White Papers
A Requirements-Driven System Design Process (with a Preview of ARP 4754A)
This presentation, which was delivered at IESF Mil-Aero in Long beach, CA, on Sept 13, 2011, discusses the importance of a requirements-driven systems development process. It also introduces the new regulatory policy ARP 4754A, which governs aircraft and systems development, and advocates such an approach.
Concept to X
This paper describes ten steps to applying Model Driven Development (MDD) to your design process and shows that the process is neither alien to current thinking, nor impossibly expensive to implement.
MDD is more than just a good idea. It actually helps improve productivity in the design process. It makes it possible to use models all the way down the flow, automatically generating parts of the design and thus improving the design’s quality by bringing in repeatability and standards compliance. It enables actions such as eliminating physical prototypes from the process, by instead simulating digital and analog elements working together and with the control software operating the system. It can also eliminate or significantly reduce the paper trail. MDD has had a hard time achieving widespread adoption and respect as the most effective way to drive a design process.
Robust Analysis for Switch-Mode Power Supply Designs
This paper illustrates the use of several robust analysis options available with the SystemVision simulation tool. Both parametric and statistical analyses are presented using a buck-boost converter as the example. Various post-processing measurement features are also presented.
Understanding DO-254 and Solutions to Facilitate Compliance
RTCA/DO-254 (also known as DO-254 in the US or ED-80 in Europe) provides guidelines to facilitate requirements-based design of airborne electronic hardware. Now mandated by the US Federal Aviation Association (FAA) and many other aviation agencies and military programs, DO-254 establishes a standard to ensure that airborne custom micro-coded components (i.e., PLD, FPGA, and ASIC devices) perform their intended function under all foreseeable conditions.
First attempts to comply with DO-254 standards can be fraught with delays and unexpected costs. Project managers can minimize these difficulties if they understand what DO-254 compliance really entails, and modify their flows and toolsets to support it.
Linking Early Mechatronic System Analysis to Physical Testing
Mechatronic system design creation and test development are often at opposite ends of a project’s schedule. Benefits accrue in improved system quality and on-time delivery when design and test are pursued concurrently. This paper describes the technologies required to make concurrent design and test possible.
Model Driven Development Forestalls 11th Hour Design Problems
This paper discusses ways that MDD lays the groundwork for an integrated design flow that addresses the complexity challenge once and for all.
Thanks to recent advances in modeling languages and automation, model-driven development can now be extended across the hierarchical levels of system design. System integration, in virtual form, no longer needs to wait until physical subsystems are ready. At each level of design, models provide the ability to verify the design much earlier than waiting for actual HW/SW implementation.
MDD methodologies have been pioneered and proven over decades. Integrating MDD methodologies into the platform development life cycle has the potential to significantly reduce risks to schedule, cost and quality for system integrators. With the astute application of the MDD approach, the 11th hour is no longer a threatening milestone in the life cycle of a development program.
Design Automation & Simulation of Switch-Mode Power Supplies
This paper illustrates the development of a flyback switch-mode power supply (SMPS) converter using the SystemVision simulation tool. Two design and testing automation techniques are presented: driving SystemVision simulations directly from a Microsoft Excel® worksheet and using schematic-based design formulas.
Simulating Vector Controlled Induction Motors Using Space Vector Modulation
Motion control system development poses many challenges for conventional simulation tools. Not only are these systems extremely complex, but they traverse both technology (domain) boundaries, as well as analog/digital boundaries. Conventional simulation tools cannot adequately deal with these diverse modeling requirements. The SystemVision simulation tool supports full featured model development and simulation at both high and low levels of model abstraction, as well as embedded software and FPGA capabilities. This paper illustrates the development of a comprehensive vector-controlled induction motor drive system, using SystemVision for the development/simulation of all designs.
AUTOSAR and FlexRay: A Tale of Two Standards
The emerging automotive design software standard known as AUTOSAR (Automotive Open System Architecture) began as the product of an industry-wide effort among European auto makers and their suppliers. Its objectives are similar to those of software standards in other industries: to bring structure, clean interfaces and implicit methodologies to a process—in this case, the design of distributed systems within automobiles. FlexRay™ is a serial bus communication standard that has evolved over roughly the same time span as AUTOSAR. FlexRay came into existence as a solution for the shortcomings of the prevailing automotive bus standards, particularly the CAN protocol.
Like AUTOSAR, FlexRay counts many prominent automotive OEMs and suppliers among its advocates. Boasting much higher performance (in every respect) than other in-vehicle buses, FlexRay alone is suited for “x-by-wire” applications that must deliver absolutely predictable results for steering, braking, and so forth. What do these lofty aspirations mean to the designer who needs to get a complex array of automotive functions working together with high reliability? To the executive responsible for minimizing costs while delivering timely, compelling products to customers? To the end-users of tomorrow’s automobiles?
Mechatronic System Integration and Design
While today’s multi-discipline mechatronic systems significantly outperform legacy systems, they are also much more complex by nature—requiring close cooperation between multiple design disciplines in order to have a chance of meeting schedule requirements, and first-pass success. Mechatronic system designs must fluently integrate analog and digital hardware—along with the software that controls it—presenting daunting challenges for design teams, and requiring design processes to evolve to accommodate.
Simulation Provides Key to Explosive Automotive Design Challenges
Not only has the typical system design grown in overall size to accommodate ever-increasing demands for functionality and performance, but these designs must fluently integrate analog and digital hardware, as well as the software that controls it. Successfully integrating and verifying that system components work in concert with each other often proves to be costly in terms of time, money and engineering resources. And, at the same time, there is increased pressure to reduce development cycle time. In order to keep pace with these new realities, new processes and development tools are required. In particular, the development and intelligent use of computer models of these complex systems—once considered a luxury—are becoming critical to the success of the overall development process.