Raytheon

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Contact:
John F. Masiyowski
Raytheon, Strategic Systems Division
7700 Arlington Blvd., Mail Stop N204
Falls Church, VA 22042-2900
jmasiyowski@raytheon.com

Tools Used: Object-Oriented (O-O) concepts and principles, C++, ACE/TAO, CORBA ®

Go to Figure presentation

Problem:
For the last thirty plus years, the Remote Systems Business Unit at the Strategic Systems Division of
Raytheon located in Falls Church, Va., has been designing, developing and maintaining complex Real-
time distributed Command, Control, Computer, Communications and Intelligence (C4I) systems in the
Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) applications domain. The current generation system is an integral part of
the Contingency Airborne Reconnaissance System (CARS).

After a series of upgrades over the years the C4I systems (reference Figure 1) needed a mechanism to
facilitate the exchange of information between system nodes. This mechanism needed to be simple,
transparent, reliable and available on a variety of platforms. In previous systems, a variety of techniques
were utilized to provide this information exchange. These techniques evolved just as the system evolved.
These methods ranged from simple serial communications links to network messages via TCP/IP. The
previous system generation utilized a customized abstraction layer (or Applications Program Interface -
API) on top of the network sockets API provided by most Operating Systems. This custom API, (called
Common Software CSW, reference Figure 2) was created in part because no industry standard means of
exchanging information between network nodes existed at that time (reference Figure 3). For a long time
afterwards and many generations and off shoots of these systems, CSW provided an excellent means of
information exchange between networked applications.

Over time, CSW was ported to a variety of hardware (computers and microprocessors) and software
(operating systems and programming languages) environments. However, a significant amount of
resources were needed in order to port CSW. CSW was also becoming limited because it was closely
coupled to the C programming language. More importantly, CSW was not based upon any industry
standard and the future direction of the system evolution was becoming increasingly clear. The future
direction of the system was in part of adhering to industry standards such as the Defense Information
Infrastructure Common Operating Environment (DII COE). Another future direction of the system was that
system interoperability and operations expand beyond a single system isolated on a Local Area Network
(LAN) to groups of interconnected systems connected via Wide Area Networks (WANs). New means of
information exchange between components of these systems were going to be needed and sooner than
expected. In May of 1996, the system was due for a major upgrade due to reliability and maintenance
issues not to mention that new requirements for the system were rapidly emerging.

Solution:
In order to position the system for future growth, standard compliance and new requirements, new
technologies were evaluated and subsequently utilized in the next generation system. Several
technologies were adopted such as: Object-Oriented (O-O) concepts and principles, the C++
programming language and the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), an industry
standard for distributed object computing. All of these technologies played central roles in the architecture
and implementation of the next generation system (reference Figure 4).

As new features and capabilities were added to the next generation system, O-O, C++ and CORBA were
utilized almost exclusively. CORBA soon proved to be a natural progression from CSW network services
towards distributed object computing. This progression was necessary due to the basic architecture of the
previous system generations being closely associated with the classical client-server and functionally
structured. During the development of the next generation system, CORBA was selected as a new
middleware implementation. Presently, there are over forty CORBA based servers and sixty CORBA
based clients in the next generation C4I system. These clients and servers represent a Source Line of
Code (SLOC) value of: 6k Object Management Group (OMG) Interface Definition Language (IDL) and
355k C++. The previous generation system had approximately 1,500k SLOC distributed among thirty-
three separate applications (called Configuration Items or CIs). The new generation system has a total of
2,414k C/C++ SLOC, 20k+ source files, 6k OMG IDL SLOC distributed among forty-six separate CIs.

CORBA replaced the message-based system of previous system generations and added a defined,
implementation (hardware platform and operating system) independent and programming language (C or
C++) independent set of interfaces. This replacement occurred at both the system and subsystem
(internal to the system) level and at the appropriate level of abstraction (i.e., functional capability). Refer
to Figures 1 and 4 to determine the architectural differences and the addition of CORBA interfaces.

One of the most significant developments was that of the interface between the user and remote
subsystem. This interface is referred to as the Interoperable Sensor Interface (ISI) and is illustrated in
Figure 5. The core of the ISI is that of the Common API that applies for all sensor interfaces regardless of
the exact sensor type. The Common API of the ISI is specified and described in OMG IDL. Note: The IDL
is not included here due to its shear size (over 4k IDL SLOC). The purpose of this common API interface
is to present a standard view of common capabilities provided by any of the different sensor
implementations. This common IDL was constructed around an object-oriented view of the sensor and its
capabilities. Sensors are viewed as sources of virtual sensing capabilities that may be commanded and
controlled at a number of layers of abstraction. The ISI is designed to provide direct manipulation of
capabilities that are meaningful in the application domain.

The ISI is an integral part of the SIGINT Object Model (SOM). The SOM is an object-oriented analysis
model of SIGINT operations and the SIGINT domain. The SOM has been embraced by the Government
standards community, and is referenced in the Joint Airborne SIGINT Architecture Standards Handbook
(JSWG 1998).

Migrating to The ACE ORB (TAO) along with the Adaptive Communications Environment (ACE) will
improve system maintainability needs as wells as other needs. NOTE: ACE is an equivalent to CSW in a
sense (the two are directed towards the same goal of functional transparency).

Another significant benefit of adopting TAO is that TAO is an open source CORBA implementation. Since
TAO is built upon ACE, ACE is an open source product as well. Also, TAO is only one of two CORBA
implementations that were being considered for DII COE certification.

In addition, TAO enhances the architecture of the next C4I system with the availability of a large amount
of CORBA Object Services (COS). Some of the COS that are critical to the architecture and design of a
distributed object system are Naming, Events and Notification.

CORBA branding, DII COE certification, open source, CORBA standard compliance, number of COS
available, documentation, and support network are powerful advantages for adopting ACE/TAO.

Given the great strides that CORBA has provided software developers, however, much work remains in
order to meet tomorrow's challenges and needs. Some of the challenges of distributed systems remain,
for example one such challenge is that of Quality of Service or QoS. Some of the unresolved QoS issues
are: performance (latency and throughput), error handling and recovery, dependence upon the transport
layer services (current capabilities or lack thereof), determinism, client-server connection management,
real-time data streaming, size of CORBA components, end-to-end (or application-to-application)
characteristics [e.g., performance, determinism]. Some of these issues are left up to the application and
others are addressed in part by Real-time/minimal CORBA and/or COS. Therefore, continued research in
the areas of CORBA and ACE/TAO are needed in order to meet these aforementioned challenges.

In the future, the SIGINT system must be able not only to interface but also interoperate with
heterogeneous sensors and user systems of various vintages, using different technologies - and built by
multiple companies. CORBA facilitates Raytheon to meet these challenges.

Raytheon Company is a global technology leader that provides products and services in the areas of
commercial and defense electronics and business and special mission aircraft. Raytheon has operations
throughout the United States and serves customers in 70 countries.