SOFTWARE ENGINEERING ENVIRONMENT FOR PARALLEL AND DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS

FUTURE GENERATIONS OF NAVY COMBAT SYSTEMS WILL DEPLOY PARALLEL AND/OR DISTRIBUTED PROCESSING ARCHITECTURES. SYSTEM DESIGN AND, IN PARTICULAR, SOFTWARE DESIGN AND PROGRAMMING FOR THESE ENVIRONMENTS WILL BE ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE MORE DIFFICULT THAN ANYTHING WE FACE NOW. THE PROPOSED EFFORT, THEREFORE, ASSESSES CURRENT CAPABILITIES FOR ARCHITECTURE EVALUATION, VECTORIZING COMPILERS AND AUTOMATIC CODE GENERATION. FEASIBILITY OF CREATING A SOFTWARE ENGINEERING ENVIRONMENT FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF PARALLEL AND DISTRIBUTED REAL-TIME SOFTWARE IS ALSO INVESTIGATED. THE PROPOSED SOFTWARE ENVIRONMENT INCLUDES SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS, FUNCTIONAL DECOMPOSITION (I.E. VECTORIZATION) PROGRAM DESIGN AND AUTOMATIC CODE GENERATION VIA AN EXPERT SYSTEM. THE ADA LANGUAGE WILL BE STUDIED FOR INCLUSION IN THE SOFTWARE ENVIRONMENT, AS WELL AS, NEXT GENERATION PARALLEL PROCESSING HARDWARE SO THAT CODE DEVELOPMENT FOR PARALLEL COMPUTERS CAN BE AS AUTOMATIC AS POSSIBLE.