Fault tolerant modular distributed architecture for a hypersonic vehicle management system

An approach for implementing a distributed processing architecture as the vehicle management control element for future hypersonic vehicle applications is described. Key features of the architecture which provide fault tolerance include redundancy management, processor synchronization, and multiple voting planes. Modular building blocks for constructing such a distributed vehicle management data processing system, based on contemporary common module designs, are described along with resulting performance attributes. The application of software support environments, including Ada, is presented. An assessment of resulting reliability and safety is also presented. It is concluded that the use of standardized building blocks provides a flexible, cost-effective method for designing, assembling, validating, producing, and operating a variety of application-specific implementations. The same flexible features allow for future growth to include additional system capabilities with a minimum impact on already fielded configurations