N121-045 TITLE: Maritime Airborne SOA Integration

TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Air Platform, Information Systems

ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PMA 290

OBJECTIVE: Develop an open-architecture integration system using service-oriented architecture (SOA) design principles and practices to integrate legacy airborne mission computing systems and sensors for near-real time dissemination of collected maritime airborne mission data, to include virtualization, open application programming interfaces (APIs), and service orientation.

DESCRIPTION: Current maritime airborne platforms are unable to exhibit rapidly changing net-centric requirements and traits due to limitations of traditional siloed software and systems development. These limitations are exuded through closed, proprietary systems and subsystems that require extensive engineering and re-engineering in order to gain access to systems and sensor data. These limitations usually incur large cost and schedule penalties and will not allow for the rapid agile technology development and integration that is required to stay in lock step with warfighter needs.

SOA design principles and practices dictate an architectural as well as design pattern that encourages openness through standardization. SOA enables reuse and rapid integration of information, taking what you have and structuring it to allow you not only to continue to use it, but to use it securely and make it adaptable for future change that will be simple, straightforward, safe, and fast. SOA is flexible, adaptable, and agile. It promotes standards and industry best practices and results in reduced redundancies, increased system efficiency, and improved collection and processing of data and distribution of information. Cost efficiencies, mainly as a result of savings in life-cycle information technology maintenance and reduced development costs, are also realized.

The goal of this project is to use SOA design principles and practices to develop an open-architecture system that will integrate legacy airborne mission-computing systems and sensors so as to provide near-real time dissemination of collected maritime airborne mission data. The foundation laid here will ultimately result in a common integration architecture and strategy for maritime airborne assets that can quickly establish and exude net-centric traits and allow for the rapid insertion and integration of emerging technologies at a far lower cost.

PHASE I: Assess and determine the feasibility of using a common open SOA to develop an integration system for mission-computing environments and subsystems. Determine and define the appropriate standards, integration criteria, and strategy for the exposure of data, subsystems, and sensors. Identify and describe potential maritime platform open service-oriented infrastructure (SOI) integration prototype concepts.

PHASE II: Based on the results from Phase I, develop, demonstrate, and validate an open SOA integration prototype that integrates with a current maritime air platform's mission-computing infrastructure and demonstrates SOA characteristics and design patterns for evaluating the exposure of data, subsystems, and sensors.

PHASE III: Refine and mature the architecture and software developed in Phase II in order to define an SOA reference implementation as applied to a maritime airborne platform's mission-computing environment.

PRIVATE SECTOR COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL/DUAL-USE APPLICATIONS: When complete and mature, this project can be used, and serve, as a model for integration and development across the aircraft manufacturing industry, both military and commercial, and can significantly reduce modification costs to existing inventories.

REFERENCES:
1. Lockheed Martin. (2009). Airborne Multi-INT Laboratory White Paper. Ibbotson, J., Chapman, S., & Szymanski, B. K. (2007, September). The case for an agile SOA. Paper presented at the First Annual Conference of the Information Technology Alliance, Adelphi, MD.

2. Model-Driven SOA for Sensor Networks; Ibbotson, Gibson, Geyik, Szymanski, Mott, Braines, Klapiscak, Bergamasck; Proceedings of SPIE Volume: 8047: The Defense, Security & Sensing Symposium 2011, Orlando, FL 25-29 April 2011

3. Sensors as a Service Oriented Architecture: Middleware for Sensor Networks; Ibbotson, Gibson, Wright, Waggett, Zerfos, Szymanski, Thornely;The 6th International Conference on Intelligent Environments - IE'10 Kuala Lumpur, Malayasia July 19-21, 2010.

KEYWORDS: SOA; SOI; software systems integration; open architecture (OA)

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