Model-Based Tool Qualification The Roadmap of Eclipse towards Tool Qualification

Abstract. In this paper we describe the model-based approach to tool qualification starting from the process model for the determination of the qualification need until the model for test and qualification. The model-based approach can automate many steps from checking the syntactical requirements completeness until the determination whether all requirements have been implemented and successfully tested. Many required documents like the "Tool Requirements Specification" or "Tool Test Specification" can be generated from the model. The model-based approach has been shown to fulfill all requirements from the DO-330 standard which describes tool qualification for avionic, automotive and other industries. Therefore the Eclipse Foundation has chosen this standard and proposed a roadmap to provide support for the development of qualifiable Eclipse-based tools. This paper describes the model-based approach and the roadmap of Eclipse to support this process

Polarsys towards Long-Term Availability of Engineering Tools for Embedded Systems

International audienceThe Polarsys Industrial Working Group (http://www.polarsys.org) addresses specific issues of industrial users who develop and maintain Embedded Systems:• A satellite needs to be supported for more than 25 years.• An aircraft flight control system must be "certified" according to safety standards, including the tooling used to produce the software.During the whole life cycle of the product, system architects and developers of embedded systems need maturity assessment and long lasting support for their tooling. These concerns are also relevant in other safety-regulated environments like railway or energy, and for other domains with long life products like telecommunication or healthcare

Open Source Platforms for Big Data Analytics

O conceito de Big Data tem tido um grande impacto no campo da tecnologia, em particular na gestão e análise de enormes volumes de informação. Atualmente, as organizações consideram o Big Data como uma oportunidade para gerir e explorar os seus dados o máximo possível, com o objetivo de apoiar as suas decisões dentro das diferentes áreas operacionais. Assim, é necessário analisar vários conceitos sobre o Big Data e o Big Data Analytics, incluindo definições, características, vantagens e desafios. As ferramentas de Business Intelligence (BI), juntamente com a geração de conhecimento, são conceitos fundamentais para o processo de tomada de decisão e transformação da informação. Ao investigar as plataformas de Big Data, as práticas industriais atuais e as tendências relacionadas com o mundo da investigação, é possível entender o impacto do Big Data Analytics nas pequenas organizações. Este trabalho pretende propor soluções para as micro, pequenas ou médias empresas (PME) que têm um grande impacto na economia portuguesa, dado que representam a maioria do tecido empresarial. As plataformas de código aberto para o Big Data Analytics oferecem uma grande oportunidade de inovação nas PMEs. Este trabalho de pesquisa apresenta uma análise comparativa das funcionalidades e características das plataformas e os passos a serem tomados para uma análise mais profunda e comparativa. Após a análise comparativa, apresentamos uma avaliação e seleção de plataformas Big Data Analytics (BDA) usando e adaptando a metodologia QSOS (Qualification and Selection of software Open Source) para qualificação e seleção de software open-source. O resultado desta avaliação e seleção traduziu-se na eleição de duas plataformas para os testes experimentais. Nas plataformas de software livre de BDA foi usado o mesmo conjunto de dados assim como a mesma configuração de hardware e software. Na comparação das duas plataformas, demonstrou que a HPCC Systems Platform é mais eficiente e confiável que a Hortonworks Data Platform. Em particular, as PME portuguesas devem considerar as plataformas BDA como uma oportunidade de obter vantagem competitiva e melhorar os seus processos e, consequentemente, definir uma estratégia de TI e de negócio. Por fim, este é um trabalho sobre Big Data, que se espera que sirva como um convite e motivação para novos trabalhos de investigação.The concept of Big Data has been having a great impact in the field of technology, particularly in the management and analysis of huge volumes of information. Nowadays organizations look for Big Data as an opportunity to manage and explore their data the maximum they can, with the objective of support decisions within its different operational areas. Thus, it is necessary to analyse several concepts about Big Data and Big Data Analytics, including definitions, features, advantages and disadvantages. Business intelligence along with the generation of knowledge are fundamental concepts for the process of decision-making and transformation of information. By investigate today's big data platforms, current industrial practices and related trends in the research world, it is possible to understand the impact of Big Data Analytics on small organizations. This research intends to propose solutions for micro, small or médium enterprises (SMEs) that have a great impact on the Portuguese economy since they represente approximately 90% of the companies in Portugal. The open source platforms for Big Data Analytics offers a great opportunity for SMEs. This research work presents a comparative analysis of those platforms features and functionalities and the steps that will be taken for a more profound and comparative analysis. After the comparative analysis, we present an evaluation and selection of Big Data Analytics (BDA) platforms using and adapting the Qualification and Selection of software Open Source (QSOS) method. The result of this evaluation and selection was the selection of two platforms for the empirical experiment and tests. The same testbed and dataset was used in the two Open Source Big Data Analytics platforms. When comparing two BDA platforms, HPCC Systems Platform is found to be more efficient and reliable than Hortonworks Data Platform. In particular, Portuguese SMEs should consider for BDA platforms an opportunity to obtain competitive advantage and improve their processes and consequently define an IT and business strategy. Finally, this is a research work on Big Data; it is hoped that this will serve as an invitation and motivation for new research

The selection of an electric propulsion subsystem architecture for high-power space missions

The arise of high-power electric propulsion is paving the way towards new horizons of space exploration. Hall thrusters represent a promising propulsion concept, able to fulfil challenging mission requirements for both commercial and exploration applications. This technology offers several benefits in terms of flexibility of operation, extensive lifetime and high reliability. However, the design of a high-power electric propulsion subsystem (E-PROP) still presents challenges to address. Filling the corresponding technological gaps will open new market opportunities, owing mainly to the extension of mission capabilities and the reduction of the overall mission costs. Therefore, investigations of innovative technology alternatives will allow to identify the most promising E-PROP architectures for various high-power mission scenarios. One of the most critical trade-off to perform is between a high-power monolithic thruster and a cluster of thrusters of lower power. Another criticality is the amount of propellant necessary to perform high delta-v missions. The high price of xenon prompted the investigation on alternative propellants, such as krypton. The propellant selection should consider the impact on different aspects of the platform design, including performance, system complexity and mission costs. Last, due to the high-power levels that the E-PROP shall manage, a different architecture can be implemented by adopting the direct-drive approach, i.e. a direct and non-isolated connection between the solar array and the thruster. However, even if the disruptive direct-drive technology allows a significant reduction in the EP system mass and cost, its implementation rises additional challenges to the design of the spacecraft power subsystem. This paper analyses the impact of innovative architecture solutions on the design of a high-power E-PROP. In the framework of this research, we first carried out an extensive investigation of possible mission scenarios and we derived corresponding mission requirements and constrains. Then, we performed three technological trade-offs: monolithic 20 kW vs 5 kW cluster configuration, Xe vs Kr propellant and direct-drive vs standard PPU. All the analysis are based on the experimental data obtained during the 5 kW and 20 kW thrusters development and characterisation at SITAEL. We characterized each design option through several figures of merit, evaluating them for each identified mission scenario. We exploited an Analytical Hierarchy Process for the trade-off analyses and a Monte Carlo method to perform the preliminary evaluation of the trade-off weights. The analyses are based on the research activities that are currently ongoing at SITAEL and PoliTo in the framework of 20 kW E-PROP development programmes. The results of the work highlight the effects of each architecture alternative on both platform design and mission performance

Formal verification of automotive embedded UML designs

Software applications are increasingly dominating safety critical domains. Safety critical domains are domains where the failure of any application could impact human lives. Software application safety has been overlooked for quite some time but more focus and attention is currently directed to this area due to the exponential growth of software embedded applications. Software systems have continuously faced challenges in managing complexity associated with functional growth, flexibility of systems so that they can be easily modified, scalability of solutions across several product lines, quality and reliability of systems, and finally the ability to detect defects early in design phases. AUTOSAR was established to develop open standards to address these challenges. ISO-26262, automotive functional safety standard, aims to ensure functional safety of automotive systems by providing requirements and processes to govern software lifecycle to ensure safety. Each functional system needs to be classified in terms of safety goals, risks and Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL: A, B, C and D) with ASIL D denoting the most stringent safety level. As risk of the system increases, ASIL level increases and the standard mandates more stringent methods to ensure safety. ISO-26262 mandates that ASILs C and D classified systems utilize walkthrough, semi-formal verification, inspection, control flow analysis, data flow analysis, static code analysis and semantic code analysis techniques to verify software unit design and implementation. Ensuring software specification compliance via formal methods has remained an academic endeavor for quite some time. Several factors discourage formal methods adoption in the industry. One major factor is the complexity of using formal methods. Software specification compliance in automotive remains in the bulk heavily dependent on traceability matrix, human based reviews, and testing activities conducted on either actual production software level or simulation level. ISO26262 automotive safety standard recommends, although not strongly, using formal notations in automotive systems that exhibit high risk in case of failure yet the industry still heavily relies on semi-formal notations such as UML. The use of semi-formal notations makes specification compliance still heavily dependent on manual processes and testing efforts. In this research, we propose a framework where UML finite state machines are compiled into formal notations, specification requirements are mapped into formal model theorems and SAT/SMT solvers are utilized to validate implementation compliance to specification. The framework will allow semi-formal verification of AUTOSAR UML designs via an automated formal framework backbone. This semi-formal verification framework will allow automotive software to comply with ISO-26262 ASIL C and D unit design and implementation formal verification guideline. Semi-formal UML finite state machines are automatically compiled into formal notations based on Symbolic Analysis Laboratory formal notation. Requirements are captured in the UML design and compiled automatically into theorems. Model Checkers are run against the compiled formal model and theorems to detect counterexamples that violate the requirements in the UML model. Semi-formal verification of the design allows us to uncover issues that were previously detected in testing and production stages. The methodology is applied on several automotive systems to show how the framework automates the verification of UML based designs, the de-facto standard for automotive systems design, based on an implicit formal methodology while hiding the cons that discouraged the industry from using it. Additionally, the framework automates ISO-26262 system design verification guideline which would otherwise be verified via human error prone approaches

EPS architecture analysis for future highpower missions

The space tug can represent a valid solution to provide transportation capabilities for future space missions. In particular, the tug can be effectively adopted for different applications such as electric orbit raising for commercial satellites and cargo transfer to resupply space infrastructures. The adoption of high-power electric propulsion is a fundamental enabler for these mission scenarios, owing to its advantages in terms of long lifetime, high performance and operational flexibility. However, further investigation should be performed in order to optimize the design of the space tug considering different architecture alternatives. We defined two sets of thruster operative points for a more representative comparison of EPS architecture cases. In particular, we analyzed three aspects: the adoption of a cluster of thrusters vs the monolithic approach; the implementation of a direct drive power supply vs the traditional power processing unit; the selection of krypton propellant vs xenon. The design of the space tug is performed with MAGNETO tool, a software developed in a collaboration between SITAEL and Politecnico di Torino in the framework of an ESA GSTP project. The results are compared by means of the analytical hierarchy process to identify the optimal design solution for the spacecraft design

Usage Analysis & Demonstrators - Version 2.0

This second version of the "Usage Analysis and Demonstrators " document mainly presents four case studies done during the second part of the SCOrWare project: ● (Task 3.1) Component and service-oriented architecture in the Scientific Software field (improvements of works done during the first year) ● (Task 3.2) SCA as a SOA design methodology in the domain of CDE (Collaborative Development Environment). Following the withdraw of one of the partners (eXo Platform, provider of an open-source portal solution) during the first year, some changes have been decided during the second part of the project and an alternative demonstrator has been designed. ● (Task 3.3) How SCA contributes to reusing and enriching software components. Following the first year project's review, this scenario has been reinforced, and is the major demonstrator for the SCOrWare platform in the field of enterprise business applications. ● (Task 3.5) Using the SCOrWare platform and a component-oriented architecture in the context of a network monitoring system. A new partner (Thales Communications, in collaboration with Open Wide and EBM Websourcing) has joined the SCOrWare consortium during the second part of the project, following the withdraw of Amadeus

Marshall Space Flight Center Research and Technology Report 2018

Many of NASAs missions would not be possible if it were not for the investments made in research advancements and technology development efforts. The technologies developed at Marshall Space Flight Center contribute to NASAs strategic array of missions through technology development and accomplishments. The scientists, researchers, and technologists of Marshall Space Flight Center who are working these enabling technology efforts are facilitating NASAs ability to fulfill the ambitious goals of innovation, exploration, and discovery