R&D trends in the aerospace industry

Citation

Shetty, S. (2007), "R&D trends in the aerospace industry", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 79 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/aeat.2007.12779aaf.002

R&D trends in the aerospace industry

R&D trends in the aerospace industry

Since, 9/11, the aerospace and defence industries have changed considerably. The market has changed dramatically bringing in a paradigm shift in the requirements of the industry's customers. Both defence and civil customers are looking at a more efficient, lower cost of ownership and state-of-the-art systems.

This is in turn causing the aerospace companies to realign their strategies in order to retain their leadership in market place and address the changing business and economic environments effectively. As we move forward, the industry is likely to become more proactive, agile and lean – thanks to a whole lot of new technologies, mature outsourcing models and emergence of new service providers, like my own company, Wipro.

One year after 9/11, business air travel had declined approximately 30 percent, whilst air travel overall was down by 11 percent. The airline industry was projected to lose more than US$5 billion in 2002, on top of losing $7.7 billion in 2001. United Airlines filed for bankruptcy, while most other airlines continue to post huge losses. In response to the drop in air travel demand, the airlines reduced the number of flights – requiring less aircraft. As a result, airlines postponed or cancelled orders for new planes.

Boeing's commercial business was hit hard and the company announced the layoff of 30,000 workers. With the airline industry continuing to struggle, aircraft manufacturers such as Boeing and Airbus cut costs by sending some of their software development and engineering work offshore.

Increasingly, offshore providers realize that they must cater to vertical market segments, and establish more technical expertise in areas such as aerospace. Indeed, results of a Merrill Lynch & Co. survey of 50 CIOs in December 2005 found that a key driver for moving jobs offshore is the expected cost savings. According to the survey, more than half of the CIOs polled said they expected to see between 25 and 49 percent cost savings as a result of moving jobs offshore.

Global competitiveness means that R&D budgets are of crucial importance and there is a direct correlation between the importance of national aerospace industries and the level of government support that they receive.

Despite cuts in NASA and other budgets, the US continues to dominate military aerospace technology because of the scale of its R&D spending. The European Union is second in importance in terms of size of funding and has been effectively challenging the US. Europe leads in civil helicopters, and is level pegging as technology leaders in commercial airliner wings, civil and military aero-engines and so on.

Canada must also be mentioned in this regard because of its government funding of aerospace. It has claims to be the world's fourth largest aerospace industry, after the US, UK and France.

A snapshot of current Aerospace R&D expertise is reflected in these recent projects for leading aircraft manufacturers.

Aircraft cabin electronics system software

Full lifecycle of software development for a Cabin Electronics System spanning across requirements specification till independent verification and validation.

In-flight entertainment

Development of access layer application software (compliant to DO 178B level C) for controlling the IFE controller from customer's cabin electronics system. The project involved an extensive analysis and use of iterative development processes. Also a re-designed the system to remove the major design flaws in the software developed by previous vendor apart from meeting stringent delivery timelines.

Crew signalling software

Development of Crew Signaling software application (compliant to DO 178B level C) that enables crew members to signal the cockpit from their allotted areas.

Aircraft theme music application

Development of theme music software application (compliant to DO 178B level C) that enables cabin crew to configure and control music selections and lighting patterns inside the aircraft. The application was completely developed offshore to reduce costs. Also ensured the successful integration of this application with the cabin electronics system to avoid regressions.

Integration testing of aircraft cabin interconnection data system

Development of the hardware software integration test framework (compliant to DO 178B level C) for the aircraft's Cabin Interconnection Data System with its main board.

In-flight GSM communications

Independent verification subcontractor to test equipment functionality and performance. The customer derives high cost savings and faster time-to- market from the project.

Knowledge based engineering application

Automation of the tool design process for the customer. The highlight of this project is to minimize the design cycle time to 50 percent apart from reducing the engineer hours per tool to 50 percent as well.

Strength and stiffness analysis of aircraft seat

Provision of a comprehensive strength and stiffness analysis thus resulting in efficient design of joints for aircraft seats.

Leading satellite vendors and aerospace engines manufacturers.

VSAT terminal configuration porting

The customer needed an experienced partner in porting his outdated communication interfaces with the VSAT. Reduced the cost to the customer by offshoring the complete testing and automating the user interface porting.

Validation of satellite tracking product

The customer faced a critical problem in terms of product shipment delay primarily due to inconsistencies in product functionality and performance.

Satellite phone testing

Setting up a comprehensive test lab for the customer. This widened the scope of testing, enabled re-use of test environments, and finally translated into reduced time-to-market for the customer.

Product design central for aero engines manufacturer

Design and development of a single unified system based on eMatrix PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) platform to manage engine data and configurations from multiple engine projects. The application also provides high-level security and customized reporting features. The customer now derives cost advantage and greater business transparency by managing multiple source engine data from a single application.

Wipro case study: aircraft cabin electronics system software for a European aircraft manufacturer

Executive summary

Wipro has successfully applied its embedded software and hardware expertise to the avionics field as demonstrated in the project on the full lifecycle of software development for a cabin electronics system that Wipro delivered for a leading aircraft manufacturer. Wipro's large and diverse skilled resource pool provided project planning flexibility to the client, thus providing faster time-to-market in the highly competitive global aerospace market.

Client – A leading European Aircraft Manufacturer

Business issue addressed

Single software provider to handle the complete lifecycle of development of all the software modules in the system, including defining the architecture, interfaces and drivers for the system.

How wipro helped

The following functionalities and interfaces were designed and implemented by Wipro:

cockpit interface for audio and emergency situations; illumination and lighting; lavatory lights and signaling; safety signaling like no-smoke, fasten seat-belt, etc.; emergency evacuation signaling and crew signaling; interface smoke detection; BITE functionalities; ice protection; redundancy switch-over; electrical load management; audio control between cabin and cargo area (handset, loud speaker); communication interface between cargo area and service attendants; and air-conditioning control.

Wipro handled the full lifecycle of this software development project from planning to testing stage as follows:

1. 1.

   Planning stage:

   • •

     preparation of development plan.

2. 2.

   Requirements stage:

   • •

     verification of the supplier specification modules;

   • •

     creation of top-level software requirement data; and

   • •

     verification of the software requirement data.

3. 3.

   Analysis stage: building of UML ARTISAN analysis model through:

   • •

     use cases;

   • •

     domain model;

   • •

     interfaces to other applications and system components;

   • •

     hardware interfaces, wherever applicable; and

   • •

     interrupt handling.

4. 4.

   Design stage:

   • •

     UML ARTISAN design-model;

   • •

     defining inter task communication interfaces;

   • •

     top-level software design data; and

   • •

     verification of the software design data.

5. 5.

   Implementation stage:

   • •

     application development;

   • •

     low level requirements implementation; and

   • •

     development to DAL C of DO 178B.

6. 6.

   Testing and verification stage:

   • •

     preparation of high level test cases (in parallel with design phase);

   • •

     test cases defined during the design phase;

   • •

     system tests for all high-level requirement test cases at customer system test bench; and

   • •

     complete verification for compliance to DO-178B Level B certification

Tools used

Analysis and design: Artisan Realtime Studio.

Requirement management: DOORs.

Testing: RT tester from verified systems with proven full decision coverage.

OS: VxWorks.

Configuration management: ClearCase, ClearQuest.

Methodology adopted

DO-178B compliant process methodology.

Key achievements/deliverables

Wipro took the complete lifecycle responsibility of all the software application modules.

Wipro developed the DO-178B compliant application using strict process compliance methodology and practices.

Wipro provided planning flexibility to the customer by being able to quickly ramp up and up the project team.

Wipro provided faster time-to-market using its large resource pool.

Wipro background

Wipro Technologies is a global services provider delivering technology-driven business solutions that meet the strategic objectives of our clients. Wipro has 40+ “Centers of Excellence” that create solutions around specific needs of industries. Wipro delivers unmatched business value to customers through a combination of process excellence, quality frameworks and service delivery innovation. Wipro is the World's first CMMi Level 5 certified software services company and the first outside USA to receive the IEEE Software Process Award. Also, Wipro is the largest independent R&D services provider in the world.

Shreedhara ShettySenior Vice President Telecom and Product Engineering Services.