Environment for Signal Processing Application Development and PrOtotypiNg - ESPADON
Abstract
Defence industries are increasingly expected to field state-of-the-art products, at significantly lower costs, over significantly shorter time scales, and with significantly greater functionality. New designs, as well as design upgrades, are expected to keep pace with technology advancements, particularly in microelectronics. These constraints, and others, are forcing industry increasingly towards Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) components (hardware and software). The advantages are reduced costs and state-of-the-art technology compared to proprietary in-house developments, and hard-wired solutions, which have long development times and are invariably out of date by the time the product is commissioned. The disadvantages are principally non-compliance with rigid military specifications of the COTS components and the inability of defence industry product design development and integration methodologies, established over many years, to accommodate the COTS components in an efficient and timely manner. Obsolescence (more acute for bespoke designs) created by COTS components for the long life-cycle military products, is also a key concern and leads to costly retrofits unless the potential design upgrade is included in the design methodology. These major concerns are being addressed for defence embedded signal processing applications by the tri- national European EUCLID/Eurofinder defence programme called ESPADON. The primary objective is to significantly improve (reduced cost and timescales) the process, by which complex military digital processing systems are designed, developed and supported. A new design methodology, and a new development environment, has been reinvented to support this aim through reuse, concurrent engineering, rapid insertion of COTS technology and the key concepts of rapid and virtual prototyping.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 2000
- Accession Number
- ADP010662
Entities
People
- Bbob Madahar
- Brigitte Saget
- Gilbert Edelin
- James L. Smith
- Jan Hunink