N-Version Software Demonstration for Digital Flight Controls.

Abstract

This report illustrates how four independently developed versions of digital flight controls applications software might be used in quadruplex system architecture. This approach to software fault tolerance is called N-version software. Here each computer channel has distinct versions of Ada programming units performing the same functions concurrently. Since intermediate software results are voted to detect and isolate discrepant computations, cross-channel synchronization occurs at each voting plane. The demonstration of this system was based on a high-level software design, English language specifications, and associated Ada program unit specifications parts. The demonstration was performed in non-realtime on a single VAX 8600 computer using an Ada multitasking test harness to effect voting plane synchronization and test case application and analyses. Keywords include: Ada Programming Language, Digital flight controls, Multitasking Test harness, N-Version programming, Quadruplex redundancy, Software fault tolerance, Software specification, and Software testing .

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 01, 1987
Accession Number
ADA189864

Entities

People

  • Dennis B. Mulcare
  • Lynn A. Barton

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Cyber
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes
  • Sensors
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aircrafts
  • Altimeters
  • Altitude
  • Computer Programming
  • Computer Programs
  • Computers
  • Control Systems
  • Detectors
  • Flight Control Systems
  • High Level Languages
  • Intellectual Property
  • Operating Systems
  • Programming Languages
  • Radar Altimeters
  • Reliability
  • Software Development
  • Software Testing

Fields of Study

  • Computer science
  • Engineering

Readers

  • Fault Tolerant Diagnosis of Black and White Balloon Isolation Tests Using ¥.
  • Parallel and Distributed Computing.
  • Software Engineering.