Objective: Provide experimenters with real-time, onboard processing.
In the early 1990s I worked at NASA Armstrong, aka Dryden and developed the architecture and initial hardware and software for the Airborne Research Test System for use on the
F-18 Systems Research Aircraft. This system combined deterministic rate structured and multitasking operating systems. This enabled flight controls research to be combined with more conventional computer systems utilizing ethernet and other communication protocols. The system architecture consisted of two VME back planes connected by a duel port memory which provide communication between the real time and multitasking operating systems.
The system was designed to be modular both in terms of hardware and software. The modular hardware enabled ease of modification of the flight LRU in order to support various missions an CONOPS. The modular object oriented software was configured using script, configuration and data files. The goal being systems modification with recompiling the software. The system consisted of a number of VME cards which included processors, and a dual port memory board as well as interfaces for the 1553 data bus, ethernet, analog/discrete I/O, and IRIG time code. The hardware consisted of of-the-shelf VME boards and a ruggedized chassis that I designed and performed environmental testing. The VME board were modified as needed to in order to pass vibration, thermal and altitude testing.
The ARTS concept and architecture had been in use at NASA for 25 years and ending with the Fourth Generation (ARTS IV). The ARTS IV system supports experiment development in Simulink that is auto-coded to run in the ARTS IV as part of the F/A-18 Intelligent Flight Control System.