SBIR-STTR Award

The vast amount of warfare system architecture data together with the large number of different database management systems with no standards between them has created a problem of significant magnitude for warfare system architects. The inability to easily share information with other warfare system architects from within and across warfare areas has resulted in the potential for incorrect conflicting, and insufficient information being made available to the architects. This program will develop a standard data interchange format for spawar archietectural data that will enable all warfare areas to easily interchange data, verify and validate their existing data, and provide a common frame of reference for all warfare system architects. Warfare architectural data is currently provided in many different forms; textual descriptions, pictoral representations of interlinks between systems, textual descriptions of these links, plots of weapon performance, tables of data, photographic images of platforms, etc.. This program will develop a spawar architecture data interchange format (SADIF) that will resolve the many different data forms as well as the differences in nomenclature, data query methods file exchange protocols, and standards for data access. Phase I will provide a report detailing this SADIF.

The development of many case tools under the auspices of SPAWAR has created a problem of significant magnitude, the inability to interchange information between these tools. This program will develop and implement an interface program that will enable these tools to communicate in an automated, traceable and reproducible fashion. Incorporating the technology base of the Case Data Interchange Format (CDIF) standards, combination of these metamodels into a supra model and the development of a central repository for the tool interface information. Meta-models are a theoretical description of the information, both semantic and graphic, that must be encapsulated for communication between tools. The central repository combines a database management program with a set of methods for translating the data between meta-models. The meta-models objects, attributes and the assessment process requirements for traceability will define the necessary internal data structure. The import/export requirements of the meta-models and the CDIF syntax will define the data transmission capabilities of the repository. This program will provide a fully functional system to facilitate intertool data exchange.