A Missing Piece of PEO Enterprise Architectures: The Assured Infrastructure Modularities

As the Department of Defense (DoD) pursues the implementation of a Modular Open System Approach (MOSA) to achieve weapon system overmatch through rapid and affordable technology upgrades, a more efficient and effective method to safely certify modularity is needed. In support of the DoD's vision for MOSA, the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Acquisition, Logistics and Technology) (ASA(ALT)) (Ref 1.) has set forth a policy that accelerates the Army's transition from its current document-driven engineering practices to the institutionalized use of modern Digital Engineering (DE) practices, to include Digital Twin and Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE). Current DE methods and processes drive a top-down approach to development for functional system specifications derived from enterprise architectures and Family of Systems (FoS) frameworks. These and other efforts intend to satisfy another recent DoD requirement, Modular Open System Approach (MOSA) (Ref. 2). When both DE and MOSA requirements are combined, future complex systems can no longer be developed or certified as monoliths, but rather must be a collection of severable components that can be incrementally certified and deployed as an integrated whole. This paper proposes new enterprise-level governance invariants that can define MOSA components and DE interfaces with sufficient rigor to rapidly certify their modular update. The proposal aims to establish a new coordinate system for identifying onboard modules with required rigor to be useful for both analysis and certification. It aims to promote aircraft sustainability for long lifetimes in the face of modularity drivers ranging across product line, cybersecurity, and safety concerns. The result is a safe, expeditious, consistent, and affordable way to build and certify modular systems that we call Assured Infrastructure Modularities (AIM). It is our intent to submit the AIM for consideration to help define modularity for PEO Aviation's Enterprise Architecture.