Rapid Development of Flight Software for a Complete Guidance, Navigation, and Control Subsystem Using Simulinkâs Auto-coding Capabilities

The proposed task will create new processes and tools for automatically generating flight code for the entire Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) subsystem using the approach of translating GNC models generated by commercially available modeling and simulation tool(s) into multiple software applications for the standard flight software (FSW) architecture used by the Goddard Space Flight Center. This task will include the complete GNC subsystem for rapid development, testing, and deployment of the GNC subsystem to the FSW runtime environment to realize cost and schedule benefits to the entire process of developing GNC FSW.

This task will demonstrate that flight-ready GNC flight software applications for GSFC missions can be developed rapidly from GNC models created through commercially available simulation/modeling tools to meet the entire set of GNC FSW functional requirements including data processing, orbit and attitude state determination and control, fault detection and control (FDC), and actuator commanding. The new development process will utilize the auto-coding capabilities of the tools to code with a standard flight software application programming interface. Then we will utilize an interface layer to integrate the auto-generated code with GSFC's flight software architecture to create GNC flight software applications that can be executed on the spacecraft’s onboard computer. The SIL capabilities will be extended to include command, telemetry, FDC, and ACS mode transitions.

The GNC flight software applications created from auto-coding and the interface-layer processing will be deployed into our proposed closed-loop simulation environment to test the GNC flight software applications end-to-end with a simulated ground system, the truth models of the GNC subsystem will also be auto-coded and incorporated into this environment to simulate the GNC sensors and actuators. We will define the data and control interfaces between the spacecraft flight software system and the GNC truth model in this task.