Advanced manned space flight simulation and training: An investigation of simulation host computer system concepts

The findings of a preliminary investigation by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in simulation host computer concepts is presented. It is designed to aid NASA in evaluating simulation technologies for use in spaceflight training. The focus of the investigation is on the next generation of space simulation systems that will be utilized in training personnel for Space Station Freedom operations. SwRI concludes that NASA should pursue a distributed simulation host computer system architecture for the Space Station Training Facility (SSTF) rather than a centralized mainframe based arrangement. A distributed system offers many advantages and is seen by SwRI as the only architecture that will allow NASA to achieve established functional goals and operational objectives over the life of the Space Station Freedom program. Several distributed, parallel computing systems are available today that offer real-time capabilities for time critical, man-in-the-loop simulation. These systems are flexible in terms of connectivity and configurability, and are easily scaled to meet increasing demands for more computing power

Collected software engineering papers, volume 9

This document is a collection of selected technical papers produced by participants in the Software Engineering Laboratory (SEL) from November 1990 through October 1991. The purpose of the document is to make available, in one reference, some results of SEL research that originally appeared in a number of different forums. This is the ninth such volume of technical papers produced by the SEL. Although these papers cover several topics related to software engineering, they do not encompass the entire scope of SEL activities and interests. For the convenience of this presentation, the eight papers contained here are grouped into three major categories: (1) software models studies; (2) software measurement studies; and (3) Ada technology studies. The first category presents studies on reuse models, including a software reuse model applied to maintenance and a model for an organization to support software reuse. The second category includes experimental research methods and software measurement techniques. The third category presents object-oriented approaches using Ada and object-oriented features proposed for Ada. The SEL is actively working to understand and improve the software development process at GSFC

Proposals for enhancement of the Ada programming language:a software engineering perspective

This thesis is a critique of the Ada 83 programming language with emphasis on the construction of reusable components and their composition, and more generally on programming "in the large". Ada 83's deficiencies in that area are first described, and then solutions are proposed to most of the problems. The main part of the thesis is a proposal for object-oriented extensions, making classes and objects with inheritance available through package and task types, as a very natural extension of Ada 83's task types. These proposals can be viewed as an alternative to Ada 9X's tagged types, with which a comparison is made

Proposals for Enhancement for the Ada Programming Language: A Software Engineering Perspective

For an abstract and an HTML version of the thesis, please visit http://lgl.epfl.ch/Team/MW/Ada-Extensions/Ada-Extensions.html</a