Freeing product line architectures from execution dependencies [avionics software]

In 1995, an initiative was launched to assess the potential for reuse of operational flight program software across multiple fighter aircraft platforms, and to define and demonstrate a supporting system architecture based upon open commercial hardware, software, standards and practices. Essential aspects of the resulting component-based logical architecture developed therein have been previously described. The focus of this paper is on selected aspects of the physical architecture resulting from that work. First, this paper briefly restates principle results from the previously published work to set the context for discussion. It then defines the design goals of software physical architecture particularly relevant to product line development and discusses solutions toward achieving these goals.