Software technology for next-generation strike fighter avionics

The mission of the joint strike fighter (JSF) program is to facilitate evolution of fully developed and validated requirements, proven concepts, and mature demonstrated technologies to support successful development and production of next-generation strike weapon systems for the U.S. Air Force (USAF), Navy (USN), Marine Corps (USMC), and US allies. Commensurate with its mission, the JSF Program endeavors to reduce the cost of developing strike fighter software by maturing and demonstrating software technology, standards, and processes. Several critical technology areas have been identified. The areas are programming languages, secure real-time operating systems, software engineering environments, and software architectures. In each of these areas, technologies have been identified to accomplish the overall goal of affordable software for next-generation strike fighter avionics. During FY95, the JSF program sponsored demonstrations as part of the JSF Risk Reduction Studies/Demonstrations (RRSD) phase. Throughout this phase, emphasis has been placed on leveraging accomplishments made from several sources including the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and USAF and USN scientific and technical efforts. The corresponding technology demonstrations featured Ada 95, Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) standards, software fault-tolerance, and several technologies demonstrated under DARPA-sponsored Domain Specific Software Architectures (DSSA) program. This paper describes the accomplishments made to date by the JSF program, and includes future plans.