3.4 Prototyping, Pre-Production, Model-Making and Fabrication Support

FDE Prime Contract: N61339-02-D-0001 (Zones 4 & 6). Under the Signal Data Bus Adapter (SDBA) delivery order of this support contract, FDE designed a PC-based COTS replacement for an obsolete piece of trainer-unique equipment. This is a significant example of FDE's experience in building, fabricating, testing, evaluating and operating prototypes, pre-production units, and research and development test tools, as all of these elements were part of this development effort. The SDBA project replaced the unit that interfaces the Original Equipment Manufacturer's (OEM's) simulation host computer to the SH60B onboard computer, AYK-14 (GFE). FDE programmers designed, wrote and tested code to handle the OEM's High-Speed Device communications for the SDBA application to read the device commands sent by the host computer and to send the proper responses back to the host. FDE developed programs to communicate with the GFE computer via 1553A bus protocols. New software was designed and developed to integrate into existing code as the Graphical User Interface. This enhancement allowed real time operation of the system to be monitored and provided the ability to run the system offline using the Simulation Host or a general Bus Monitor. Development efforts required FDE to analyze the 1553A bus messages sent from the SH-60B AYK-14 on-board computer and supply data to a PCI card vendor for them to supply firmware that correctly responded to the non-standard mode commands sent from the GFE.