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Automating Software Productivity Planning: Lightweight Tools for Upgrading Team Practices.
Abstract not provided.
Landsat-7 Simulation and Testing Environments
A spacecraft Attitude Control and Determination Subsystem (ACDS) is heavily dependent upon simulation throughout its entire development, implementation and ground test cycle. Engineering simulation tools are typically developed to design and analyze control systems to validate the design and software simulation tools are required to qualify the flight software. However, the need for simulation does not end here. Operating the ACDS of a spacecraft on the ground requires the simulation of spacecraft dynamics, disturbance modeling and celestial body motion. Sensor data must also be simulated and substituted for actual sensor data on the ground so that the spacecraft will respond by sending commands to the actuators as they will on orbit. And finally, the simulators is the primary training tool and test-bed for the Flight Operations Team. In this paper various ACDS simulation, developed for or used by the Landsat 7 project will be described. The paper will include a description of each tool, its unique attributes, and its role in the overall development and testing of the ACDS. Finally, a section is included which discusses how the coordinated use of these simulation tools can maximize the probability of uncovering software, hardware and operations errors during the ground test process.
Software For Development Of Expert Systems
Modular software system helps create efficient artificial-intelligence computer programs. STAR*TOOL system: Set of high-level software tools; assists programmers in creation of efficient knowledge-based software systems. Provides language and capabilities for compilation of application programs written in Common LISP. Features modularity enabling elimination of unnecessary capabilities from final application program and achieves greater computing performance. Runs on any computer that supports Common LISP and has sufficient memory. Provides programmer with necessary software tools to build wide variety of reasoning and inference engines for such applications as planning, diagnosis and analysis, and simulation.
A framework for assessing the adequacy and effectiveness of software development methodologies
Tools, techniques, environments, and methodologies dominate the software engineering literature, but relatively little research in the evaluation of methodologies is evident. This work reports an initial attempt to develop a procedural approach to evaluating software development methodologies. Prominent in this approach are: (1) an explication of the role of a methodology in the software development process; (2) the development of a procedure based on linkages among objectives, principles, and attributes; and (3) the establishment of a basis for reduction of the subjective nature of the evaluation through the introduction of properties. An application of the evaluation procedure to two Navy methodologies has provided consistent results that demonstrate the utility and versatility of the evaluation procedure. Current research efforts focus on the continued refinement of the evaluation procedure through the identification and integration of product quality indicators reflective of attribute presence, and the validation of metrics supporting the measure of those indicators. The consequent refinement of the evaluation procedure offers promise of a flexible approach that admits to change as the field of knowledge matures. In conclusion, the procedural approach presented in this paper represents a promising path toward the end goal of objectively evaluating software engineering methodologies.
Global Precipitation Mission Visualization Tool
The Global Precipitation Mission (GPM) software provides graphic visualization tools that enable easy comparison of ground- and space-based radar observations. It was initially designed to compare ground radar reflectivity from operational, ground-based, S- and C-band meteorological radars with comparable measurements from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite's precipitation radar instrument. This design is also applicable to other groundbased and space-based radars, and allows both ground- and space-based radar data to be compared for validation purposes. The tool creates an operational system that routinely performs several steps. It ingests satellite radar data (precipitation radar data from TRMM) and groundbased meteorological radar data from a number of sources. Principally, the ground radar data comes from national networks of weather radars (see figure). The data ingested by the visualization tool must conform to the data formats used in GPM Validation Network Geometry-matched data product generation. The software also performs match-ups of the radar volume data for the ground- and space-based data, as well as statistical and graphical analysis (including two-dimensional graphical displays) on the match-up data. The visualization tool software is written in IDL, and can be operated either in the IDL development environment or as a stand-alone executable function.
Advancing Elemental and Isotopic Analysis of Uranium Mineral Inclusions: Rapid Screening via Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy and High-Resolution Laser Ablation-ICP-MS Mapping
The work presented herein employs two laser-based analytical techniques (laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) and laser ablation – inductively coupled plasma – mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS)) to spatially determine the elemental and isotopic composition of uranium bearing minerals. Uniquely, this work leverages the high-speed applicability of LIBS to “screen” the sample(s) for their elemental constituents. After determining the location of the uranium inclusions (via LIBS), high-resolution LA-ICP-MS was employed to further characterize the inclusions. The high-resolution (sub-µm) capabilities of LA-ICP-MS were able to extract important information from the uranium minerals including discerning its chemical form (e.g., finchite from carnotite, Sr- and K-bearing uranyl vanadates, respectively) as well as their 235 U/ 238 U isotopic composition. This approach, LIBS followed by LA-ICP-MS, significantly reduces the analysis time (~95 %) in comparison to employing a LA-ICP-MS only approach. Furthermore, this work presented a novel approach to analyzing inclusions via a particle/inclusion analysis tool which is commercially available within the iolite 4 software. This tool allowed for a more accurate characterization of the isotopic distribution of the inclusions, as well as allowing for rapid sizing of the inclusions. Finally, this analytical approach could readily be applied to other sample types in which the target species (e.g., µm-sized inclusions) are embedded in complex matrices (e.g., cm-sized samples).
The Future of Software Certification - A Roadmap
We present some thoughts on how automated software analysis tools can support the certification of safety-critical software.
Analytical Tools for Space Suit Design
As indicated by the implementation of multiple small project teams within the agency, NASA is adopting a lean approach to hardware development that emphasizes quick product realization and rapid response to shifting program and agency goals. Over the past two decades, space suit design has been evolutionary in approach with emphasis on building prototypes then testing with the largest practical range of subjects possible. The results of these efforts show continuous improvement but make scaled design and performance predictions almost impossible with limited budgets and little time. Thus, in an effort to start changing the way NASA approaches space suit design and analysis, the Advanced Space Suit group has initiated the development of an integrated design and analysis tool. It is a multi-year-if not decadal-development effort that, when fully implemented, is envisioned to generate analysis of any given space suit architecture or, conversely, predictions of ideal space suit architectures given specific mission parameters. The master tool will exchange information to and from a set of five sub-tool groups in order to generate the desired output. The basic functions of each sub-tool group, the initial relationships between the sub-tools, and a comparison to state of the art software and tools are discussed.
Extended Testability Analysis Tool
The Extended Testability Analysis (ETA) Tool is a software application that supports fault management (FM) by performing testability analyses on the fault propagation model of a given system. Fault management includes the prevention of faults through robust design margins and quality assurance methods, or the mitigation of system failures. Fault management requires an understanding of the system design and operation, potential failure mechanisms within the system, and the propagation of those potential failures through the system. The purpose of the ETA Tool software is to process the testability analysis results from a commercial software program called TEAMS Designer in order to provide a detailed set of diagnostic assessment reports. The ETA Tool is a command-line process with several user-selectable report output options. The ETA Tool also extends the COTS testability analysis and enables variation studies with sensor sensitivity impacts on system diagnostics and component isolation using a single testability output. The ETA Tool can also provide extended analyses from a single set of testability output files. The following analysis reports are available to the user: (1) the Detectability Report provides a breakdown of how each tested failure mode was detected, (2) the Test Utilization Report identifies all the failure modes that each test detects, (3) the Failure Mode Isolation Report demonstrates the system s ability to discriminate between failure modes, (4) the Component Isolation Report demonstrates the system s ability to discriminate between failure modes relative to the components containing the failure modes, (5) the Sensor Sensor Sensitivity Analysis Report shows the diagnostic impact due to loss of sensor information, and (6) the Effect Mapping Report identifies failure modes that result in specified system-level effects.
The Behavior, Constraint, and Scenario (BeCoS) Tool: A Web-Based Software Application for Modeling Behaviors and Scenarios
The Behavior, Constraint, and Scenario (BeCoS) tool has been developed to allow engineers to specify system and component behaviors. The tool is a web application that is developed in JavaScript and uses the React framework for the user interface and Redux for maintaining application state. The foundation of the tool is its underlying ontology, which expands upon a previously-defined behavior ontology with a scenario ontology. The behavior ontology includes elements like behaving elements, state variables, parameters, and constraints, while the scenario ontology includes core constructs like activities, temporal constraints, and timepoints. BeCoS allows users to easily create behaving elements and to specify their state variables, parameters, state machines, and constraints. BeCoS also allows users to develop temporal constraint networks that specify constraints on component states over time. BeCoS is a prototype tool that has been deployed and tested by systems engineers on the Europa Clipper project, which generated several use cases and helped steer its current developmental effort. By enabling systems engineers to specify behavior in a semantically-rigorous manner, BeCoS is an enabling technology for analyses that previously could not be performed, and when exporting its model to other tools, allows for consistent behavior models to be used.
The Behavior, Constraint, and Scenario (BeCoS) Tool: A Web-Based Software Application for Modeling Behaviors and Scenarios
The Behavior, Constraint, and Scenario (BeCoS) tool has been developed to allow engineers to specify system and component behaviors. The tool is a web application that is developed in JavaScript and uses the React framework for the user interface and Redux for maintaining application state. The foundation of the tool is its underlying ontology, which expands upon a previously-defined behavior ontology with a scenario ontology. The behavior ontology includes elements like behaving elements, state variables, parameters, and constraints, while the scenario ontology includes core constructs like activities, temporal constraints, and timepoints. BeCoS allows users to easily create behaving elements and to specify their state variables, parameters, state machines, and constraints. BeCoS also allows users to develop temporal constraint networks that specify constraints on component states over time. BeCoS is a prototype tool that has been deployed and tested by systems engineers on the Europa Clipper project, which generated several use cases and helped steer its current developmental effort. By enabling systems engineers to specify behavior in a semantically-rigorous manner, BeCoS is an enabling technology for analyses that previously could not be performed, and when exporting its model to other tools, allows for consistent behavior models to be used.
Geometric modeling for computer aided design
The primary goal of this grant has been the design and implementation of software to be used in the conceptual design of aerospace vehicles particularly focused on the elements of geometric design, graphical user interfaces, and the interaction of the multitude of software typically used in this engineering environment. This has resulted in the development of several analysis packages and design studies. These include two major software systems currently used in the conceptual level design of aerospace vehicles. These tools are SMART, the Solid Modeling Aerospace Research Tool, and EASIE, the Environment for Software Integration and Execution. Additional software tools were designed and implemented to address the needs of the engineer working in the conceptual design environment. SMART provides conceptual designers with a rapid prototyping capability and several engineering analysis capabilities. In addition, SMART has a carefully engineered user interface that makes it easy to learn and use. Finally, a number of specialty characteristics have been built into SMART which allow it to be used efficiently as a front end geometry processor for other analysis packages. EASIE provides a set of interactive utilities that simplify the task of building and executing computer aided design systems consisting of diverse, stand-alone, analysis codes. Resulting in a streamlining of the exchange of data between programs reducing errors and improving the efficiency. EASIE provides both a methodology and a collection of software tools to ease the task of coordinating engineering design and analysis codes.
Hierarchical Data Formats (HDF) Update
In this presentation, we will talk about the latest releases of HDF4 and HDF5 software and tools, new features available in HDF5, and roadmap for the HDF software. We will also solicit feedback from the users of HDF data and HDF application developers on new features and new tools. The talk will cover: Difference between 1.8 and 1.10 releases and how and when to move to the latest release Features of the recent HDF5 1.8.19, 1.10.1 and HDF 4.2.13 Overview of HDF View 3.0 and other enhancements to tools Supported compilers and systems Open discussion of new requirements and wish list of the HDF features Compression library for interoperability with h5py and Pandas and better floating-point data compression.
Proceedings of Tenth Annual Software Engineering Workshop
Papers are presented on the following topics: measurement of software technology, recent studies of the Software Engineering Lab, software management tools, expert systems, error seeding as a program validation technique, software quality assurance, software engineering environments (including knowledge-based environments), the Distributed Computing Design System, and various Ada experiments.
Evaluation of the efficiency and reliability of software generated by code generators
There are numerous studies which show that CASE Tools greatly facilitate software development. As a result of these advantages, an increasing amount of software development is done with CASE Tools. As more software engineers become proficient with these tools, their experience and feedback lead to further development with the tools themselves. What has not been widely studied, however, is the reliability and efficiency of the actual code produced by the CASE Tools. This investigation considered these matters. Three segments of code generated by MATRIXx, one of many commercially available CASE Tools, were chosen for analysis: ETOFLIGHT, a portion of the Earth to Orbit Flight software, and ECLSS and PFMC, modules for Environmental Control and Life Support System and Pump Fan Motor Control, respectively.
Development and Implementation of a New AI-Based Tool to Support Fast Reactor Software Model Generation and Validation
This report summarizes FY26 work to develop Maggie, an artificial intelligence-based assistant designed to support software model generation and validation activities for fast reactor analysis codes. The project established a modular, code-agnostic software architecture that separates reusable agent capabilities from code-specific knowledge and tools, with initial implementation focused on the FRP-supported fast reactor safety analysis code SAS4A/SASSYS1 (SAS). A curated SAS-specific knowledge base was assembled from the code manual, training materials, historical analysis reports, and representative input files, and was integrated through retrieval-augmented generation to ground Maggie’s responses in authoritative sources. Maggie was deployed on the internal Argonne network, where it demonstrated practical user-facing capability as a chatbot for answering natural language questions about SAS and retrieving relevant technical information. Demonstration cases also showed that Maggie can generate useful snippets of SAS input for selected modeling tasks, while highlighting current limitations in reliability and consistency for more complex input generation tasks. Overall, the FY26 effort established the technical foundation for an AI-assisted capability intended to improve the efficiency, consistency, and accessibility of fast reactor software model development at Argonne and, with further improvements, to support eventual use by the broader fast reactor community, including industry users of FRP-supported analysis tools.
CAPRI: Using a Geometric Foundation for Computational Analysis and Design
CAPRI (Computational Analysis Programming Interface) is a software development tool intended to make computerized design, simulation and analysis faster and more efficient. The computational steps traditionally taken for most engineering analysis (Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), structural analysis, etc.) are: Surface Generation, usually by employing a Computer Aided Design (CAD) system; Grid Generation, preparing the volume for the simulation; Flow Solver, producing the results at the specified operational point; Post-processing Visualization, interactively attempting to understand the results. It should be noted that the structures problem is more tractable than CFD; there are fewer mesh topologies used and the grids are not as fine (this problem space does not have the length scaling issues of fluids). For CFD, these steps have worked well in the past for simple steady-state simulations at the expense of much user interaction. The data was transmitted between phases via files. In most cases, the output from a CAD system could go IGES files. The output from Grid Generators and Solvers do not really have standards though there are a couple of file formats that can be used for a subset of the gridding (i.e. PLOT3D) data formats and the upcoming CGNS). The user would have to patch up the data or translate from one format to another to move to the next step. Sometimes this could take days. Instead of the serial approach to analysis, CAPRI takes a geometry centric approach. CAPRI is a software building tool-kit that refers to two ideas: (1) A simplified, object-oriented, hierarchical view of a solid part integrating both geometry and topology definitions, and (2) programming access to this part or assembly and any attached data. The connection to the geometry is made through an Application Programming Interface (API) and not a file system.