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The architecture is a concept very broad and important that is directly connected to the realization of a system. It defines what the system is capable of doing, how it accomplishes its mission and how the system is. Currently, the development of system architectures is considered a domain of knowledge where science meets art. In some specific areas, the methods on the development of system architectures are already well formalized. However, when analyzing the evaluation of system architectures such as those for multi-domain control systems, it is clear that there is still much room for rationalization. In these cases, the search for new methods for the evaluation of system architectures is currently in the state of art. In this work we discuss methods used in the verification and validation of control systems architectures of cyber-physical systems based on models and systems metrics.

A major trend in modern aerospace and automotive systems is to integrate computing, communication and control into different levels of the vehicle and/or its supervision. A well-fitted architecture adopted by this trend is the common bus network architecture. A Networked Control System (NCS) is called when the control loop is closed through a communication network. The presence of this communication network introduces new characteristics that must be considered at the design time of a control system. This work, still in development, focuses on a worst case formula for a communication (TDMA) plus computation (RMS) on a NCS. This formula, in a first instance, agrees with the simulated cases under the hypotheses and conditions when the NCS is composed by 1 actuator - 1 sensor and when is composed by 2 actuators - 2 sensors. In the future, we intend to generalize this formula and extend this study to NCS that uses other communication protocols or others computer schedulers.

This work presents the analysis, design and simulation of the reconfigurable control architecture for the contingency mode of the MultiMission Platform (MMP). The MMP is a generic service module currently under design at INPE. Its control system can be switched among nine main Modes of Operation and other Sub-Modes, according to ground command or information coming from the control system, mainly alarms. The implementation followed the specifications when they were found, otherwise it was designed. They cover operations from detumbling after launcher separation and solar acquisition, to achieving payload nominal attitude and orbital corrections maneuvers. The manager block of the control system was implemented as a finite state machine. The tests are based in simulations with the MatriX/SystemBuild software. They focused mainly on the worst cases that the satellite is supposed to endure in its mission, be it during modes or transitions between modes and submodes.

This work presents the first part of the analysis, design and simulation of the reconfigurable control architecture for the Multi-Mission Platform (MMP), a generic service module currently under design at INPE. Its control system can be switched among nine main Modes of Operation. The implementation followed the specifications when they were found, otherwise it was designed. The manager block of the control system was implemented as a finite state machine. The tests were based in simulations with the MatriX/SystemBuild software. They focused mainly on the worst cases that the satellite is supposed to endure in its mission.

Many control systems switch between control modes according to necessity. That is often simpler than designing a full control to all situations. However, this creates new problems, as determining the composed system stability and the transient during switching. The latter, while temporary, may introduce overshooting that degrade performance and damage the plant. This is particularly true for the MultiMission Platform (MMP), a generic service module currently under design at INPE. Its control system can be switched among nine main Modes of Operation and other submodes, according to ground command or information coming from the control system, mainly alarms. It can acquire one and three axis stabilization in generic attitudes, with actuators including magnetotorquers, thrusters and reaction wheels.

In this work we discuss current trends driving the aerospace and automotive systems architectures. This includes trends as: 1) pos-globalization and regionalization; 2) the formation of knowledge oligopolies; 3) commonality, standardization and even synergy (of components, tools, development process, certification agents, standards); 4) reuse and scalability; 5) synergy of knowledge and tools convergence; 6) time, cost and quality pressures and innovation speed; 7) environmental and safety issues; and 8) abundance of new technologies versus scarcity of skilled manpower to apply them.

This work presents the distributed simulation of the longitudinal mode of an aircraft by using the DoD High Level Architecture (HLA). The HLA is a general-purpose architecture for simulation reuse and interoperability. This architecture was developed under the leadership of the Defense Modeling and Simulation Office (DMSO) to support reuse and interoperability across the large numbers of different types of simulations developed and maintained by the DoD. To do this, the transfer function of the longitudinal mode of a hypothetical aircraft was implemented by means of a SystemBuild/MATRIXx model. The output of this model was connected to a Run-Time Infrastructure (RTI) and monitored on a remote computer. The connection between the model and the RTI was implemented by using a wrapper which was developed in C++. The HLA RTI implementation used in this work was the poRTIco.

A major trend in modern aerospace and automotive systems is to integrate computing, communication and control into different levels of the vehicle and/or its supervision. A well fitted architecture adopted by this trend is the common bus network architecture. A Networked Control System (NCS) is called when the control loop is closed through a communication network. The presence of this communication network introduces new characteristics (sharing bus, delays, jitter,etc) to be considered at design time of a control system. This work focuses on the effect of sharing bus between the control system and the other devices connected to the bus foreigner to control. These last devices are called interferences. We intented to show, through simulations, the influence of sharing bus on real time control systems performance. To compare effects, we choose the CanBus protocol where the medium access control is event driven; and the TTP protocol where the medium access control is time driven.

Computer systems aboard aerospace vehicles have become more and more distributed in an attempt to solve “real-life” problems such as commonality and longevity of components and subsystems. On the other hand, distributed systems pose a much bigger challenge in system design than traditional, “monolithic” systems, whereby functions are performed by a single component combining hardware and software. “Determinism” (predictability in the occurrence of events), “causality” (temporal ordination of occurrence of events) and “synchronism” (simultaneousness in the occurrence of events) can be pointed out as major challenges in system design. This paper shall survey methods of analyzing determinism in network communications in distributed computer systems aboard aerospace vehicles in different network topologies using a representative model.

In this work we discuss some types of simulation architectures and standards, their characteristics and applications to the simulation and control of aerospace vehicles. This includes: the basic definitions, types and characteristics of simulators and simulations (physical, computational, hybrid, etc.; discrete events, discrete time, continuous time, etc; deterministic, stochastic, etc.) their basic compromise (simplicity x fidelity), their man-machine interfaces and interactions (virtual, constructive, live, etc.), their evolution law (time, events, mixed, etc.), their architectures (“stand-alone”, PIL, HIL, MIL, DIS, HLA, etc.), their standards (OMBA, SIMNET, ALSP, DIS, HLA 1.3, HLA 1516, ASIA, AP2633, etc.) and their applications to the simulation and control of aerospace vehicles. This is illustrated by some examples driven from the aerospace industry

In this work we discuss some types of simulation environments and laboratories, their characteristics and applications to the simulation and control of aerospace vehicles. This includes: the basic definitions, types and characteristics of simulators and simulations (physical, computational, hybrid, etc.; discrete events, discrete time, continuous time, etc; deterministic, stochastic, etc.) their basic compromise (simplicity × fidelity), their man-machine interfaces and interactions (virtual, constructive, live, etc.), their evolution law (time, events, mixed, etc.), their architectures (“stand-alone”, PIL, HIL, MIL, DIS, HLA, etc.), and especially, their environments (discrete, continuous, hybrid, etc.) and laboratories (physical, computational, hybrid, etc.), and their applications to the simulation and control of aerospace vehicles. This is illustrated by some examples driven from the aerospace industry.

In this work we discuss some types of simulators and simulations, their characteristics and applications to the simulation and control of aerospace vehicles. This includes: the basic definitions, types and characteristics of simulators and simulations (physical, computational, hybrid, etc.; discrete events, discrete time, continuous time, etc; deterministic, stochastic, etc.) their basic compromise (simplicity × fidelity), their man-machine interfaces and interactions (virtual, constructive, live, etc.), their evolution law (time, events, mixed, etc.), their architectures (“standalone”, PIL, HIL, MIL, DIS, HLA, etc.), their environments (discrete, continuous, hybrid, etc.) and their applications to the simulation and control of aerospace vehicles. This is illustrated by some examples driven from the aerospace industry

On several engineering applications high Reliability is one of the most wanted features. The aspects of Reliability play a key role in design projects of aircraft, spacecraft, automotive, medical, bank systems, and so, avoiding loss of life, property, or costly recalls. The highly reliable systems are designed to work continuously, even upon external threats and internal Failures. Very convenient is the fact that the term 'Failure' may have its meaning tailored to the context of interesting, as its general definition refers to it as "any deviation from the specified behavior of a system". The above-mentioned 'deviation' may refer to: performance degradation, operational misbehavior, deviation of environmental qualification levels, Safety hazards, etc. Nevertheless, Reliability is not the only requirement for a modern system. Other features as Availability, Integrity, Security and Safety are always part of the same technical specification, in a same level of importance.

This paper aims at discussing the use of dissimilar hardware architecture to mitigate DESIGN ERRORS in a flight control system application, as one of the possible design techniques that, combined with the usage of development processes, will satisfy the safety objectives for airborne systems. To accomplish its purpose, the paper starts by understanding the origins of DESIGN ERRORS in micro-coded devices and the concerns of airworthiness certification authorities (or simply certification authorities from now on). After that, an overview of the aeronautical industry efforts in terms of development processes and certification requirements to mitigate DESIGN ERRORS will be presented. At this point, the dissimilar architecture is proposed as an effective mean to mitigate the problem of DESIGN ERRORS. Finally, a Flight Control System application using dissimilar architecture is proposed as a case study.