Over the past decade there has been an ever accelerating series of changes that have directed how modem avionics systems are developed, tested, and evaluated. These changes span both technological and programmatic issues. Some of the more important issues are:
Level of System Complexity and Integration:
Starting with the Navy F/A- 18 and the Air Force F- 16, the level of system integration and complexity in modem avionics systems began to rapidly expand. What used to be relatively independent avionics system components were integrated under the control of a central computer with control capability and status information provided to the operator in the form of hands-on throttle and stick (HOTAS) controls and computer controlled multifunction displays. More recent aircraft have carried this trend further by providing more processing power in the form of federated computer systems and hierarchical system designs. The result is that system complexity has grown explosively with an attendant increase in the test requirements necessary to adequately evaluate these systems and accurately predict operational performance prior to system introduction.
Constrained Development, Test and Evaluation Budgets:
Even prior to the implosion of the Soviet threat, DOD felt increased pressure to constrain development and test program costs. This pressure drove programmatic changes both towards reducing traditional systems development costs and towards finding new and innovative development/test strategies that could be used to reduce cost via improved development efficiency. In today’s political environment in which defense budgets are facing further reductions, this trend continues to accelerate.
Sophistication and Variability of the Threat:
The political changes in Eastern Europe have not reduced the sophistication of the threats that are likely to be encountered by today’s systems. In the quest for hard currency, what is left: of the Soviet Union is exporting its latest weapons technology, including aircraft and air defense systems. The result is that an aircraft: weapons system operator is likely to find the latest in defensive or offensive weapons systems in even a third world country. The sophistication of the users of this equipment will still be variable. Cases will still occur, such as in Iraq, where the operators do not use the equipment to its fullest advantage. However, the designer of U.S. weapons systems must still anticipate an encounter with the most sophisticated equipment in the hands of well trained and dedicated operators.
The conflicting requirements for more sophisticated systems requiring increasingly complex and realistic testing in the face of constrained budgets have begun to give rise to new program development concepts and innovative test/development facilities. These facilities support program development methodologies that provide increased system design and analysis prior to committing to hardware and a level of laboratory based development, test and evaluation support that allows realistic integrated system testing in the laboratory as a supplement to costly and increasingly scarce flight testing. One technological driver in the development of these facilities has been the increased use of standard avionics bus architectures in contemporary systems. This has led to increased modularity in avionics system designs which has also transferred to design concepts for avionics systems development/test facilities. This paper addresses some of the aspects of these new development methodologies and discusses integration and test system facility designs to support these methodologies. Where appropriate, specific examples of existing facility designs and capabilities are presented.
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