Middleware

In aircraft industry, after labour and fuel costs, maintenance costs are the third largest expense item for both regional and national carriers. By implementing IVHM technologies not only the maintenance costs can be reduced, also it can provide more specific scheduled maintenance, on-board diagnostics and prognostics services. Maintenance department can be notified about the fault in advance and can arrange for components while aircraft is in mid-air. IVHM technologies minimize the physical diagnostics costs and provide more realistic condition based maintenance (CBM). The aim of this project is to investigate, using simulation and optimization, how IVHM network architecture can be built and implemented in aircraft (or IVHM applications), to support interoperability between multiple vendors’ IVHM components and insertion of new IVHM capabilities. IVHM consists of subsystems, sensors, model based reasoning systems for subsystem and system level managers, diagnostic and prognostics software for subsystems. In IVHM systems, usually there is large amount of data (collected from sensors), which needs to be delivered to right places at the right time so communication paradigm is the first and very essential design consideration which impacts many key properties such as scalability, reliability, availability, timeliness and configuration of overall system. The OSA-CBM (Open System Architecture for Condition Based Maintenance) defines an open architecture for moving information in a condition-based maintenance system. Typically, companies developing condition-based maintenance systems must develop software and hardware components, in addition a framework for these components to integrate. OSA-CBM is a standard architecture and framework for implementing condition-based maintenance systems. It not only describes the six functional blocks of condition based maintenance systems but also the interfaces to establish communication.

CRIAQ AVIO-509 project is a research project on the design of modular avionics architectures and integrated commonly called IMA (Integrated and Modular Avionics). The main purpose of this research project aims to explore the design methodologies IMA systems and evaluate the impact of architectural decisions. A platform for experimentation will be developed to enable prototyping IMA systems. An application of synthetic vision increased (ESVS) will be implemented on this demonstrator IMA. CMC Electronics Inc. and CAE companies. are partners in this project and the École Polytechnique de Montreal. The project has a duration of three years (2011-2014).

Within this project, we are analysing the benefits of using Connext DDS for communications between different nodes of an avionic system.

The main objective of PLANET project is the design, development and validation of an integrated platform to enable the deployment, operation and maintenance of large-scale/complex systems of heterogeneous networked Cooperating Objects, including Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks and mobile objects. The platform supports optimal and adaptive deployment and operation by means of mobile cooperating objects, i.e. vehicles, networked with static nodes. The platform is validated in two complementary scenarios: the monitoring of the Doñana Biological Reserve with very high ecological value and very sensitive to the impact of pollution, and the highly automated airfield scenario in which security plays an important role and where wireless communication and cooperative techniques pose significant challenges.

PLANET addresses the design methodology and development of the platform as well as the algorithms required to support the deployment and maintenance of heterogeneous systems with mobile and static nodes. 

We use RTI DDS as the middleware for the communication between heterogeneous Cooperating Objects, such as UAVs, UGVs and ground sensor networks. Upon RTI DDS we build a set of PLANET services to ease the deployment, operation and maintenance of heterogeneous networked Cooperating Objects. 

For more information of the Project PLANET, you are welcome to visit the website: http://www.planet-ict.eu/

The Robot Application Programming Interface Delegate (RAPID) is a set of software data structures and routines that simplify the process of communicating between multiple diverse robots and their command and control systems. RAPID is not intended to be an all-encompassing API for robot communication, but rather it’s a compatibility layer that permits tools and robotic assets to exchange data and information and allows operators to communicate with heterogeneous robots in a uniform way. RAPID is a compatibility layer that delegates information between robots that speak different languages.

The RAPID specification includes definitions and APIs for messages and services that support supervisory telerobotics operations over near-Earth time delay. RAPID is not a middleware specification, although safety and time-delay capabilities do imply requirements on implementing middleware systems. As currently implemented, the RAPID system can be considered a software reference implementation for remote operations.

For more information, contact David.S.Mittman@jpl.nasa.gov.