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Engineering Complex Embedded Systems with State Analysis and the Mission Data SystemIt has become clear that spacecraft system complexity is reaching a threshold where customary methods of control are no longer affordable or sufficiently reliable. At the heart of this problem are the conventional approaches to systems and software engineering based on subsystem-level functional decomposition, which fail to scale in the tangled web of interactions typically encountered in complex spacecraft designs. Furthermore, there is a fundamental gap between the requirements on software specified by systems engineers and the implementation of these requirements by software engineers. Software engineers must perform the translation of requirements into software code, hoping to accurately capture the systems engineer's understanding of the system behavior, which is not always explicitly specified. This gap opens up the possibility for misinterpretation of the systems engineer s intent, potentially leading to software errors. This problem is addressed by a systems engineering methodology called State Analysis, which provides a process for capturing system and software requirements in the form of explicit models. This paper describes how requirements for complex aerospace systems can be developed using State Analysis and how these requirements inform the design of the system software, using representative spacecraft examples.
Document ID
20070019287
Acquisition Source
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Document Type
Conference Paper
External Source(s)
Authors
Ingham, Michel D.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Rasmussen, Robert D.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Bennett, Matthew B.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Moncada, Alex C.
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Date Acquired
August 23, 2013
Publication Date
September 20, 2004
Subject Category
Computer Systems
Meeting Information
Meeting: AIAA Intelligent Systems Technical Conference
Location: Chicago, IL
Country: United States
Start Date: September 20, 2006
End Date: September 22, 2006
Sponsors: American Inst. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, American Inst. of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other
Keywords
mission data systems
state analysis
systems engineering

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