Enabling Interoperability of Native Engineering Toolsets with System Simulations and Flight Software

Historically, migrating missile subsystem analysis products from a domain specific tool set into a cohesive subsystem architecture, and then finally into a program-specific system simulation has proven to be a labor-intensive, time consuming process. Lack of model standardization has resulted in adverse program schedule impacts, dilution of engineering resources and limited opportunities for reuse. The reason for this state of affairs is two-fold: First, functional domain experts develop algorithms using discipline-specific, native tool sets, which in turn create products that are not readily integrated into system simulations and subsequently into embedded Operational Flight Software (OFS). Second, development programs, operating under unique system requirements, have often adopted highly unique simulation architectures and models to meet their specific needs. Often this approach has resulted in minimal opportunities for model reuse and for cross-program synergy in the systems, simulation and software domain. A generic model development process has been developed that can be adopted and tailored to meet a programs’ specific requirements and needs, yet also maximize synergy through reuse. The generic process presented in this paper reduces tool set / model integration time into an Integrated Flight Simulation (IFS) from several weeks to a matter of days (or even hours). The process further facilitates extensibility of algorithms from the IFS development domain into the flight software domain. The results are achieved through using a combination of Object-Oriented (OO) software development techniques and by focusing engineers’ efforts across a broader development spectrum.