Description
The objective of the activity is to develop and test a configurable execution environment for an intelligent platform data handlingsystemTargeted Improvements:- 30% improvement of the performance of autonomous applications.- 50% reduction of the applicationsoftware integration and validation efforts.Description: The increase of processing power onboard spacecrafts will allow the implementation of intelligent functionalities such as early failure detection, prognosis and root cause identification, autonomous management of the spacecraft within a constellation, management of the communication network of a constellation, etc. These new functionalities will increase the performance of the spacecraft and overall constellation while enhancing its autonomy. However, the softwareexecution of such functions is limited by the existing software execution environments.The development of an execution environmentfor state-of-the-art data handling systems will deliver a fully configurable and optimised support framework to facilitate their deployment, verification, validation and reconfiguration while in flight. Two key concepts will guide the development of the executionenvironment. The first concept is related to configuration. The software execution environment will be easily configurable from a file referencing the different libraries to be used and their parameters that match the exact need of the mission. Building an execution platform from a simple configuration file will lead to a significant reduction of the development, integration, and validation effort of applications. The execution platform will also support the full reconfiguration of the software while in flight to deploy new functions, to update services, to change the space/ground protocol stack, etc. The second concept is the optimisation of execution through the support of modern reconfigurable processing units such as multi-core processors, reconfigurable FPGAs and microcontrollers. This will lead to an improvement of the performance of autonomous applications. After analysing the Intelligent Platform Data Handling System, the use cases implementing a high degree of autonomy exercising the platform will be defined. Some trade-offs of the required functions and existing software libraries or products will then be performed. After integration of the software librariesand products to build the complete execution environment, it will be validated through the development and execution of the identified use cases and required configurations.Procurement Policy: C(1) = Activity restricted to non-prime contractors (incl. SMEs). For additional information please go to:http://www.esa.int/About_Us/Business_with_ESA/Small_and_Medium_Sized_En….