NASA STTR 2004 Solicitation

FORM B - PROPOSAL SUMMARY


PROPOSAL NUMBER: 04 T1.01-9899
RESEARCH SUBTOPIC TITLE: Information Technologies for System Health Management, Autonomy and Scientific Exploration
PROPOSAL TITLE: Component-Based QoS-Driven Synthesis of High Assurance Embedded Software
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN (SBC) RESEARCH INSTITUTION (RI)
NAME:IA Tech, Inc. NAME:Jet Propulsion Laboratory
ADDRESS:10501 Kinnard Avenue ADDRESS:4800 Oak Grove Drive
CITY:Los Angeles CITY:Pasadena
STATE/ZIP:CA90024-6017 STATE/ZIP:CA91109-8099
PHONE:(310)474-3568 PHONE:(818)354-2845

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Ann T Tai
tai@ia-tech.com
10501 Kinnard Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90024-6017
(310)474-3568

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
Software is an integral part of many complex embedded systems, such as avionics, scientific exploration, and on-board systems. However, poor software reliability is a major impediment to the success of these mission-critical systems. Testing, formal verification, and code synthesis techniques have been proposed to achieve more reliable software, with automated code synthesis being the most promising method. But synthesizing a complex system from scratch is costly. A more practical approach is to synthesize systems from existing components, i.e., component-based system synthesis (CBSS). Existing research in CBSS focuses on synthesizing systems bottom-up, which has severe limitations. We propose to achieve CBSS by combining the top-down and bottom-up approaches. Specifically, we develop techniques to achieve automated system decomposition and semi-automated system architecture synthesis. The IDEAL decomposition technique decomposes a system into ``IDEAL'' units that are mathematically composable and can be developed and evolved independently. Consequently, the technique assures system reliability and enables on-the-fly feature/technology upgrades. The QoS-based architecture synthesis technique seeks to assure system QoS properties by synthesizing an architecture that optimizes QoS objectives. It also facilitates on-board system adaptation due to resource and power constraints. Combined with bottom-up techniques, such as Amphion and pattern-based code synthesis, a dramatic leap in automated CBSS capability can be achieved. The proposed research will lead to sophisticated automation for synthesizing highly reliable, multi-mission capable avionics and exploration systems.

POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (LIMIT 100 WORDS)
As software for space applications are often developed by domain experts (e.g., robotics scientists) rather than professional programmers, the resulting synthesis environment will effectively reduce development/maintenance costs and increase productivity, especially for the NASA missions that need to be equipted by large and complex software. Moreover, since future deep-space missions will require long-life, reconfigurable, upgradable high-assurance avionics systems, the resulting component-based QoS-driven software synthesis environment can be applied to enable rapid and safe onboard reconfiguration and upgrades (e.g., adding or substituting one or more components using an onboard repository or through uplinking new components to a spaceborne system).

POTENTIAL NON-NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (LIMIT 100 WORDS)
As it will lead to significant improvement of productivity and appreciable reduction of development and maintenance costs, the resulting component-based QoS-driven software synthesis technology will be appealing to the commercial sector. Specifically, the component-based QoS-driven synthesis environment will greatly benefit the industry in which software are typically developed by domain experts rather than professional programmers. Such examples include bio-medical industry and robotic system manufacturers. In addition, since our component-based approach to software synthesis facilitates system reconfiguration and upgrades, a potential commercial market is the fast growing wireless communication industry which frequently requires capacity upgrade and the corresponding software adaptation.