Scalable open architecture project (SOAP) avionics evolution from Federated to Open Systems

The Scalable Open Architecture Project (SOAP) of NAVAIR's Maritime Avionics Subsystems and Technologies (MAST) Program was established in 1996 to demonstrate how to evolve existing aircraft from federated to advanced scalable open systems through incremental system upgrades making maximum use of COTS technology. This project is a multiyear effort with a series of laboratory demonstrations that transform existing federated avionics architectures into a scalable architecture embodying a interconnect concept based on a Fibre Channel network. Architectural changes (e.g., network, processor, and software) that are being addressed include insertion and evaluation of avionics functions with high operational payoff. This paper documents the results of the first year's efforts and demonstrations, and describes on-going activities and plans. It is concluded that the required architectural evolution is clearly feasible, and that use of COTS components, both hardware and software, is attractive and potentially fully applicable.