Missile Communication Alternatives and Trades

End-to-end communications systems are often so complex that system designers have difficulty keeping track of the constraints, trades, interface requirements, and interdependencies among components. The Communications System Taxonomy (CommTax) and Toolkit development continuation proposed herein represents further refinement of an innovative tool that MorganFranklin Corporation and its partners, Applied Defense Solutions (ADS) and MAXIM Systems, Inc. have recently developed during the just completed MDA Phase I SBIR. CommTax features physical views, logical scenario views, and unified summary views of interdependencies among components, interfaces, and protocols in the information system. The proposed CommTax Toolkit will be ideal for developing future MDA Communication designs, as well as for evaluating existing designs for upgrades or changes. The CommTax taxonomy model conforms to the universally recognized seven-layer Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model. This simple and visual design aid will improve and enhance the quality of future MDA communications system designs while also shortening the design/evaluation timeline.