Developing highly predictable system behavior in real-time battle-management software

Abstract

Given that battle-management solutions in system-of-systems environment are separately designed and developed on various operating platforms in different languages, predicting battle-management behavior of system-of-systems is not possible. As a rule, battle-management is executed at the system level rather than the desired system-of-systems level. Typically, C4 systems are non-real-time systems. Traditionally, weapon systems are real-time systems. If we are to match the performance of weapon systems and avoid the negative impact of forcing synchronization of battle manager software with weapon systems for messaging, then we must develop the battle manager as real-time software. We advocate the development of battle-management software as a real-time set of system functionality that addresses warfighter usage. To achieve the level of desired predictable battle-management behavior, we maintain that it is essential to develop a formal representation that captures the desired battle manager system behavior and test the formal representation against the expected battle-management properties. Furthermore, we assert that it is critical to develop the battle manager as a real-time software-intensive system to ensure the schedulability of battlemanagement tasks and provide for concurrent execution of such tasks where applicable.