美 Lockheed Martin F-35 JSF Mission System software 개발 소식...

 

Northrop Grumman AN/APG-81 AESA 레이더를 포함한 각종 항전장비를 장착한 F-35B STOVL 4호기 (BF-04) 가 미 해군

NAVAIR 로 부터 성능평가를 받기 위해 Maryland 州 Patuxent River 해군기지에 6월 7일 도착했다는 소식과 함께, 현재까지

진행되고 있는 F-35 JSF Software 개발관련 소식을 소개합니다.

 

BF-04 기의 지난 4월 초도비행 소식은 이곳을 참조하시면 됩니다.  --->  F-35B BF-04 First Flight

 

F-35 JSF Software 개발의 경우, 현재 미 하원에서 금년 중으로 Block 1 개발을 완료하고 시험비행을 실시할 것을 요구하고

있습니다. 만약 금년 중으로 이러한 요구 조건을 충족시키지 못할 경우, 2011 회계년도에 국방성이 요청한 F-35 JSF 예산의

25% 를 삭감할 것이라고 경고한 바 있습니다.  --->  미 하원 F-35 예산 삭감 경고

 

아래 소개하는 AW&ST 의 기사를 참조하면, 현재까지의 진행상황을 파악할 수 있습니다.

 

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Technical Trials

Critical F-35 mission-system development moves to the aircraft from the laboratory

Aviation Week & Space Technology, 06/07/2010

Author : Graham Warwick

 

Amid restructuring and soaring cost projections, the Joint Strike Fighter is ticking off milestones that were expected months ago, but the gathering test pace must be maintained if the program is to stay on its new track and avoid further delays and cost growth.

 

In two key milestones, the first Lockheed Martin F-35 mission-system test aircraft, BF-4, has returned to flight after modification, and the 737-based Cooperative Avionics Test Bed (CATBird) has begun flying with the latest Block 1 software for the mission system.

 

Development of all software (on and off board) is more than 80% complete, but the mission-system software is only 56% finished and was running six months behind before the JSF program was restructured in April to add 13 months to development, says Eric George, director of mission system and software. The new plan is “an executable program,” he says, and includes margin. “We’ve not typically been in that position.”

 

Lawmakers remain skeptical, and a key defense committee has tied 2011 funding to achieving test milestones by year-end, including flying Block 1 software in the F-35. All provisions in the legislation are milestones the Pentagon and contractor have said they will meet, says a congressional staffer. But in recertifying the JSF program, the Pentagon says areas of concern remain in software integration and flight test (see p. 27).

 

In addition to more time, the replan is adding software engineers and system integration resources — $84 million for more software developers and $125 million for a third integration laboratory to come on line in the second quarter of 2012. As a stopgap the USRL — a reprogramming laboratory Lockheed Martin is building for Eglin AFB, Fla. — will be used for software development testing.

 

“We’ve struggled with integration capacity,” says George. The problem has emerged as later blocks of software have been delivered for integration testing while earlier blocks are still going through the laboratories. Initial F-35s are flying with Block 0.1 vehicle management system software, while all the mission-system aircraft, beginning with BF‑4, fly first with Block 0.5. As fixes emerge from flight testing, laboratory capacity will become even more crucial.

 

Block 0.5 is out of the lab and on the aircraft and, with Block 1 now flying in the CATBird ahead of being loaded on to the F-35 later this year, Block 2 is in development. “We will start initial Block 2 activity in the USRL while Block 1 clears out, then move Block 2 into the system integration laboratories,” he says. “Then we will use the USRL for Block 1 fixes, to keep them out of the main path.”

 

Currently, Lockheed has three primary integration lines — the Stimsys, Oasys and CATBird. The new integration line will be an additional Stimsys, which uses high-fidelity threat models to stimulate the hardware and stress the mission system. The Oasys uses aircraft sensors in a pole model and real targets, while the CATBird is equipped with all the F-35’s processors and sensors and acts as another “open air” integration lab.

 

Mission-system flight testing on the F-35 began in April with the first flight of BF-4, a short-takeoff-and-landing F-35B, with Block 0.5 software. This has 5.5 million of the 8.6 million lines of onboard software code planned for the final Block 3 version of the F-35 that will emerge from the development ­program.

 

There was one anomaly on that flight — the right panoramic cockpit display blanked and recovered. The left display, helmet-mounted display, communications, navigation, radar and electronic warfare were all stable, says George. The anomaly was investigated during planned aircraft downtime and isolated to a software fault in the liquid-crystal display, which is supplied by L-3 Communications. “It was low down in the embedded code,” he says.

 

BF-4 returned to flight in May. In its first flights from Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth plant, the aircraft’s Northrop Grumman APG-81 active, electronically scanned array radar detected airborne targets “way before” the radars on the F-16 and F-18 chase planes, says George. There was also some radar and elec­tronic warfare fusion on the first flights. Data fusion was planned for Block 1, but was brought forward to the Block 0.5 flight-test update to reduce risk. “We saw fusing of radar and EW tracks on the first flight,” he says.

 

The CATBird began flying Block 1 software in late May after completing its sixth modification period. The 737 is now equipped with the F-35’s communication/navigation/identification, EW and radar sensors, electro-optical targeting system, panoramic cockpit display and helmet-mounted display. A final modification, planned for November, will add the remaining sensors: electro-optical distributed aperture system, multi-function advanced data link and Link 16.

 

Block 2 software is to fly first in the CATBird, at the beginning of 2011. The flying laboratory has proved useful in finding glitches that did not show up in the ground labs. “We could not take synthetic-aperture radar maps on the ground, and when we did them in air initially we got a mirror image. That was fixed,” says George. Issues with dynamic integration of the radar and EW sensors have also been fixed.

 

The next mission-system test aircraft to fly will be AF-3, the third conven­tional-takeoff-and-landing F-35A. This will fly with Block 0.5, but will be first to receive the Block 1 software in mid-2011. The first two low-rate initial-production lots will be delivered with Block 0.5, Block 1 coming in with the third batch. The cut-in points for Block 2 and 3 are being negotiated following the rebaselining of the program, he says.

 

Block 3 is defined, but coding has not begun. “There are a lot of classified requirements, and different modes and capabilities. We know what it is and we are going through the build-to requirements,” George says. The blocks are retrofittable as software upgrades. The only planned hardware change is an update to the processor to provide additional capacity and throughput for Block 3 and beyond.

 

No capabilities were deleted from Block 3 as part of the replan, but some were moved between blocks, says George. Fusion was moved to Block 0.5 from 1, the distributed aperture sensor to 1 from 2, and the stealthy intra-flight data link pushed back to Block 2 from 1 because of delays in delivering the system.

 

 

  ⓒ Lockheed Martin