Embedded control system design requires a cross-disciplinary development effort involving design, software, and test engineering staffs. Conventional embedded control system development involves the use of various tools, each of which is applicable only to a portion of the development life cycle. Cross-disciplinary development using various design tools is expensive and a disproportionate amount of effort is required to translate control law algorithms into executable code. A toolset to increase productivity and reduce life cycle cost by providing an integrated development environment, including automated generation of high-level code from control law block diagrams, is needed.
This paper presents AiResearch experience to date in using the NASA/Boeing Application Generator (AG) to develop real-time control systems for the Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) in Work Package 01. The AG provides an integrated design and development tool encompassing: system analysis, modeling, control law design, simulation, code generation, real-time hardware-in-the-loop simulation and operation, and documentation. This allows rapid interactive prototyping of real-time control systems in a single, integrated, environment.
Advantages and disadvantages of using the AG for real-time control system development will be addressed, with the CDRA specification to delivery cycle serving as a basis for discussion. Suggestions for improving the AG are offered and observations on its potential as a top-level system specification tool are made.