software technologies in order to support fulfillment of its ambitious science objectives. The mission plans to adopt the Mission Data System (MDS) as the mission software architecture, and plans to make significant use of on-board autonomous capabilities for the rover software.

Integrated Environment for Development and Assurance

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-01-26

Jan 26, 2015 © 2015 Carnegie Mellon University We Rely on Software for Safe Aircraft Operation Embedded software systems introduce a new class of...eveloper Compute Platform Runtime Architecture Application Software Embedded SW System Engineer Data Stream Characteristics Latency jitter affects...Why do system level failures still occur despite fault tolerance techniques being deployed in systems ? Embedded software system as major source of

The ALMA software architecture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schwarz, Joseph; Farris, Allen; Sommer, Heiko

2004-09-01

The software for the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) is being developed by many institutes on two continents. The software itself will function in a distributed environment, from the 0.5-14 kmbaselines that separate antennas to the larger distances that separate the array site at the Llano de Chajnantor in Chile from the operations and user support facilities in Chile, North America and Europe. Distributed development demands 1) interfaces that allow separated groups to work with minimal dependence on their counterparts at other locations; and 2) a common architecture to minimize duplication and ensure that developers can always perform similar tasks in a similar way. The Container/Component model provides a blueprint for the separation of functional from technical concerns: application developers concentrate on implementing functionality in Components, which depend on Containers to provide them with services such as access to remote resources, transparent serialization of entity objects to XML, logging, error handling and security. Early system integrations have verified that this architecture is sound and that developers can successfully exploit its features. The Containers and their services are provided by a system-orienteddevelopment team as part of the ALMA Common Software (ACS), middleware that is based on CORBA.

Selection of a Data Acquisition and Controls System Communications and Software Architecture for Johnson Space Center's Space Environment Simulation Laboratory Thermal and Vacuum Test Facilities

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Jordan, Eric A.

2004-01-01

Upgrade of data acquisition and controls systems software at Johnson Space Center's Space Environment Simulation Laboratory (SESL) involved the definition, evaluation and selection of a system communication architecture and software components. A brief discussion of the background of the SESL and its data acquisition and controls systems provides a context for discussion of the requirements for each selection. Further framework is provided as upgrades to these systems accomplished in the 1990s and in 2003 are compared to demonstrate the role that technological advances have had in their improvement. Both of the selections were similar in their three phases; 1) definition of requirements, 2) identification of candidate products and their evaluation and testing and 3) selection by comparison of requirement fulfillment. The candidates for the communication architecture selection embraced several different methodologies which are explained and contrasted. Requirements for this selection are presented and the selection process is described. Several candidates for the software component of the data acquisition and controls system are identified, requirements for evaluation and selection are presented, and the evaluation process is described.

Supporting Source Code Comprehension during Software Evolution and Maintenance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Alhindawi, Nouh

2013-01-01

This dissertation addresses the problems of program comprehension to support the evolution of large-scale software systems. The research concerns how software engineers locate features and concepts along with categorizing changes within very large bodies of source code along with their versioned histories. More specifically, advanced Information…

NASA Tech Briefs, August 2003

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

2003-01-01

Topics covered include: Stable, Thermally Conductive Fillers for Bolted Joints; Connecting to Thermocouples with Fewer Lead Wires; Zipper Connectors for Flexible Electronic Circuits; Safety Interlock for Angularly Misdirected Power Tool; Modular, Parallel Pulse-Shaping Filter Architectures; High-Fidelity Piezoelectric Audio Device; Photovoltaic Power Station with Ultracapacitors for Storage; Time Analyzer for Time Synchronization and Monitor of the Deep Space Network; Program for Computing Albedo; Integrated Software for Analyzing Designs of Launch Vehicles; Abstract-Reasoning Software for Coordinating Multiple Agents; Software Searches for Better Spacecraft-Navigation Models; Software for Partly Automated Recognition of Targets; Antistatic Polycarbonate/Copper Oxide Composite; Better VPS Fabrication of Crucibles and Furnace Cartridges; Burn-Resistant, Strong Metal-Matrix Composites; Self-Deployable Spring-Strip Booms; Explosion Welding for Hermetic Containerization; Improved Process for Fabricating Carbon Nanotube Probes; Automated Serial Sectioning for 3D Reconstruction; and Parallel Subconvolution Filtering Architectures.

LHCb Kalman Filter cross architecture studies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cámpora Pérez, Daniel Hugo

2017-10-01

The 2020 upgrade of the LHCb detector will vastly increase the rate of collisions the Online system needs to process in software, in order to filter events in real time. 30 million collisions per second will pass through a selection chain, where each step is executed conditional to its prior acceptance. The Kalman Filter is a fit applied to all reconstructed tracks which, due to its time characteristics and early execution in the selection chain, consumes 40% of the whole reconstruction time in the current trigger software. This makes the Kalman Filter a time-critical component as the LHCb trigger evolves into a full software trigger in the Upgrade. I present a new Kalman Filter algorithm for LHCb that can efficiently make use of any kind of SIMD processor, and its design is explained in depth. Performance benchmarks are compared between a variety of hardware architectures, including x86_64 and Power8, and the Intel Xeon Phi accelerator, and the suitability of said architectures to efficiently perform the LHCb Reconstruction process is determined.

Knowledge-based processing for aircraft flight control

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Painter, John H.; Glass, Emily; Economides, Gregory; Russell, Paul

1994-01-01

This Contractor Report documents research in Intelligent Control using knowledge-based processing in a manner dual to methods found in the classic stochastic decision, estimation, and control discipline. Such knowledge-based control has also been called Declarative, and Hybid. Software architectures were sought, employing the parallelism inherent in modern object-oriented modeling and programming. The viewpoint adopted was that Intelligent Control employs a class of domain-specific software architectures having features common over a broad variety of implementations, such as management of aircraft flight, power distribution, etc. As much attention was paid to software engineering issues as to artificial intelligence and control issues. This research considered that particular processing methods from the stochastic and knowledge-based worlds are duals, that is, similar in a broad context. They provide architectural design concepts which serve as bridges between the disparate disciplines of decision, estimation, control, and artificial intelligence. This research was applied to the control of a subsonic transport aircraft in the airport terminal area.

Evaluating a digital ship design tool prototype: Designers' perceptions of novel ergonomics software.

PubMed

Mallam, Steven C; Lundh, Monica; MacKinnon, Scott N

2017-03-01

Computer-aided solutions are essential for naval architects to manage and optimize technical complexities when developing a ship's design. Although there are an array of software solutions aimed to optimize the human element in design, practical ergonomics methodologies and technological solutions have struggled to gain widespread application in ship design processes. This paper explores how a new ergonomics technology is perceived by naval architecture students using a mixed-methods framework. Thirteen Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering Masters students participated in the study. Overall, results found participants perceived the software and its embedded ergonomics tools to benefit their design work, increasing their empathy and ability to understand the work environment and work demands end-users face. However, participant's questioned if ergonomics could be practically and efficiently implemented under real-world project constraints. This revealed underlying social biases and a fundamental lack of understanding in engineering postgraduate students regarding applied ergonomics in naval architecture. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Open architecture CNC system

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Tal, J.; Lopez, A.; Edwards, J.M.

1995-04-01

In this paper, an alternative solution to the traditional CNC machine tool controller has been introduced. Software and hardware modules have been described and their incorporation in a CNC control system has been outlined. This type of CNC machine tool controller demonstrates that technology is accessible and can be readily implemented into an open architecture machine tool controller. Benefit to the user is greater controller flexibility, while being economically achievable. PC based, motion as well as non-motion features will provide flexibility through a Windows environment. Up-grading this type of controller system through software revisions will keep the machine tool inmore » a competitive state with minimal effort. Software and hardware modules are mass produced permitting competitive procurement and incorporation. Open architecture CNC systems provide diagnostics thus enhancing maintainability, and machine tool up-time. A major concern of traditional CNC systems has been operator training time. Training time can be greatly minimized by making use of Windows environment features.« less

Sustainable Software Decisions for Long-term Projects (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shepherd, A.; Groman, R. C.; Chandler, C. L.; Gaylord, D.; Sun, M.

2013-12-01

Adopting new, emerging technologies can be difficult for established projects that are positioned to exist for years to come. In some cases the challenge lies in the pre-existing software architecture. In others, the challenge lies in the fluctuation of resources like people, time and funding. The Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO) was created in late 2006 by combining the data management offices for the U.S. GLOBEC and U.S. JGOFS programs to publish data for researchers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Since its inception, BCO-DMO has been supporting access and discovery of these data through web-accessible software systems, and the office has worked through many of the challenges of incorporating new technologies into its software systems. From migrating human readable, flat file metadata storage into a relational database, and now, into a content management system (Drupal) to incorporating controlled vocabularies, new technologies can radically affect the existing software architecture. However, through the use of science-driven use cases, effective resource management, and loosely coupled software components, BCO-DMO has been able to adapt its existing software architecture to adopt new technologies. One of the latest efforts at BCO-DMO revolves around applying metadata semantics for publishing linked data in support of data discovery. This effort primarily affects the metadata web interface software at http://bco-dmo.org and the geospatial interface software at http://mapservice.bco-dmo.org/. With guidance from science-driven use cases and consideration of our resources, implementation decisions are made using a strategy to loosely couple the existing software systems to the new technologies. The results of this process led to the use of REST web services and a combination of contributed and custom Drupal modules for publishing BCO-DMO's content using the Resource Description Framework (RDF) via an instance of the Virtuoso Open-Source triplestore.

Heterogeneous computing architecture for fast detection of SNP-SNP interactions.

PubMed

Sluga, Davor; Curk, Tomaz; Zupan, Blaz; Lotric, Uros

2014-06-25

The extent of data in a typical genome-wide association study (GWAS) poses considerable computational challenges to software tools for gene-gene interaction discovery. Exhaustive evaluation of all interactions among hundreds of thousands to millions of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) may require weeks or even months of computation. Massively parallel hardware within a modern Graphic Processing Unit (GPU) and Many Integrated Core (MIC) coprocessors can shorten the run time considerably. While the utility of GPU-based implementations in bioinformatics has been well studied, MIC architecture has been introduced only recently and may provide a number of comparative advantages that have yet to be explored and tested. We have developed a heterogeneous, GPU and Intel MIC-accelerated software module for SNP-SNP interaction discovery to replace the previously single-threaded computational core in the interactive web-based data exploration program SNPsyn. We report on differences between these two modern massively parallel architectures and their software environments. Their utility resulted in an order of magnitude shorter execution times when compared to the single-threaded CPU implementation. GPU implementation on a single Nvidia Tesla K20 runs twice as fast as that for the MIC architecture-based Xeon Phi P5110 coprocessor, but also requires considerably more programming effort. General purpose GPUs are a mature platform with large amounts of computing power capable of tackling inherently parallel problems, but can prove demanding for the programmer. On the other hand the new MIC architecture, albeit lacking in performance reduces the programming effort and makes it up with a more general architecture suitable for a wider range of problems.

Heterogeneous computing architecture for fast detection of SNP-SNP interactions

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background The extent of data in a typical genome-wide association study (GWAS) poses considerable computational challenges to software tools for gene-gene interaction discovery. Exhaustive evaluation of all interactions among hundreds of thousands to millions of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) may require weeks or even months of computation. Massively parallel hardware within a modern Graphic Processing Unit (GPU) and Many Integrated Core (MIC) coprocessors can shorten the run time considerably. While the utility of GPU-based implementations in bioinformatics has been well studied, MIC architecture has been introduced only recently and may provide a number of comparative advantages that have yet to be explored and tested. Results We have developed a heterogeneous, GPU and Intel MIC-accelerated software module for SNP-SNP interaction discovery to replace the previously single-threaded computational core in the interactive web-based data exploration program SNPsyn. We report on differences between these two modern massively parallel architectures and their software environments. Their utility resulted in an order of magnitude shorter execution times when compared to the single-threaded CPU implementation. GPU implementation on a single Nvidia Tesla K20 runs twice as fast as that for the MIC architecture-based Xeon Phi P5110 coprocessor, but also requires considerably more programming effort. Conclusions General purpose GPUs are a mature platform with large amounts of computing power capable of tackling inherently parallel problems, but can prove demanding for the programmer. On the other hand the new MIC architecture, albeit lacking in performance reduces the programming effort and makes it up with a more general architecture suitable for a wider range of problems. PMID:24964802

The ADEPT Framework for Intelligent Autonomy

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ricard, Michael; Kolitz, Stephan

2003-01-01

This paper describes the design and implementation of Draper Laboratory's All-Domain Execution and Planning Technology (ADEPT) architecture for intelligent autonomy. Intelligent autonomy is the ability to plan and execute complex activities in a manner that provides rapid, effective response to stochastic and dynamic mission events. Thus, intelligent autonomy enables the high-level reasoning and adaptive behavior for an unmanned vehicle that is provided by an operator in man-in-the-loop systems. Draper s intelligent autonomy has architecture evolved over a decade and a half beginning in the mid 1980's culminating in an operational experiment funded under DARPA's Autonomous Minehunting and Mapping Technologies (AMMT) unmanned undersea vehicle program. ADEPT continues to be refined through its application to current programs that involve air vehicles, satellites and higher-level planning used to direct multiple vehicles. The objective of ADEPT is to solidify a proven, dependable software approach that can be quickly applied to new vehicles and domains. The architecture can be viewed as a hierarchical extension of the sense-think-act paradigm of intelligence and has strong parallels with the military's Observe-Orient-Decide-Act (OODA) loop. The key elements of the architecture are planning and decision-making nodes comprising modules for situation assessment, plan generation, plan implementation and coordination. A reusable, object-oriented software framework has been developed that implements these functions. As the architecture is applied to new areas, only the application specific software needs to be developed. This paper describes the core architecture in detail and discusses how this has been applied in the undersea, air, ground and space domains.

Constellation's Command, Control, Communications and Information (C3I) Architecture

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Breidenthal, Julian C.

2007-01-01

Operations concepts are highly effective for: 1) Developing consensus; 2) Discovering stakeholder needs, goals, objectives; 3) Defining behavior of system components (especially emergent behaviors). An interoperability standard can provide an excellent lever to define the capabilities needed for system evolution. Two categories of architectures are needed in a program of this size are: 1) Generic - Needed for planning, design and construction standards; 2) Specific - Needed for detailed requirement allocations, interface specs. A wide variety of architectural views are needed to address stakeholder concerns, including: 1) Physical; 2) Information (structure, flow, evolution); 3) Processes (design, manufacturing, operations); 4) Performance; 5) Risk.

Integrity Constraint Monitoring in Software Development: Proposed Architectures

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Fernandez, Francisco G.

1997-01-01

In the development of complex software systems, designers are required to obtain from many sources and manage vast amounts of knowledge of the system being built and communicate this information to personnel with a variety of backgrounds. Knowledge concerning the properties of the system, including the structure of, relationships between and limitations of the data objects in the system, becomes increasingly more vital as the complexity of the system and the number of knowledge sources increases. Ensuring that violations of these properties do not occur becomes steadily more challenging. One approach toward managing the enforcement or system properties, called context monitoring, uses a centralized repository of integrity constraints and a constraint satisfiability mechanism for dynamic verification of property enforcement during program execution. The focus of this paper is to describe possible software architectures that define a mechanism for dynamically checking the satisfiability of a set of constraints on a program. The next section describes the context monitoring approach in general. Section 3 gives an overview of the work currently being done toward the addition of an integrity constraint satisfiability mechanism to a high-level program language, SequenceL, and demonstrates how this model is being examined to develop a general software architecture. Section 4 describes possible architectures for a general constraint satisfiability mechanism, as well as an alternative approach that, uses embedded database queries in lieu of an external monitor. The paper concludes with a brief summary outlining the, current state of the research and future work.

Scalable Architecture for Multihop Wireless ad Hoc Networks

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Arabshahi, Payman; Gray, Andrew; Okino, Clayton; Yan, Tsun-Yee

2004-01-01

A scalable architecture for wireless digital data and voice communications via ad hoc networks has been proposed. Although the details of the architecture and of its implementation in hardware and software have yet to be developed, the broad outlines of the architecture are fairly clear: This architecture departs from current commercial wireless communication architectures, which are characterized by low effective bandwidth per user and are not well suited to low-cost, rapid scaling in large metropolitan areas. This architecture is inspired by a vision more akin to that of more than two dozen noncommercial community wireless networking organizations established by volunteers in North America and several European countries.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Lee, Hsien-Hsin S

The overall objective of this research project is to develop novel architectural techniques as well as system software to achieve a highly secure and intrusion-tolerant computing system. Such system will be autonomous, self-adapting, introspective, with self-healing capability under the circumstances of improper operations, abnormal workloads, and malicious attacks. The scope of this research includes: (1) System-wide, unified introspection techniques for autonomic systems, (2) Secure information-flow microarchitecture, (3) Memory-centric security architecture, (4) Authentication control and its implication to security, (5) Digital right management, (5) Microarchitectural denial-of-service attacks on shared resources. During the period of the project, we developed several architectural techniquesmore » and system software for achieving a robust, secure, and reliable computing system toward our goal.« less

Field Tested Service Oriented Robotic Architecture: Case Study

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Flueckiger, Lorenzo; Utz, Hanz

2012-01-01

This paper presents the lessons learned from six years of experiments with planetary rover prototypes running the Service Oriented Robotic Architecture (SORA) developed by the Intelligent Robotics Group (IRG) at NASA Ames Research Center. SORA relies on proven software methods and technologies applied to the robotic world. Based on a Service Oriented Architecture and robust middleware, SORA extends its reach beyond the on-board robot controller and supports the full suite of software tools used during mission scenarios from ground control to remote robotic sites. SORA has been field tested in numerous scenarios of robotic lunar and planetary exploration. The results of these high fidelity experiments are illustrated through concrete examples that have shown the benefits of using SORA as well as its limitations.

A Prolog Emulator

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Tick, Evan

1987-01-01

This note describes an efficient software emulator for the Warren Abstract Machine (WAM) Prolog architecture. The version of the WAM implemented is called Lcode. The Lcode emulator, written in C, executes the 'naive reverse' benchmark at 3900 LIPS. The emulator is one of a set of tools used to measure the memory-referencing characteristics and performance of Prolog programs. These tools include a compiler, assembler, and memory simulators. An overview of the Lcode architecture is given here, followed by a description and listing of the emulator code implementing each Lcode instruction. This note will be of special interest to those studying the WAM and its performance characteristics. In general, this note will be of interest to those creating efficient software emulators for abstract machine architectures.

Modernization and optimization of a legacy open-source CFD code for high-performance computing architectures

DOE PAGES

Gel, Aytekin; Hu, Jonathan; Ould-Ahmed-Vall, ElMoustapha; ...

2017-03-20

Legacy codes remain a crucial element of today's simulation-based engineering ecosystem due to the extensive validation process and investment in such software. The rapid evolution of high-performance computing architectures necessitates the modernization of these codes. One approach to modernization is a complete overhaul of the code. However, this could require extensive investments, such as rewriting in modern languages, new data constructs, etc., which will necessitate systematic verification and validation to re-establish the credibility of the computational models. The current study advocates using a more incremental approach and is a culmination of several modernization efforts of the legacy code MFIX, whichmore » is an open-source computational fluid dynamics code that has evolved over several decades, widely used in multiphase flows and still being developed by the National Energy Technology Laboratory. Two different modernization approaches,‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’, are illustrated. Here, preliminary results show up to 8.5x improvement at the selected kernel level with the first approach, and up to 50% improvement in total simulated time with the latter were achieved for the demonstration cases and target HPC systems employed.« less

Modernization and optimization of a legacy open-source CFD code for high-performance computing architectures

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Gel, Aytekin; Hu, Jonathan; Ould-Ahmed-Vall, ElMoustapha

Legacy codes remain a crucial element of today's simulation-based engineering ecosystem due to the extensive validation process and investment in such software. The rapid evolution of high-performance computing architectures necessitates the modernization of these codes. One approach to modernization is a complete overhaul of the code. However, this could require extensive investments, such as rewriting in modern languages, new data constructs, etc., which will necessitate systematic verification and validation to re-establish the credibility of the computational models. The current study advocates using a more incremental approach and is a culmination of several modernization efforts of the legacy code MFIX, whichmore » is an open-source computational fluid dynamics code that has evolved over several decades, widely used in multiphase flows and still being developed by the National Energy Technology Laboratory. Two different modernization approaches,‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’, are illustrated. Here, preliminary results show up to 8.5x improvement at the selected kernel level with the first approach, and up to 50% improvement in total simulated time with the latter were achieved for the demonstration cases and target HPC systems employed.« less

Adaptive software architecture based on confident HCI for the deployment of sensitive services in Smart Homes.

PubMed

Vega-Barbas, Mario; Pau, Iván; Martín-Ruiz, María Luisa; Seoane, Fernando

2015-03-25

Smart spaces foster the development of natural and appropriate forms of human-computer interaction by taking advantage of home customization. The interaction potential of the Smart Home, which is a special type of smart space, is of particular interest in fields in which the acceptance of new technologies is limited and restrictive. The integration of smart home design patterns with sensitive solutions can increase user acceptance. In this paper, we present the main challenges that have been identified in the literature for the successful deployment of sensitive services (e.g., telemedicine and assistive services) in smart spaces and a software architecture that models the functionalities of a Smart Home platform that are required to maintain and support such sensitive services. This architecture emphasizes user interaction as a key concept to facilitate the acceptance of sensitive services by end-users and utilizes activity theory to support its innovative design. The application of activity theory to the architecture eases the handling of novel concepts, such as understanding of the system by patients at home or the affordability of assistive services. Finally, we provide a proof-of-concept implementation of the architecture and compare the results with other architectures from the literature.

TMT approach to observatory software development process

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Buur, Hanne; Subramaniam, Annapurni; Gillies, Kim; Dumas, Christophe; Bhatia, Ravinder

2016-07-01

The purpose of the Observatory Software System (OSW) is to integrate all software and hardware components of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) to enable observations and data capture; thus it is a complex software system that is defined by four principal software subsystems: Common Software (CSW), Executive Software (ESW), Data Management System (DMS) and Science Operations Support System (SOSS), all of which have interdependencies with the observatory control systems and data acquisition systems. Therefore, the software development process and plan must consider dependencies to other subsystems, manage architecture, interfaces and design, manage software scope and complexity, and standardize and optimize use of resources and tools. Additionally, the TMT Observatory Software will largely be developed in India through TMT's workshare relationship with the India TMT Coordination Centre (ITCC) and use of Indian software industry vendors, which adds complexity and challenges to the software development process, communication and coordination of activities and priorities as well as measuring performance and managing quality and risk. The software project management challenge for the TMT OSW is thus a multi-faceted technical, managerial, communications and interpersonal relations challenge. The approach TMT is using to manage this multifaceted challenge is a combination of establishing an effective geographically distributed software team (Integrated Product Team) with strong project management and technical leadership provided by the TMT Project Office (PO) and the ITCC partner to manage plans, process, performance, risk and quality, and to facilitate effective communications; establishing an effective cross-functional software management team composed of stakeholders, OSW leadership and ITCC leadership to manage dependencies and software release plans, technical complexities and change to approved interfaces, architecture, design and tool set, and to facilitate effective communications; adopting an agile-based software development process across the observatory to enable frequent software releases to help mitigate subsystem interdependencies; defining concise scope and work packages for each of the OSW subsystems to facilitate effective outsourcing of software deliverables to the ITCC partner, and to enable performance monitoring and risk management. At this stage, the architecture and high-level design of the software system has been established and reviewed. During construction each subsystem will have a final design phase with reviews, followed by implementation and testing. The results of the TMT approach to the Observatory Software development process will only be preliminary at the time of the submittal of this paper, but it is anticipated that the early results will be a favorable indication of progress.

Table-driven configuration and formatting of telemetry data in the Deep Space Network

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Manning, Evan

1994-01-01

With a restructured software architecture for telemetry system control and data processing, the NASA/Deep Space Network (DSN) has substantially improved its ability to accommodate a wide variety of spacecraft in an era of 'better, faster, cheaper'. In the new architecture, the permanent software implements all capabilities needed by any system user, and text tables specify how these capabilities are to be used for each spacecraft. Most changes can now be made rapidly, outside of the traditional software development cycle. The system can be updated to support a new spacecraft through table changes rather than software changes, reducing the implementation, test, and delivery cycle for such a change from three months to three weeks. The mechanical separation of the text table files from the program software, with tables only loaded into memory when that mission is being supported, dramatically reduces the level of regression testing required. The format of each table is a different compromise between ease of human interpretation, efficiency of computer interpretation, and flexibility.

AstroBus On-Board Software

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Biscarros, D.; Cantenot, C.; Séronie-Vivien, J.; Schmidt, G.

AstroBus on-board software is a customisable software for ERC32 based avionics implementing standard ESA Packet Utilization Standard functions. Its architecture based on generic design templates and relying on a library providing standard PUS TC, TM and event services enhances its reusability on various programs. Finally, AstroBus on-board software development and validation environment is based on last generation tools providing an optimised customisation environment.

Analytical Design of Evolvable Software for High-Assurance Computing

DTIC Science & Technology

2001-02-14

Mathematical expression for the Total Sum of Squares which measures the variability that results when all values are treated as a combined sample coming from...primarily interested in background on software design and high-assurance computing, research in software architecture generation or evaluation...respectively. Those readers solely interested in the validation of a software design approach should at the minimum read Chapter 6 followed by Chapter

Airland Battlefield Environment (ALBE) Tactical Decision Aid (TDA) Demonstration Program,

DTIC Science & Technology

1987-11-12

Management System (DBMS) software, GKS graphics libraries, and user interface software. These components of the ATB system software architecture will be... knowlede base ano auqent the decision mak:n• process by providing infocr-mation useful in the formulation and execution of battlefield strategies...Topographic Laboratories as an Engineer. Ms. Capps is managing the software development of the AirLand Battlefield Environment (ALBE) geographic

Software Technology for Adaptable, Reliable Systems (STARS)

DTIC Science & Technology

1994-03-25

Tmeline(3), SECOMO(3), SEER(3), GSFC Software Engineering Lab Model(l), SLIM(4), SEER-SEM(l), SPQR (2), PRICE-S(2), internally-developed models(3), APMSS(1...3 " Timeline - 3 " SASET (Software Architecture Sizing Estimating Tool) - 2 " MicroMan 11- 2 * LCM (Logistics Cost Model) - 2 * SPQR - 2 * PRICE-S - 2

The TIM Barrel Architecture Facilitated the Early Evolution of Protein-Mediated Metabolism.

PubMed

Goldman, Aaron David; Beatty, Joshua T; Landweber, Laura F

2016-01-01

The triosephosphate isomerase (TIM) barrel protein fold is a structurally repetitive architecture that is present in approximately 10% of all enzymes. It is generally assumed that this ubiquity in modern proteomes reflects an essential historical role in early protein-mediated metabolism. Here, we provide quantitative and comparative analyses to support several hypotheses about the early importance of the TIM barrel architecture. An information theoretical analysis of protein structures supports the hypothesis that the TIM barrel architecture could arise more easily by duplication and recombination compared to other mixed α/β structures. We show that TIM barrel enzymes corresponding to the most taxonomically broad superfamilies also have the broadest range of functions, often aided by metal and nucleotide-derived cofactors that are thought to reflect an earlier stage of metabolic evolution. By comparison to other putatively ancient protein architectures, we find that the functional diversity of TIM barrel proteins cannot be explained simply by their antiquity. Instead, the breadth of TIM barrel functions can be explained, in part, by the incorporation of a broad range of cofactors, a trend that does not appear to be shared by proteins in general. These results support the hypothesis that the simple and functionally general TIM barrel architecture may have arisen early in the evolution of protein biosynthesis and provided an ideal scaffold to facilitate the metabolic transition from ribozymes, peptides, and geochemical catalysts to modern protein enzymes.

How do I resolve problems reading the binary data?

Atmospheric Science Data Center

2014-12-08

... affecting compilation would be differing versions of the operating system and compilers the read software are being run on. Big ... Unix machines are Big Endian architecture while Linux systems are Little Endian architecture. Data generated on a Unix machine are ...

STRS Compliant FPGA Waveform Development

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Nappier, Jennifer; Downey, Joseph; Mortensen, Dale

2008-01-01

The Space Telecommunications Radio System (STRS) Architecture Standard describes a standard for NASA space software defined radios (SDRs). It provides a common framework that can be used to develop and operate a space SDR in a reconfigurable and reprogrammable manner. One goal of the STRS Architecture is to promote waveform reuse among multiple software defined radios. Many space domain waveforms are designed to run in the special signal processing (SSP) hardware. However, the STRS Architecture is currently incomplete in defining a standard for designing waveforms in the SSP hardware. Therefore, the STRS Architecture needs to be extended to encompass waveform development in the SSP hardware. The extension of STRS to the SSP hardware will promote easier waveform reconfiguration and reuse. A transmit waveform for space applications was developed to determine ways to extend the STRS Architecture to a field programmable gate array (FPGA). These extensions include a standard hardware abstraction layer for FPGAs and a standard interface between waveform functions running inside a FPGA. A FPGA-based transmit waveform implementation of the proposed standard interfaces on a laboratory breadboard SDR will be discussed.

A novel software architecture for the provision of context-aware semantic transport information.

PubMed

Moreno, Asier; Perallos, Asier; López-de-Ipiña, Diego; Onieva, Enrique; Salaberria, Itziar; Masegosa, Antonio D

2015-05-26

The effectiveness of Intelligent Transportation Systems depends largely on the ability to integrate information from diverse sources and the suitability of this information for the specific user. This paper describes a new approach for the management and exchange of this information, related to multimodal transportation. A novel software architecture is presented, with particular emphasis on the design of the data model and the enablement of services for information retrieval, thereby obtaining a semantic model for the representation of transport information. The publication of transport data as semantic information is established through the development of a Multimodal Transport Ontology (MTO) and the design of a distributed architecture allowing dynamic integration of transport data. The advantages afforded by the proposed system due to the use of Linked Open Data and a distributed architecture are stated, comparing it with other existing solutions. The adequacy of the information generated in regard to the specific user's context is also addressed. Finally, a working solution of a semantic trip planner using actual transport data and running on the proposed architecture is presented, as a demonstration and validation of the system.

Software technology testbed softpanel prototype

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1991-01-01

The following subject areas are covered: analysis of using Ada for the development of real-time control systems for the Space Station; analysis of the functionality of the Application Generator; analysis of the User Support Environment criteria; analysis of the SSE tools and procedures which are to be used for the development of ground/flight software for the Space Station; analysis if the CBATS tutorial (an Ada tutorial package); analysis of Interleaf; analysis of the Integration, Test and Verification process of the Space Station; analysis of the DMS on-orbit flight architecture; analysis of the simulation architecture.

OSI for hardware/software interoperability

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wood, Richard J.; Harvey, Donald L.; Linderman, Richard W.; Gardener, Gary A.; Capraro, Gerard T.

1994-03-01

There is a need in public safety for real-time data collection and transmission from one or more sensors. The Rome Laboratory and the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization are pursuing an effort to bring the benefits of Open System Architectures (OSA) to embedded systems within the Department of Defense. When developed properly OSA provides interoperability, commonality, graceful upgradeability, survivability and hardware/software transportability to greatly minimize life cycle costs, integration and supportability. Architecture flexibility can be achieved to take advantage of commercial accomplishments by basing these developments on vendor-neutral commercially accepted standards and protocols.

A comparison of two software architectural styles for space-based control systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dvorak, D.

2003-01-01

In the hardware/software design of control systems it is almost an article of faith to decompose a system into loosely coupled subsystems, with state variables encapsulated inside device and subsystem objects.

The component-based architecture of the HELIOS medical software engineering environment.

PubMed

Degoulet, P; Jean, F C; Engelmann, U; Meinzer, H P; Baud, R; Sandblad, B; Wigertz, O; Le Meur, R; Jagermann, C

1994-12-01

The constitution of highly integrated health information networks and the growth of multimedia technologies raise new challenges for the development of medical applications. We describe in this paper the general architecture of the HELIOS medical software engineering environment devoted to the development and maintenance of multimedia distributed medical applications. HELIOS is made of a set of software components, federated by a communication channel called the HELIOS Unification Bus. The HELIOS kernel includes three main components, the Analysis-Design and Environment, the Object Information System and the Interface Manager. HELIOS services consist in a collection of toolkits providing the necessary facilities to medical application developers. They include Image Related services, a Natural Language Processor, a Decision Support System and Connection services. The project gives special attention to both object-oriented approaches and software re-usability that are considered crucial steps towards the development of more reliable, coherent and integrated applications.

Hardware/software codesign for embedded RISC core

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Peng

2001-12-01

This paper describes hardware/software codesign method of the extendible embedded RISC core VIRGO, which based on MIPS-I instruction set architecture. VIRGO is described by Verilog hardware description language that has five-stage pipeline with shared 32-bit cache/memory interface, and it is controlled by distributed control scheme. Every pipeline stage has one small controller, which controls the pipeline stage status and cooperation among the pipeline phase. Since description use high level language and structure is distributed, VIRGO core has highly extension that can meet the requirements of application. We take look at the high-definition television MPEG2 MPHL decoder chip, constructed the hardware/software codesign virtual prototyping machine that can research on VIRGO core instruction set architecture, and system on chip memory size requirements, and system on chip software, etc. We also can evaluate the system on chip design and RISC instruction set based on the virtual prototyping machine platform.

Protein evolution analysis of S-hydroxynitrile lyase by complete sequence design utilizing the INTMSAlign software.

PubMed

Nakano, Shogo; Asano, Yasuhisa

2015-02-03

Development of software and methods for design of complete sequences of functional proteins could contribute to studies of protein engineering and protein evolution. To this end, we developed the INTMSAlign software, and used it to design functional proteins and evaluate their usefulness. The software could assign both consensus and correlation residues of target proteins. We generated three protein sequences with S-selective hydroxynitrile lyase (S-HNL) activity, which we call designed S-HNLs; these proteins folded as efficiently as the native S-HNL. Sequence and biochemical analysis of the designed S-HNLs suggested that accumulation of neutral mutations occurs during the process of S-HNLs evolution from a low-activity form to a high-activity (native) form. Taken together, our results demonstrate that our software and the associated methods could be applied not only to design of complete sequences, but also to predictions of protein evolution, especially within families such as esterases and S-HNLs.

Protein evolution analysis of S-hydroxynitrile lyase by complete sequence design utilizing the INTMSAlign software

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nakano, Shogo; Asano, Yasuhisa

2015-02-01

Development of software and methods for design of complete sequences of functional proteins could contribute to studies of protein engineering and protein evolution. To this end, we developed the INTMSAlign software, and used it to design functional proteins and evaluate their usefulness. The software could assign both consensus and correlation residues of target proteins. We generated three protein sequences with S-selective hydroxynitrile lyase (S-HNL) activity, which we call designed S-HNLs; these proteins folded as efficiently as the native S-HNL. Sequence and biochemical analysis of the designed S-HNLs suggested that accumulation of neutral mutations occurs during the process of S-HNLs evolution from a low-activity form to a high-activity (native) form. Taken together, our results demonstrate that our software and the associated methods could be applied not only to design of complete sequences, but also to predictions of protein evolution, especially within families such as esterases and S-HNLs.

PUS Services Software Building Block Automatic Generation for Space Missions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Candia, S.; Sgaramella, F.; Mele, G.

2008-08-01

The Packet Utilization Standard (PUS) has been specified by the European Committee for Space Standardization (ECSS) and issued as ECSS-E-70-41A to define the application-level interface between Ground Segments and Space Segments. The ECSS-E- 70-41A complements the ECSS-E-50 and the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) recommendations for packet telemetry and telecommand. The ECSS-E-70-41A characterizes the identified PUS Services from a functional point of view and the ECSS-E-70-31 standard specifies the rules for their mission-specific tailoring. The current on-board software design for a space mission implies the production of several PUS terminals, each providing a specific tailoring of the PUS services. The associated on-board software building blocks are developed independently, leading to very different design choices and implementations even when the mission tailoring requires very similar services (from the Ground operative perspective). In this scenario, the automatic production of the PUS services building blocks for a mission would be a way to optimize the overall mission economy and improve the robusteness and reliability of the on-board software and of the Ground-Space interactions. This paper presents the Space Software Italia (SSI) activities for the development of an integrated environment to support: the PUS services tailoring activity for a specific mission. the mission-specific PUS services configuration. the generation the UML model of the software building block implementing the mission-specific PUS services and the related source code, support documentation (software requirements, software architecture, test plans/procedures, operational manuals), and the TM/TC database. The paper deals with: (a) the project objectives, (b) the tailoring, configuration, and generation process, (c) the description of the environments supporting the process phases, (d) the characterization of the meta-model used for the generation, (e) the characterization of the reference avionics architecture and of the reference on- board software high-level architecture.

Application of parallelized software architecture to an autonomous ground vehicle

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shakya, Rahul; Wright, Adam; Shin, Young Ho; Momin, Orko; Petkovsek, Steven; Wortman, Paul; Gautam, Prasanna; Norton, Adam

2011-01-01

This paper presents improvements made to Q, an autonomous ground vehicle designed to participate in the Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC). For the 2010 IGVC, Q was upgraded with a new parallelized software architecture and a new vision processor. Improvements were made to the power system reducing the number of batteries required for operation from six to one. In previous years, a single state machine was used to execute the bulk of processing activities including sensor interfacing, data processing, path planning, navigation algorithms and motor control. This inefficient approach led to poor software performance and made it difficult to maintain or modify. For IGVC 2010, the team implemented a modular parallel architecture using the National Instruments (NI) LabVIEW programming language. The new architecture divides all the necessary tasks - motor control, navigation, sensor data collection, etc. into well-organized components that execute in parallel, providing considerable flexibility and facilitating efficient use of processing power. Computer vision is used to detect white lines on the ground and determine their location relative to the robot. With the new vision processor and some optimization of the image processing algorithm used last year, two frames can be acquired and processed in 70ms. With all these improvements, Q placed 2nd in the autonomous challenge.

Performance evaluation of multi-stratum resources integration based on network function virtualization in software defined elastic data center optical interconnect.

PubMed

Yang, Hui; Zhang, Jie; Ji, Yuefeng; Tian, Rui; Han, Jianrui; Lee, Young

2015-11-30

Data center interconnect with elastic optical network is a promising scenario to meet the high burstiness and high-bandwidth requirements of data center services. In our previous work, we implemented multi-stratum resilience between IP and elastic optical networks that allows to accommodate data center services. In view of this, this study extends to consider the resource integration by breaking the limit of network device, which can enhance the resource utilization. We propose a novel multi-stratum resources integration (MSRI) architecture based on network function virtualization in software defined elastic data center optical interconnect. A resource integrated mapping (RIM) scheme for MSRI is introduced in the proposed architecture. The MSRI can accommodate the data center services with resources integration when the single function or resource is relatively scarce to provision the services, and enhance globally integrated optimization of optical network and application resources. The overall feasibility and efficiency of the proposed architecture are experimentally verified on the control plane of OpenFlow-based enhanced software defined networking (eSDN) testbed. The performance of RIM scheme under heavy traffic load scenario is also quantitatively evaluated based on MSRI architecture in terms of path blocking probability, provisioning latency and resource utilization, compared with other provisioning schemes.

The Software Management Environment (SME)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Valett, Jon D.; Decker, William; Buell, John

1988-01-01

The Software Management Environment (SME) is a research effort designed to utilize the past experiences and results of the Software Engineering Laboratory (SEL) and to incorporate this knowledge into a tool for managing projects. SME provides the software development manager with the ability to observe, compare, predict, analyze, and control key software development parameters such as effort, reliability, and resource utilization. The major components of the SME, the architecture of the system, and examples of the functionality of the tool are discussed.

The Live Access Server - A Web-Services Framework for Earth Science Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schweitzer, R.; Hankin, S. C.; Callahan, J. S.; O'Brien, K.; Manke, A.; Wang, X. Y.

2005-12-01

The Live Access Server (LAS) is a general purpose Web-server for delivering services related to geo-science data sets. Data providers can use the LAS architecture to build custom Web interfaces to their scientific data. Users and client programs can then access the LAS site to search the provider's on-line data holdings, make plots of data, create sub-sets in a variety of formats, compare data sets and perform analysis on the data. The Live Access server software has continued to evolve by expanding the types of data (in-situ observations and curvilinear grids) it can serve and by taking advantages of advances in software infrastructure both in the earth sciences community (THREDDS, the GrADS Data Server, the Anagram framework and Java netCDF 2.2) and in the Web community (Java Servlet and the Apache Jakarta frameworks). This presentation will explore the continued evolution of the LAS architecture towards a complete Web-services-based framework. Additionally, we will discuss the redesign and modernization of some of the support tools available to LAS installers. Soon after the initial implementation, the LAS architecture was redesigned to separate the components that are responsible for the user interaction (the User Interface Server) from the components that are responsible for interacting with the data and producing the output requested by the user (the Product Server). During this redesign, we changed the implementation of the User Interface Server from CGI and JavaScript to the Java Servlet specification using Apache Jakarta Velocity backed by a database store for holding the user interface widget components. The User Interface server is now quite flexible and highly configurable because we modernized the components used for the implementation. Meanwhile, the implementation of the Product Server has remained a Perl CGI-based system. Clearly, the time has come to modernize this part of the LAS architecture. Before undertaking such a modernization it is important to understand what we hope to gain. Specifically we would like to make it even easier to add new output products into our core system based on the Ferret analysis and visualization package. By carefully factoring the tasks needed to create a product we will be able to create new products simply by adding a description of the product into the configuration and by writing the Ferret script needed to create the product. No code will need to be added to the Product Server to bring the new product on-line. The new architecture should be faster at extracting and processing configuration information needed to address each request. Finally, the new Product Server architecture should make it even easier to pass specialized configuration information to the Product Server to deal with unanticipated special data structures or processing requirements.

Report on functional requirements and software architecture for the IDTO prototype : phase I demonstration site (Columbus).

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2013-08-01

This report documents the System Requirements and Architecture for the Phase I implementation of the Integrated Dynamic Transit Operations (IDTO) Prototype bundle within the Dynamic Mobility Applications (DMA) portion of the Connected Vehicle Program...

Report on functional requirements and software architecture for the IDTO prototype phase 2 : central Florida demonstration.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2015-05-01

This report documents the System Requirements and Architecture for the Phase 2 implementation of the Integrated Dynamic Transit Operations (IDTO) Prototype bundle within the Dynamic Mobility Applications (DMA) portion of the Connected Vehicle Program...

The Liquid Argon Software Toolkit (LArSoft): Goals, Status and Plan

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Pordes, Rush; Snider, Erica

LArSoft is a toolkit that provides a software infrastructure and algorithms for the simulation, reconstruction and analysis of events in Liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers (LArTPCs). It is used by the ArgoNeuT, LArIAT, MicroBooNE, DUNE (including 35ton prototype and ProtoDUNE) and SBND experiments. The LArSoft collaboration provides an environment for the development, use, and sharing of code across experiments. The ultimate goal is to develop fully automatic processes for reconstruction and analysis of LArTPC events. The toolkit is based on the art framework and has a well-defined architecture to interface to other packages, including to GEANT4 and GENIE simulation softwaremore » and the Pandora software development kit for pattern recognition. It is designed to facilitate and support the evolution of algorithms including their transition to new computing platforms. The development of the toolkit is driven by the scientific stakeholders involved. The core infrastructure includes standard definitions of types and constants, means to input experiment geometries as well as meta and event- data in several formats, and relevant general utilities. Examples of algorithms experiments have contributed to date are: photon-propagation; particle identification; hit finding, track finding and fitting; electromagnetic shower identification and reconstruction. We report on the status of the toolkit and plans for future work.« less

Invocation oriented architecture for agile code and agile data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Verma, Dinesh; Chan, Kevin; Leung, Kin; Gkelias, Athanasios

2017-05-01

In order to address the unique requirements of sensor information fusion in a tactical coalition environment, we are proposing a new architecture - one based on the concept of invocations. An invocation is a combination of a software code and a piece of data, both managed using techniques from Information Centric networking. This paper will discuss limitations of current approaches, present the architecture for an invocation oriented architecture, illustrate how it works with an example scenario, and provide reasons for its suitability in a coalition environment.

Ada/Xt Architecture: Design Report for the Software Technology for Adaptable, Reliable Systems (STARS)

DTIC Science & Technology

1990-01-25

N Task: UR20 CDRL: 01000 N UR2O--ProcesslEnvironmentx Ada/Xt. Architecture : Design Report ~ ~ fFCp Informal Technical Data I? ,LECp Sofwar Tehoog for...S. FUNDING NUMBERS Ada/Xt Architecture : Design Report STARS Contract 6.AUTHOR(S)_ Ft9628-88-D-0031 6. AUTHOR(S) Kurt Wallnau 7. PERFORMING...of the STARS Prime contract under the Process Environment Integration task (UR20). This document "Ada Xt Architecture : Design Report", type A005

Semantic closure demonstrated by the evolution of a universal constructor architecture in an artificial chemistry.

PubMed

Clark, Edward B; Hickinbotham, Simon J; Stepney, Susan

2017-05-01

We present a novel stringmol-based artificial chemistry system modelled on the universal constructor architecture (UCA) first explored by von Neumann. In a UCA, machines interact with an abstract description of themselves to replicate by copying the abstract description and constructing the machines that the abstract description encodes. DNA-based replication follows this architecture, with DNA being the abstract description, the polymerase being the copier, and the ribosome being the principal machine in expressing what is encoded on the DNA. This architecture is semantically closed as the machine that defines what the abstract description means is itself encoded on that abstract description. We present a series of experiments with the stringmol UCA that show the evolution of the meaning of genomic material, allowing the concept of semantic closure and transitions between semantically closed states to be elucidated in the light of concrete examples. We present results where, for the first time in an in silico system, simultaneous evolution of the genomic material, copier and constructor of a UCA, giving rise to viable offspring. © 2017 The Author(s).

Understanding Evolutionary Potential in Virtual CPU Instruction Set Architectures

PubMed Central

Bryson, David M.; Ofria, Charles

2013-01-01

We investigate fundamental decisions in the design of instruction set architectures for linear genetic programs that are used as both model systems in evolutionary biology and underlying solution representations in evolutionary computation. We subjected digital organisms with each tested architecture to seven different computational environments designed to present a range of evolutionary challenges. Our goal was to engineer a general purpose architecture that would be effective under a broad range of evolutionary conditions. We evaluated six different types of architectural features for the virtual CPUs: (1) genetic flexibility: we allowed digital organisms to more precisely modify the function of genetic instructions, (2) memory: we provided an increased number of registers in the virtual CPUs, (3) decoupled sensors and actuators: we separated input and output operations to enable greater control over data flow. We also tested a variety of methods to regulate expression: (4) explicit labels that allow programs to dynamically refer to specific genome positions, (5) position-relative search instructions, and (6) multiple new flow control instructions, including conditionals and jumps. Each of these features also adds complication to the instruction set and risks slowing evolution due to epistatic interactions. Two features (multiple argument specification and separated I/O) demonstrated substantial improvements in the majority of test environments, along with versions of each of the remaining architecture modifications that show significant improvements in multiple environments. However, some tested modifications were detrimental, though most exhibit no systematic effects on evolutionary potential, highlighting the robustness of digital evolution. Combined, these observations enhance our understanding of how instruction architecture impacts evolutionary potential, enabling the creation of architectures that support more rapid evolution of complex solutions to a broad range of challenges. PMID:24376669

Programming model for distributed intelligent systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sztipanovits, J.; Biegl, C.; Karsai, G.; Bogunovic, N.; Purves, B.; Williams, R.; Christiansen, T.

1988-01-01

A programming model and architecture which was developed for the design and implementation of complex, heterogeneous measurement and control systems is described. The Multigraph Architecture integrates artificial intelligence techniques with conventional software technologies, offers a unified framework for distributed and shared memory based parallel computational models and supports multiple programming paradigms. The system can be implemented on different hardware architectures and can be adapted to strongly different applications.

Simulation system architecture design for generic communications link

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Tsang, Chit-Sang; Ratliff, Jim

1986-01-01

This paper addresses a computer simulation system architecture design for generic digital communications systems. It addresses the issues of an overall system architecture in order to achieve a user-friendly, efficient, and yet easily implementable simulation system. The system block diagram and its individual functional components are described in detail. Software implementation is discussed with the VAX/VMS operating system used as a target environment.

The computational structural mechanics testbed architecture. Volume 2: The interface

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Felippa, Carlos A.

1988-01-01

This is the third set of five volumes which describe the software architecture for the Computational Structural Mechanics Testbed. Derived from NICE, an integrated software system developed at Lockheed Palo Alto Research Laboratory, the architecture is composed of the command language CLAMP, the command language interpreter CLIP, and the data manager GAL. Volumes 1, 2, and 3 (NASA CR's 178384, 178385, and 178386, respectively) describe CLAMP and CLIP and the CLIP-processor interface. Volumes 4 and 5 (NASA CR's 178387 and 178388, respectively) describe GAL and its low-level I/O. CLAMP, an acronym for Command Language for Applied Mechanics Processors, is designed to control the flow of execution of processors written for NICE. Volume 3 describes the CLIP-Processor interface and related topics. It is intended only for processor developers.

The computational structural mechanics testbed architecture. Volume 1: The language

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Felippa, Carlos A.

1988-01-01

This is the first set of five volumes which describe the software architecture for the Computational Structural Mechanics Testbed. Derived from NICE, an integrated software system developed at Lockheed Palo Alto Research Laboratory, the architecture is composed of the command language CLAMP, the command language interpreter CLIP, and the data manager GAL. Volumes 1, 2, and 3 (NASA CR's 178384, 178385, and 178386, respectively) describe CLAMP and CLIP, and the CLIP-processor interface. Volumes 4 and 5 (NASA CR's 178387 and 178388, respectively) describe GAL and its low-level I/O. CLAMP, an acronym for Command Language for Applied Mechanics Processors, is designed to control the flow of execution of processors written for NICE. Volume 1 presents the basic elements of the CLAMP language and is intended for all users.

The computational structural mechanics testbed architecture. Volume 2: Directives

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Felippa, Carlos A.

1989-01-01

This is the second of a set of five volumes which describe the software architecture for the Computational Structural Mechanics Testbed. Derived from NICE, an integrated software system developed at Lockheed Palo Alto Research Laboratory, the architecture is composed of the command language (CLAMP), the command language interpreter (CLIP), and the data manager (GAL). Volumes 1, 2, and 3 (NASA CR's 178384, 178385, and 178386, respectively) describe CLAMP and CLIP and the CLIP-processor interface. Volumes 4 and 5 (NASA CR's 178387 and 178388, respectively) describe GAL and its low-level I/O. CLAMP, an acronym for Command Language for Applied Mechanics Processors, is designed to control the flow of execution of processors written for NICE. Volume 2 describes the CLIP directives in detail. It is intended for intermediate and advanced users.

A Bibliography of Externally Published Works by the SEI Engineering Techniques Program

DTIC Science & Technology

1992-08-01

media, and virtual reality * model- based engineering * programming languages * reuse * software architectures * software engineering as a discipline...Knowledge- Based Engineering Environments." IEEE Expert 3, 2 (May 1988): 18-23, 26-32. Audience: Practitioner [Klein89b] Klein, D.V. "Comparison of...Terms with Software Reuse Terminology: A Model- Based Approach." ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes 16, 2 (April 1991): 45-51. Audience: Practitioner

CHIME: A Metadata-Based Distributed Software Development Environment

DTIC Science & Technology

2005-01-01

structures by using typography , graphics , and animation. The Software Im- mersion in our conceptual model for CHIME can be seen as a form of Software...Even small- to medium-sized development efforts may involve hundreds of artifacts -- design documents, change requests, test cases and results, code...for managing and organizing information from all phases of the software lifecycle. CHIME is designed around an XML-based metadata architecture, in

Trade Space Specification Tool (TSST) for Rapid Mission Architecture (Version 1.2)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wang, Yeou-Fang; Schrock, Mitchell; Borden, Chester S.; Moeller, Robert C.

2013-01-01

Trade Space Specification Tool (TSST) is designed to capture quickly ideas in the early spacecraft and mission architecture design and categorize them into trade space dimensions and options for later analysis. It is implemented as an Eclipse RCP Application, which can be run as a standalone program. Users rapidly create concept items with single clicks on a graphical canvas, and can organize and create linkages between the ideas using drag-and-drop actions within the same graphical view. Various views such as a trade view, rules view, and architecture view are provided to help users to visualize the trade space. This software can identify, explore, and assess aspects of the mission trade space, as well as capture and organize linkages/dependencies between trade space components. The tool supports a user-in-the-loop preliminary logical examination and filtering of trade space options to help identify which paths in the trade space are feasible (and preferred) and what analyses need to be done later with executable models. This tool provides multiple user views of the trade space to guide the analyst/team to facilitate interpretation and communication of the trade space components and linkages, identify gaps in combining and selecting trade space options, and guide user decision-making for which combinations of architectural options should be pursued for further evaluation. This software provides an environment to capture mission trade space elements rapidly and assist users for their architecture analysis. This is primarily focused on mission and spacecraft architecture design, rather than general-purpose design application. In addition, it provides more flexibility to create concepts and organize the ideas. The software is developed as an Eclipse plug-in and potentially can be integrated with other Eclipse-based tools.

Commanding Constellations (Pipeline Architecture)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ray, Tim; Condron, Jeff

2003-01-01

Providing ground command software for constellations of spacecraft is a challenging problem. Reliable command delivery requires a feedback loop; for a constellation there will likely be an independent feedback loop for each constellation member. Each command must be sent via the proper Ground Station, which may change from one contact to the next (and may be different for different members). Dynamic configuration of the ground command software is usually required (e.g. directives to configure each member's feedback loop and assign the appropriate Ground Station). For testing purposes, there must be a way to insert command data at any level in the protocol stack. The Pipeline architecture described in this paper can support all these capabilities with a sequence of software modules (the pipeline), and a single self-identifying message format (for all types of command data and configuration directives). The Pipeline architecture is quite simple, yet it can solve some complex problems. The resulting solutions are conceptually simple, and therefore, reliable. They are also modular, and therefore, easy to distribute and extend. We first used the Pipeline architecture to design a CCSDS (Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems) Ground Telecommand system (to command one spacecraft at a time with a fixed Ground Station interface). This pipeline was later extended to include gateways to any of several Ground Stations. The resulting pipeline was then extended to handle a small constellation of spacecraft. The use of the Pipeline architecture allowed us to easily handle the increasing complexity. This paper will describe the Pipeline architecture, show how it was used to solve each of the above commanding situations, and how it can easily be extended to handle larger constellations.

Evolutionary dynamics of protein domain architecture in plants

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background Protein domains are the structural, functional and evolutionary units of the protein. Protein domain architectures are the linear arrangements of domain(s) in individual proteins. Although the evolutionary history of protein domain architecture has been extensively studied in microorganisms, the evolutionary dynamics of domain architecture in the plant kingdom remains largely undefined. To address this question, we analyzed the lineage-based protein domain architecture content in 14 completed green plant genomes. Results Our analyses show that all 14 plant genomes maintain similar distributions of species-specific, single-domain, and multi-domain architectures. Approximately 65% of plant domain architectures are universally present in all plant lineages, while the remaining architectures are lineage-specific. Clear examples are seen of both the loss and gain of specific protein architectures in higher plants. There has been a dynamic, lineage-wise expansion of domain architectures during plant evolution. The data suggest that this expansion can be largely explained by changes in nuclear ploidy resulting from rounds of whole genome duplications. Indeed, there has been a decrease in the number of unique domain architectures when the genomes were normalized into a presumed ancestral genome that has not undergone whole genome duplications. Conclusions Our data show the conservation of universal domain architectures in all available plant genomes, indicating the presence of an evolutionarily conserved, core set of protein components. However, the occurrence of lineage-specific domain architectures indicates that domain architecture diversity has been maintained beyond these core components in plant genomes. Although several features of genome-wide domain architecture content are conserved in plants, the data clearly demonstrate lineage-wise, progressive changes and expansions of individual protein domain architectures, reinforcing the notion that plant genomes have undergone dynamic evolution. PMID:22252370

Open System Architecture design for planet surface systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Petri, D. A.; Pieniazek, L. A.; Toups, L. D.

1992-01-01

The Open System Architecture is an approach to meeting the needs for flexibility and evolution of the U.S. Space Exploration Initiative program of the manned exploration of the solar system and its permanent settlement. This paper investigates the issues that future activities of the planet exploration program must confront, defines the basic concepts that provide the basis for establishing an Open System Architecture, identifies the appropriate features of such an architecture, and discusses examples of Open System Architectures.

Application of Digital Terrestrial Photogrammetry in Architectural Conservation: the Mosque of Abdullah Ibn Salam of Oran

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Boukerch, I.; Takarli, B.; Mahmoudi, R.; Tellai, S.; Chadli, D.

2016-10-01

Studies on the architectural heritage can now be supported by three-dimensional reconstruction of actual buildings. The 3D digital model can be an effective medium for documenting the current state of historic buildings but also to create a resource for researchers who conduct their analysis on historical evolution. Architectural photogrammetry has its own specifications in relation to other photogrammetric applications, however it meets these expectations. The traditional approach requires the use of metric cameras but with the development of computational techniques, this requirement is overcome and opens the way for the use of non-metric camera. The use of the shots that is no longer restricted to the parallel configuration of bundles, the images may be convergent, horizontal or oblique. Combining and modelling several cameras increasingly powerful in resolution and stability, has great scope and the same workflow can be used in varied applications. ISPRS and ICOMOS created CIPA because they both believe that a monument can be restored and protected only when it has been fully measured and documented and when its development has been documented several times, i.e. monitored, also with respect to its environment, and stored in proper heritage information and management systems. In this paper the 3D modelling of an important cultural site using terrestrial photogrammetric techniques for architectural preservation is presented. The site is the mosque of Abdullah Ibn Salam, Built in 1880 at the initiative of Simon Kanoui, also known as the Great Synagogue of Oran was inaugurated in 1918 only. It was one of the largest and most beautiful synagogues in North Africa. It was built with stone imported from Jerusalem. This place of worship became in 1975 the mosque of Abdullah Ibn Salam who was a rich Jew of Medina who was converted to Islam. The structure is modelled using 321 oriented photos taken in five series of shots that cover all the façade and the interior of the building where more than 9200 points are created. Also some orthophotos of the important elements are produced and used as materials in the final stage which is the edition in a 3D modelling software. And a video virtual tour is generated using this software.

Expert system verification and validation guidelines/workshop task. Deliverable no. 1: ES V/V guidelines

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

French, Scott W.

1991-01-01

The goals are to show that verifying and validating a software system is a required part of software development and has a direct impact on the software's design and structure. Workshop tasks are given in the areas of statistics, integration/system test, unit and architectural testing, and a traffic controller problem.

A discussion of higher order software concepts as they apply to functional requirements and specifications. [space shuttles and guidance

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hamilton, M.

1973-01-01

The entry guidance software functional requirements (requirements design phase), its architectural requirements (specifications design phase), and the entry guidance software verified code are discussed. It was found that the proper integration of designs at both the requirements and specifications levels are of high priority consideration.

Common Misconceptions About Service-Oriented Architecture

DTIC Science & Technology

2007-11-01

addition, the architect(s) must make decisions on how services are implemented. Service implementations may involve developing new software , wrapping a...legacy software system, incor- porating services provided by third par- ties, or a combination of these options. Information about the quality attrib...temperature. However, there 28 CROSSTALK The Journal of Defense Software Engineering November 2007 Common Misconceptions About Service -Oriented

A Vision on the Status and Evolution of HEP Physics Software Tools

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Canal, P.; Elvira, D.; Hatcher, R.

2013-07-28

This paper represents the vision of the members of the Fermilab Scientific Computing Division's Computational Physics Department (SCD-CPD) on the status and the evolution of various HEP software tools such as the Geant4 detector simulation toolkit, the Pythia and GENIE physics generators, and the ROOT data analysis framework. The goal of this paper is to contribute ideas to the Snowmass 2013 process toward the composition of a unified document on the current status and potential evolution of the physics software tools which are essential to HEP.

Systems biology driven software design for the research enterprise.

PubMed

Boyle, John; Cavnor, Christopher; Killcoyne, Sarah; Shmulevich, Ilya

2008-06-25

In systems biology, and many other areas of research, there is a need for the interoperability of tools and data sources that were not originally designed to be integrated. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of systems biology, and its association with high throughput experimental platforms, there is an additional need to continually integrate new technologies. As scientists work in isolated groups, integration with other groups is rarely a consideration when building the required software tools. We illustrate an approach, through the discussion of a purpose built software architecture, which allows disparate groups to reuse tools and access data sources in a common manner. The architecture allows for: the rapid development of distributed applications; interoperability, so it can be used by a wide variety of developers and computational biologists; development using standard tools, so that it is easy to maintain and does not require a large development effort; extensibility, so that new technologies and data types can be incorporated; and non intrusive development, insofar as researchers need not to adhere to a pre-existing object model. By using a relatively simple integration strategy, based upon a common identity system and dynamically discovered interoperable services, a light-weight software architecture can become the focal point through which scientists can both get access to and analyse the plethora of experimentally derived data.

Experimenting with an Evolving Ground/Space-based Software Architecture to Enable Sensor Webs

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

mandl, Daniel; Frye, Stuart

2005-01-01

A series of ongoing experiments are being conducted at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center to explore integrated ground and space-based software architectures enabling sensor webs. A sensor web, as defined by Steve Talabac at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center(GSFC), is a coherent set of distributed nodes interconnected by a communications fabric, that collectively behave as a single, dynamically adaptive, observing system. The nodes can be comprised of satellites, ground instruments, computing nodes etc. Sensor web capability requires autonomous management of constellation resources. This becomes progressively more important as more and more satellites share resource, such as communication channels and ground station,s while automatically coordinating their activities. There have been five ongoing activities which include an effort to standardize a set of middleware. This paper will describe one set of activities using the Earth Observing 1 satellite, which used a variety of ground and flight software along with other satellites and ground sensors to prototype a sensor web. This activity allowed us to explore where the difficulties that occur in the assembly of sensor webs given today s technology. We will present an overview of the software system architecture, some key experiments and lessons learned to facilitate better sensor webs in the future.

Pi-Sat: A Low Cost Small Satellite and Distributed Spacecraft Mission System Test Platform

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cudmore, Alan

2015-01-01

Current technology and budget trends indicate a shift in satellite architectures from large, expensive single satellite missions, to small, low cost distributed spacecraft missions. At the center of this shift is the SmallSatCubesat architecture. The primary goal of the Pi-Sat project is to create a low cost, and easy to use Distributed Spacecraft Mission (DSM) test bed to facilitate the research and development of next-generation DSM technologies and concepts. This test bed also serves as a realistic software development platform for Small Satellite and Cubesat architectures. The Pi-Sat is based on the popular $35 Raspberry Pi single board computer featuring a 700Mhz ARM processor, 512MB of RAM, a flash memory card, and a wealth of IO options. The Raspberry Pi runs the Linux operating system and can easily run Code 582s Core Flight System flight software architecture. The low cost and high availability of the Raspberry Pi make it an ideal platform for a Distributed Spacecraft Mission and Cubesat software development. The Pi-Sat models currently include a Pi-Sat 1U Cube, a Pi-Sat Wireless Node, and a Pi-Sat Cubesat processor card.The Pi-Sat project takes advantage of many popular trends in the Maker community including low cost electronics, 3d printing, and rapid prototyping in order to provide a realistic platform for flight software testing, training, and technology development. The Pi-Sat has also provided fantastic hands on training opportunities for NASA summer interns and Pathways students.

Aquarius' Object-Oriented, Plug and Play Component-Based Flight Software

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Murray, Alexander; Shahabuddin, Mohammad

2013-01-01

The Aquarius mission involves a combined radiometer and radar instrument in low-Earth orbit, providing monthly global maps of Sea Surface Salinity. Operating successfully in orbit since June, 2011, the spacecraft bus was furnished by the Argentine space agency, Comision Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE). The instrument, built jointly by NASA's Caltech/JPL and Goddard Space Flight Center, has been successfully producing expectation-exceeding data since it was powered on in August of 2011. In addition to the radiometer and scatterometer, the instrument contains an command & data-handling subsystem with a computer and flight software (FSW) that is responsible for managing the instrument, its operation, and its data. Aquarius' FSW is conceived and architected as a Component-based system, in which the running software consists of a set of Components, each playing a distinctive role in the subsystem, instantiated and connected together at runtime. Component architectures feature a well-defined set of interfaces between the Components, visible and analyzable at the architectural level (see [1]). As we will describe, this kind of an architecture offers significant advantages over more traditional FSW architectures, which often feature a monolithic runtime structure. Component-based software is enabled by Object-Oriented (OO) techniques and languages, the use of which again is not typical in space mission FSW. We will argue in this paper that the use of OO design methods and tools (especially the Unified Modeling Language), as well as the judicious usage of C++, are very well suited to FSW applications, and we will present Aquarius FSW, describing our methods, processes, and design, as a successful case in point.

Knowledge Based Software Assistant Conference Proceedings (4th) Held in Syracuse, New York on 12-14 September 1989

DTIC Science & Technology

1990-05-01

Sanders Associates. Inc. A demonstration of knowledge-based support for the evolut ;cnry development of software system requirements uskig mitV/9 text...Conference Commiffee W Douga W~t Spin-Off Technologies 4 AN OVERVIEW OF RADC’S KNOWLEDGE BASED SOFTWARE ASSISTANT PROGRAM Donald M. Elefante Rome Air...Knowledge-Based Software Assistant is a formally based, computer-mediated paradigm for the specification, development, evolution , and Ir ig term

Evolution and classification of the CRISPR-Cas systems

PubMed Central

S. Makarova, Kira; H. Haft, Daniel; Barrangou, Rodolphe; J. J. Brouns, Stan; Charpentier, Emmanuelle; Horvath, Philippe; Moineau, Sylvain; J. M. Mojica, Francisco; I. Wolf, Yuri; Yakunin, Alexander F.; van der Oost, John; V. Koonin, Eugene

2012-01-01

The CRISPR–Cas (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats–CRISPR-associated proteins) modules are adaptive immunity systems that are present in many archaea and bacteria. These defence systems are encoded by operons that have an extraordinarily diverse architecture and a high rate of evolution for both the cas genes and the unique spacer content. Here, we provide an updated analysis of the evolutionary relationships between CRISPR–Cas systems and Cas proteins. Three major types of CRISPR–Cas system are delineated, with a further division into several subtypes and a few chimeric variants. Given the complexity of the genomic architectures and the extremely dynamic evolution of the CRISPR–Cas systems, a unified classification of these systems should be based on multiple criteria. Accordingly, we propose a `polythetic' classification that integrates the phylogenies of the most common cas genes, the sequence and organization of the CRISPR repeats and the architecture of the CRISPR–cas loci. PMID:21552286

Networking CD-ROMs: A Tutorial Introduction.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Perone, Karen

1996-01-01

Provides an introduction to CD-ROM networking. Highlights include LAN (local area network) architectures for CD-ROM networks, peer-to-peer networks, shared file and dedicated file servers, commercial software/vendor solutions, problems, multiple hardware platforms, and multimedia. Six figures illustrate network architectures and a sidebar contains…

Trends and New Directions in Software Architecture

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-10-10

frameworks  Open source  Cloud strategies  NoSQL  Machine Learning  MDD  Incremental approaches  Dashboards  Distributed development...complexity grows  NoSQL Models are not created equal 2014 Our Current Research  Lightweight Evaluation and Architecture Prototyping for Big Data

Space Telecommunications Radio System (STRS) Architecture Goals/Objectives and Level 1 Requirements

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Briones, Janette C.; Johnson, Sandra K.; VanDerAar, Lisa

2007-01-01

The Space Telecommunications Radio System (STRS) Architecture Requirements Document provides the basis for the development of an open architecture for NASA Software Defined Radios (SDRs) for space use. The main objective of this document is to evaluate the goals and objectives and high level (Level 1) requirements that have bearing on the design of the architecture. The goals and objectives will provide broad, fundamental direction and purpose. The high level requirements (Level 1) intend to guide the broader and longer term aspects aspects of the SDR Architecture and provide guidance for the development of level 2 requirements.

Evolution of Secondary Software Businesses: Understanding Industry Dynamics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tyrväinen, Pasi; Warsta, Juhani; Seppänen, Veikko

Primary software industry originates from IBM's decision to unbundle software-related computer system development activities to external partners. This kind of outsourcing from an enterprise internal software development activity is a common means to start a new software business serving a vertical software market. It combines knowledge of the vertical market process with competence in software development. In this research, we present and analyze the key figures of the Finnish secondary software industry, in order to quantify its interaction with the primary software industry during the period of 2000-2003. On the basis of the empirical data, we present a model for evolution of a secondary software business, which makes explicit the industry dynamics. It represents the shift from internal software developed for competitive advantage to development of products supporting standard business processes on top of standardized technologies. We also discuss the implications for software business strategies in each phase.

Architecture for Integrated Medical Model Dynamic Probabilistic Risk Assessment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Jaworske, D. A.; Myers, J. G.; Goodenow, D.; Young, M.; Arellano, J. D.

2016-01-01

Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) is a modeling tool used to predict potential outcomes of a complex system based on a statistical understanding of many initiating events. Utilizing a Monte Carlo method, thousands of instances of the model are considered and outcomes are collected. PRA is considered static, utilizing probabilities alone to calculate outcomes. Dynamic Probabilistic Risk Assessment (dPRA) is an advanced concept where modeling predicts the outcomes of a complex system based not only on the probabilities of many initiating events, but also on a progression of dependencies brought about by progressing down a time line. Events are placed in a single time line, adding each event to a queue, as managed by a planner. Progression down the time line is guided by rules, as managed by a scheduler. The recently developed Integrated Medical Model (IMM) summarizes astronaut health as governed by the probabilities of medical events and mitigation strategies. Managing the software architecture process provides a systematic means of creating, documenting, and communicating a software design early in the development process. The software architecture process begins with establishing requirements and the design is then derived from the requirements.

Stream Processors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Erez, Mattan; Dally, William J.

Stream processors, like other multi core architectures partition their functional units and storage into multiple processing elements. In contrast to typical architectures, which contain symmetric general-purpose cores and a cache hierarchy, stream processors have a significantly leaner design. Stream processors are specifically designed for the stream execution model, in which applications have large amounts of explicit parallel computation, structured and predictable control, and memory accesses that can be performed at a coarse granularity. Applications in the streaming model are expressed in a gather-compute-scatter form, yielding programs with explicit control over transferring data to and from on-chip memory. Relying on these characteristics, which are common to many media processing and scientific computing applications, stream architectures redefine the boundary between software and hardware responsibilities with software bearing much of the complexity required to manage concurrency, locality, and latency tolerance. Thus, stream processors have minimal control consisting of fetching medium- and coarse-grained instructions and executing them directly on the many ALUs. Moreover, the on-chip storage hierarchy of stream processors is under explicit software control, as is all communication, eliminating the need for complex reactive hardware mechanisms.

System Engineering Strategy for Distributed Multi-Purpose Simulation Architectures

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bhula, Dlilpkumar; Kurt, Cindy Marie; Luty, Roger

2007-01-01

This paper describes the system engineering approach used to develop distributed multi-purpose simulations. The multi-purpose simulation architecture focuses on user needs, operations, flexibility, cost and maintenance. This approach was used to develop an International Space Station (ISS) simulator, which is called the International Space Station Integrated Simulation (ISIS)1. The ISIS runs unmodified ISS flight software, system models, and the astronaut command and control interface in an open system design that allows for rapid integration of multiple ISS models. The initial intent of ISIS was to provide a distributed system that allows access to ISS flight software and models for the creation, test, and validation of crew and ground controller procedures. This capability reduces the cost and scheduling issues associated with utilizing standalone simulators in fixed locations, and facilitates discovering unknowns and errors earlier in the development lifecycle. Since its inception, the flexible architecture of the ISIS has allowed its purpose to evolve to include ground operator system and display training, flight software modification testing, and as a realistic test bed for Exploration automation technology research and development.

Final Technical Report - Center for Technology for Advanced Scientific Component Software (TASCS)

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Sussman, Alan

2014-10-21

This is a final technical report for the University of Maryland work in the SciDAC Center for Technology for Advanced Scientific Component Software (TASCS). The Maryland work focused on software tools for coupling parallel software components built using the Common Component Architecture (CCA) APIs. Those tools are based on the Maryland InterComm software framework that has been used in multiple computational science applications to build large-scale simulations of complex physical systems that employ multiple separately developed codes.

An Object Oriented Extensible Architecture for Affordable Aerospace Propulsion Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Follen, Gregory J.; Lytle, John K. (Technical Monitor)

2002-01-01

Driven by a need to explore and develop propulsion systems that exceeded current computing capabilities, NASA Glenn embarked on a novel strategy leading to the development of an architecture that enables propulsion simulations never thought possible before. Full engine 3 Dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamic propulsion system simulations were deemed impossible due to the impracticality of the hardware and software computing systems required. However, with a software paradigm shift and an embracing of parallel and distributed processing, an architecture was designed to meet the needs of future propulsion system modeling. The author suggests that the architecture designed at the NASA Glenn Research Center for propulsion system modeling has potential for impacting the direction of development of affordable weapons systems currently under consideration by the Applied Vehicle Technology Panel (AVT). This paper discusses the salient features of the NPSS Architecture including its interface layer, object layer, implementation for accessing legacy codes, numerical zooming infrastructure and its computing layer. The computing layer focuses on the use and deployment of these propulsion simulations on parallel and distributed computing platforms which has been the focus of NASA Ames. Additional features of the object oriented architecture that support MultiDisciplinary (MD) Coupling, computer aided design (CAD) access and MD coupling objects will be discussed. Included will be a discussion of the successes, challenges and benefits of implementing this architecture.

Principles to Products: Toward Realizing MOS 2.0

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bindschadler, Duane L.; Delp, Christopher L.

2012-01-01

This is a report on the Operations Revitalization Initiative, part of the ongoing NASA-funded Advanced Multi-Mission Operations Systems (AMMOS) program. We are implementing products that significantly improve efficiency and effectiveness of Mission Operations Systems (MOS) for deep-space missions. We take a multi-mission approach, in keeping with our organization's charter to "provide multi-mission tools and services that enable mission customers to operate at a lower total cost to NASA." Focusing first on architectural fundamentals of the MOS, we review the effort's progress. In particular, we note the use of stakeholder interactions and consideration of past lessons learned to motivate a set of Principles that guide the evolution of the AMMOS. Thus guided, we have created essential patterns and connections (detailed in companion papers) that are explicitly modeled and support elaboration at multiple levels of detail (system, sub-system, element...) throughout a MOS. This architecture is realized in design and implementation products that provide lifecycle support to a Mission at the system and subsystem level. The products include adaptable multi-mission engineering documentation that describes essentials such as operational concepts and scenarios, requirements, interfaces and agreements, information models, and mission operations processes. Because we have adopted a model-based system engineering method, these documents and their contents are meaningfully related to one another and to the system model. This means they are both more rigorous and reusable (from mission to mission) than standard system engineering products. The use of models also enables detailed, early (e.g., formulation phase) insight into the impact of changes (e.g., to interfaces or to software) that is rigorous and complete, allowing better decisions on cost or technical trades. Finally, our work provides clear and rigorous specification of operations needs to software developers, further enabling significant gains in productivity.

Towards Behavioral Reflexion Models

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ackermann, Christopher; Lindvall, Mikael; Cleaveland, Rance

2009-01-01

Software architecture has become essential in the struggle to manage today s increasingly large and complex systems. Software architecture views are created to capture important system characteristics on an abstract and, thus, comprehensible level. As the system is implemented and later maintained, it often deviates from the original design specification. Such deviations can have implication for the quality of the system, such as reliability, security, and maintainability. Software architecture compliance checking approaches, such as the reflexion model technique, have been proposed to address this issue by comparing the implementation to a model of the systems architecture design. However, architecture compliance checking approaches focus solely on structural characteristics and ignore behavioral conformance. This is especially an issue in Systems-of- Systems. Systems-of-Systems (SoS) are decompositions of large systems, into smaller systems for the sake of flexibility. Deviations of the implementation to its behavioral design often reduce the reliability of the entire SoS. An approach is needed that supports the reasoning about behavioral conformance on architecture level. In order to address this issue, we have developed an approach for comparing the implementation of a SoS to an architecture model of its behavioral design. The approach follows the idea of reflexion models and adopts it to support the compliance checking of behaviors. In this paper, we focus on sequencing properties as they play an important role in many SoS. Sequencing deviations potentially have a severe impact on the SoS correctness and qualities. The desired behavioral specification is defined in UML sequence diagram notation and behaviors are extracted from the SoS implementation. The behaviors are then mapped to the model of the desired behavior and the two are compared. Finally, a reflexion model is constructed that shows the deviations between behavioral design and implementation. This paper discusses the approach and shows how it can be applied to investigate reliability issues in SoS.

Understanding the fundamental mechanisms of biofilms development and dispersal: BIAM (Biofilm Intensity and Architecture Measurement), a new tool for studying biofilms as a function of their architecture and fluorescence intensity.

PubMed

Baudin, Marine; Cinquin, Bertrand; Sclavi, Bianca; Pareau, Dominique; Lopes, Filipa

2017-09-01

Confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) is one of the most relevant technologies for studying biofilms in situ. Several tools have been developed to investigate and quantify the architecture of biofilms. However, an approach to quantify correctly the evolution of intensity of a fluorescent signal as a function of the structural parameters of a biofilm is still lacking. Here we present a tool developed in the ImageJ open source software that can be used to extract both structural and fluorescence intensity from CLSM data: BIAM (Biofilm Intensity and Architecture Measurement). This is of utmost significance when studying the fundamental mechanisms of biofilm growth, differentiation and development or when aiming to understand the effect of external molecules on biofilm phenotypes. In order to provide an example of the potential of such a tool in this study we focused on biofilm dispersion. cis-2-Decenoic acid (CDA) is a molecule known to induce biofilm dispersion of multiple bacterial species. The mechanisms by which CDA induces dispersion are still poorly understood. To investigate the effects of CDA on biofilms, we used a reporter strain of Escherichia coli (E. coli) that expresses the GFPmut2 protein under control of the rrnBP1 promoter. Experiments were done in flow cells and image acquisition was made with CLSM. Analysis carried out using the new tool, BIAM, indicates that CDA affects the fluorescence intensity of the biofilm structures as well as biofilm architectures. Indeed, our results demonstrate that CDA removes more than 35% of biofilm biovolume and suggest that it results in an increase of the biofilm's mean fluorescence intensity (MFI) by more than 26% compared to the control biofilm in the absence of CDA. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V.

High performance VLSI telemetry data systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Chesney, J.; Speciale, N.; Horner, W.; Sabia, S.

1990-01-01

NASA's deployment of major space complexes such as Space Station Freedom (SSF) and the Earth Observing System (EOS) will demand increased functionality and performance from ground based telemetry acquisition systems well above current system capabilities. Adaptation of space telemetry data transport and processing standards such as those specified by the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) standards and those required for commercial ground distribution of telemetry data, will drive these functional and performance requirements. In addition, budget limitations will force the requirement for higher modularity, flexibility, and interchangeability at lower cost in new ground telemetry data system elements. At NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), the design and development of generic ground telemetry data system elements, over the last five years, has resulted in significant solutions to these problems. This solution, referred to as the functional components approach includes both hardware and software components ready for end user application. The hardware functional components consist of modern data flow architectures utilizing Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC's) developed specifically to support NASA's telemetry data systems needs and designed to meet a range of data rate requirements up to 300 Mbps. Real-time operating system software components support both embedded local software intelligence, and overall system control, status, processing, and interface requirements. These components, hardware and software, form the superstructure upon which project specific elements are added to complete a telemetry ground data system installation. This paper describes the functional components approach, some specific component examples, and a project example of the evolution from VLSI component, to basic board level functional component, to integrated telemetry data system.

Development and integration of a LabVIEW-based modular architecture for automated execution of electrochemical catalyst testing.

PubMed

Topalov, Angel A; Katsounaros, Ioannis; Meier, Josef C; Klemm, Sebastian O; Mayrhofer, Karl J J

2011-11-01

This paper describes a system for performing electrochemical catalyst testing where all hardware components are controlled simultaneously using a single LabVIEW-based software application. The software that we developed can be operated in both manual mode for exploratory investigations and automatic mode for routine measurements, by using predefined execution procedures. The latter enables the execution of high-throughput or combinatorial investigations, which decrease substantially the time and cost for catalyst testing. The software was constructed using a modular architecture which simplifies the modification or extension of the system, depending on future needs. The system was tested by performing stability tests of commercial fuel cell electrocatalysts, and the advantages of the developed system are discussed. © 2011 American Institute of Physics

SSME digital control design characteristics

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mitchell, W. T.; Searle, R. F.

1985-01-01

To protect against a latent programming error (software fault) existing in an untried branch combination that would render the space shuttle out of control in a critical flight phase, the Backup Flight System (BFS) was chartered to provide a safety alternative. The BFS is designed to operate in critical flight phases (ascent and descent) by monitoring the activities of the space shuttle flight subsystems that are under control of the primary flight software (PFS) (e.g., navigation, crew interface, propulsion), then, upon manual command by the flightcrew, to assume control of the space shuttle and deliver it to a noncritical flight condition (safe orbit or touchdown). The problems associated with the selection of the PFS/BFS system architecture, the internal BFS architecture, the fault tolerant software mechanisms, and the long term BFS utility are discussed.

Adaptive Software Architecture Based on Confident HCI for the Deployment of Sensitive Services in Smart Homes

PubMed Central

Vega-Barbas, Mario; Pau, Iván; Martín-Ruiz, María Luisa; Seoane, Fernando

2015-01-01

Smart spaces foster the development of natural and appropriate forms of human-computer interaction by taking advantage of home customization. The interaction potential of the Smart Home, which is a special type of smart space, is of particular interest in fields in which the acceptance of new technologies is limited and restrictive. The integration of smart home design patterns with sensitive solutions can increase user acceptance. In this paper, we present the main challenges that have been identified in the literature for the successful deployment of sensitive services (e.g., telemedicine and assistive services) in smart spaces and a software architecture that models the functionalities of a Smart Home platform that are required to maintain and support such sensitive services. This architecture emphasizes user interaction as a key concept to facilitate the acceptance of sensitive services by end-users and utilizes activity theory to support its innovative design. The application of activity theory to the architecture eases the handling of novel concepts, such as understanding of the system by patients at home or the affordability of assistive services. Finally, we provide a proof-of-concept implementation of the architecture and compare the results with other architectures from the literature. PMID:25815449

Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on a Research Agenda for Maintenance and Evolution of Service-Oriented Systems (MESOA 2009)

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-02-01

through software -as-a- service ( SaaS ) (Nitu 2009, Sedayao 2008). In practice, an organization’s initial SOA implementation almost never attempts to cover...004 Nitu. "Configurability in SaaS ( Software as a Service ) Applications." Proceedings of the 2nd An- nual Conference on India Software Engineering...and evolution of service -oriented systems. In 2007, the Software Engineering Institute started assembling a SOA Research Agenda based on a

Achieving Better Buying Power for Mobile Open Architecture Software Systems Through Diverse Acquisition Scenarios

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-04-30

software (OSS) and proprietary (CSS) software elements or remote services (Scacchi, 2002, 2010), eventually including recent efforts to support Web ...specific platforms, including those operating on secured Web /mobile devices.  Common Development Technology provides AC development tools and common...transition to OA systems and OSS software elements, specifically for Web and Mobile devices within the realm of C3CB. OA, Open APIs, OSS, and CSS OA

Benefits of Software GPS Receivers for Enhanced Signal Processing

DTIC Science & Technology

2000-01-01

1 Published in GPS SOLUTIONS 4(1) Summer, 2000, pages 56-66. Benefits of Software GPS Receivers for Enhanced Signal Processing Alison Brown...Diego, CA 92110-3127 Number of Pages: 24 Number of Figures: 20 ABSTRACT In this paper the architecture of a software GPS receiver is described...and an analysis is included of the performance of a software GPS receiver when tracking the GPS signals in challenging environments. Results are