Munitions Research

The MIL-STD-1760 aircraft /store electrical interface standard significantly reduced the cost of electrically integrating smart stores on aircraft and dramatically enhanced aircraft/store interoperability. An evolving electrical interface standard isexpected to achieve similar results for integration of planned miniature stores on advanced carriage dispensers. Though these two standards deal with some lower level software interface issues (primarily related to communications), there is littleexisting commonality in application level aircraft/store software interfaces. Since some government estimates attribute approximately 40 percent of the non-recurring cost of an aircraft/store integration effort to software development, substantialadditional savings could be achieved through enhanced commonality and standardization in these application level interfaces. In fact, better standardization in aircraft/store software including the incorporation of such commercial techniques as plug andplay capabilities was specifically pointed out as highly desirable by a 1999 NATO Industrial Advisory Group (NIAG) study of potential improvements in Aircraft, Launcher, and Weapon Interoperability (ALWI). The proposed effort would investigaterequirements for aircraft/miniature store software standardization, define an open system software integration framework, develop a concept for a real world example application, and develop a plan for a follow-on prototyping/demonstration program.The technology provided by this program will provide a basis for significantly reducing aircraft/miniature store (and other store) software integration costs and enhancing interoperability. It has significant potential commercial applicability in roboticvehicle and home and office automation applications.