On-Demand & As-Developed Avionics
- Elite 5K
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The natural progression if modular avionics is on-demand, as-needed, as-developed patches outside of the Block process.
More at the jump
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/silicon-valley-style-software-approach-comes-to-f-35-440902/
US military and defence industry officials are close to adopting Silicon Valley-style software development and refresh processes for military aircraft, starting with billion-dollar upgrade programmes for the Lockheed Martin F-35 and F-22.
The new strategy could be approved within months as the F-35 joint programme office faces the challenge of fixing bugs in the F-35’s go-to-war Block 3F software and developing the follow-on Block 4 package of capability improvements.
F-35 software planning has entered a “strategic pause” until JPO staffers present a new software development plan for consideration by top Pentagon officials in late October, says F-35 programme executive Vice Adm Mat Winter, speaking at the Defense News Conference on 6 September.
Meanwhile, the “agile” software development technique used by Apple to develop iPhone applications could be adopted by the F-22 programme office, as the US Air Force considers developing a stealthy transmit and receive mode for the Link 16 datalink to communicate with a future unmanned “loyal wingman” and the F-35, says Sean Singleton, director of business development and marketing for the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx).
Singleton, speaking on the sidelines of the same conference, says the F-22 SPO and prime contractor Lockheed are open to making the switch, with an eye to accelerating the new datalink capability from 2021 or 2022.
More at the jump
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/silicon-valley-style-software-approach-comes-to-f-35-440902/
"The early bird gets the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese."
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- Elite 5K
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'alloycowboy' posted that story over here earlier: viewtopic.php?f=62&t=52626&p=375758&hilit=Silicon#p375758
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'SWP' I feel your pain. Try doing just a search on 'part' of the URL such as "440902/" then one gets a result:
viewtopic.php?f=62&t=52626&p=375758&hilit=440902%2F#p375758
&
viewtopic.php?f=62&t=53423&p=375765&hilit=440902%2F#p375765
viewtopic.php?f=62&t=52626&p=375758&hilit=440902%2F#p375758
&
viewtopic.php?f=62&t=53423&p=375765&hilit=440902%2F#p375765
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http://www.defensenews.com/smr/defense- ... -strategy/
F-35 program office floats new ‘agile acquisition’ strategy
By: Valerie Insinna
WASHINGTON — The F-35 joint program office is rolling out a new strategy that it hopes will make updates to the jet more efficient and agile, the head of the program announced Wednesday. Vice Adm. Mat Winter will bring a new plan to the U.S. Defense Department’s top acquisition official for final approval in late October, Winter said during a keynote speech at the Defense News Conference. “The current acquisition strategy has us doing a serial [and] sequential design, develop, integrate, test [and] deliver strategy. I’m not convinced that’s the most efficient and effective way, most importantly, to deliver and continuously deliver capability to our war fighters ... as we go beyond Block 3F,” he said. “Envision in your head: The pilot jumps in the jet, fires it up, the panoramic cockpit display comes up. We have different sensors on the airplane. One of them is an electro-optic system” called EODAS for short, he said. “Envision a little window pops up and says: ‘latest EODAS software update ready for download, yes or no?’ Similar to what you do on your smartphone.” That will entail changing the F-35’s acquisition strategy to allow for agile software development where development and testing happen concurrently, and incremental updates are continuously pushed out, he said. This new way of doing business will allow the joint program office, or JPO, to field F-35s with 3F software — which expands the plane’s flight envelope and allows it to use its full suite of weapons — and deliver 3F jets for operational testing on time. The major change is that it would now fix minor software deficiencies after the fact.
However, Winter stressed that this will not impact the timeline of the F-35’s follow-on modernization program, sometimes called Block 4, which is slated to start in 2019 and will involve adding software capability for new weapons and sensors. The result will allow the JPO to more effectively prioritize corrections for software and firmware deficiencies that impact every part of the F-35 enterprise, including the sensors, mission-planning system and logistics suite, he said. Those deficiencies are usually pretty trivial — for instance, a map that refreshes in five seconds instead of the three seconds specified by requirements — but they need to be corrected, he said. “There is a DR [deficiency report] database against the 3F capability. We are going to continue to chip away where we have time and it makes sense, to enhance and improve the Block 3F capability while putting the design/development plan together for these brand new requirements and bring them into a blended correction of deficiency and Block 4 development delivery,” he said. “That timeline, we’re reassessing the priorities of those new requirements with our war fighter based on technical feasibility and the resources available to execute.” Winter said the JPO has provided continuous updates to congressional defense committees about the plan and will conduct a more robust briefing if the strategy is approved. However, the new strategy “has a lot of friction and inhibitors,” he said. “I am going to be asking the system to do things it’s never done before,” he said. “I’m asking the system to do true model-based systems engineering simultaneously with capabilities-based testing. The same time. With DT [developmental testing] and OT [operational testing happening at the] same time. Real time. Allowing us to be able to truly change the way we contract and cost estimate.”
....again emphasizing the "software" in the software a/c!
F-35 program office floats new ‘agile acquisition’ strategy
By: Valerie Insinna
WASHINGTON — The F-35 joint program office is rolling out a new strategy that it hopes will make updates to the jet more efficient and agile, the head of the program announced Wednesday. Vice Adm. Mat Winter will bring a new plan to the U.S. Defense Department’s top acquisition official for final approval in late October, Winter said during a keynote speech at the Defense News Conference. “The current acquisition strategy has us doing a serial [and] sequential design, develop, integrate, test [and] deliver strategy. I’m not convinced that’s the most efficient and effective way, most importantly, to deliver and continuously deliver capability to our war fighters ... as we go beyond Block 3F,” he said. “Envision in your head: The pilot jumps in the jet, fires it up, the panoramic cockpit display comes up. We have different sensors on the airplane. One of them is an electro-optic system” called EODAS for short, he said. “Envision a little window pops up and says: ‘latest EODAS software update ready for download, yes or no?’ Similar to what you do on your smartphone.” That will entail changing the F-35’s acquisition strategy to allow for agile software development where development and testing happen concurrently, and incremental updates are continuously pushed out, he said. This new way of doing business will allow the joint program office, or JPO, to field F-35s with 3F software — which expands the plane’s flight envelope and allows it to use its full suite of weapons — and deliver 3F jets for operational testing on time. The major change is that it would now fix minor software deficiencies after the fact.
However, Winter stressed that this will not impact the timeline of the F-35’s follow-on modernization program, sometimes called Block 4, which is slated to start in 2019 and will involve adding software capability for new weapons and sensors. The result will allow the JPO to more effectively prioritize corrections for software and firmware deficiencies that impact every part of the F-35 enterprise, including the sensors, mission-planning system and logistics suite, he said. Those deficiencies are usually pretty trivial — for instance, a map that refreshes in five seconds instead of the three seconds specified by requirements — but they need to be corrected, he said. “There is a DR [deficiency report] database against the 3F capability. We are going to continue to chip away where we have time and it makes sense, to enhance and improve the Block 3F capability while putting the design/development plan together for these brand new requirements and bring them into a blended correction of deficiency and Block 4 development delivery,” he said. “That timeline, we’re reassessing the priorities of those new requirements with our war fighter based on technical feasibility and the resources available to execute.” Winter said the JPO has provided continuous updates to congressional defense committees about the plan and will conduct a more robust briefing if the strategy is approved. However, the new strategy “has a lot of friction and inhibitors,” he said. “I am going to be asking the system to do things it’s never done before,” he said. “I’m asking the system to do true model-based systems engineering simultaneously with capabilities-based testing. The same time. With DT [developmental testing] and OT [operational testing happening at the] same time. Real time. Allowing us to be able to truly change the way we contract and cost estimate.”
....again emphasizing the "software" in the software a/c!
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US auditor gives backstory of software reform on F-22, F-35
28 Mar 2018 Stephen Trimble
"A new government audit explains for the first time how the Lockheed Martin F-22 quietly launched a movement within the US Department of Defense four years ago to fix a broken process for developing software for complex weapon systems....
...Meanwhile, frustration with the slow pace of software development in multiple weapons programmes, including the Lockheed F-35 Block 3F programme, were boiling over, even as the rate of upgrades for software-based applications in the private sector seemed to be climbing....
...In September, Vice Adm Mat Winter, the F-35’s programme executive officer, said agile-based software development would be applied to future upgrades of the F-35 and the F-22. He did not mention that the F-35 was following the lead of the F-22, which the IG report reveals had started using the incremental method four years earlier...."
Source: https://www.flightglobal.com/news/artic ... -f-447143/
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What F-35 Can Learn From F-22 Upgrade Hiccups [Longish article best read at source]
28 Mar 2018 Lara Seligman
"...The F-22 was the first Pentagon weapon system to implement “agile” software and hardware development methods. The Raptor modernization program transitioned from a more traditional approach to the SAFe method in 2014, in an attempt to reduce the number of deficiencies encountered during flight testing and to deliver capabilities to the warfighter faster. Now, as the F-35 shifts to an “agile” development approach for its own modernization road map, the Joint Program Office (JPO) may do well to take some lessons learned from SAFe....
...the Pentagon’s Inspector General was critical of the U.S. Air Force’s management of the F-22 modernization program in a March report, particularly the contracting approach: https://media.defense.gov/2018/Mar/26/2 ... 089.PDF%3E (2.5Mb) Specifically, the IG called out the program office for failing to update its contracting strategy for SAFe implementation, which may jeopardize its ability to deliver the upgrades on time.
...The F-35 will likely feel the impact of any DOD policy changes. The JPO’s latest plan for F-35 follow-on modernization, called Continuous Capability Development and Delivery (C2D2), relies heavily on agile software development—smaller, incremental updates to the F-35’s software and hardware instead of one big drop, with the goal of speeding follow-on upgrades while still fixing remaining deficiencies in the Block 3F software load.
F-35 program executive officer Vice Adm. Mat Winter has compared the C2D2 approach to downloading iPhone apps.
“Envision in your head: the pilot jumps in a jet, fires it up, the panoramic cockpit display comes up,” said Winter. “Envision a little window that pops up that says ‘your latest EOTS [electro-optical distributed aperture system] software update is ready for download: yes or no?’ Similar to what you do on your smartphone.”
The JPO envisions C2D2 as consisting of a six-month enhancement and improvement software delivery cycle and a 12-month interval for modernization, according to Winter’s written testimony provided to the House Armed Services tactical air and land forces subcommittee. The approach includes a sequence of two capability drops aligned with a cycle of “Technology Insertions,” which are designed to leverage rapid commercial off-the-shelf computer upgrades to keep pace with technology and minimize obsolescence while solving diminishing manufacturing source issues.
On a longer-term cycle, C2D2 also includes a “Technology Refresh” every eight to 10 years “to capture the next level of computing capacity,” Winter said. The JPO hopes this timeline will maintain “viable warfighting capability” throughout each cycle—a decision that was based on experience from the F-22.
The JPO is planning to award a Systems Engineering Phase II contract for C2D2 in spring 2018, according to Winter. The contracting vehicle the JPO uses could indicate whether the Pentagon is finally getting its arms around the right approach for agile software development."
Source: http://aviationweek.com/defense/what-f- ... de-hiccups
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