An overview of the VITAL program

VITAL is a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Technology Reinvestment Project (TRP) with the objective of reducing the life cycle cost of vehicle management systems by 50% with respect to current systems. The approach is to develop an open architecture with common hardware and software building blocks based on commercial parts and practices. The approach will be applicable to a wide variety of platforms including, fixed wing fighter aircraft, helicopters, and transport aircraft. Software development using MATRIX/sub x/(R) is a significant process improvement being exploited in the VITAL program to reduce non-recurring costs. Verification of the VITAL approach will occur in three flight demonstrations on an F/A-18, AH-64 and an MD-90. VITAL is a three year effort that began in mid-1996. Milestone 2 (initial design review) was completed in August 1997.