Phase II Amount
$1,509,990
The Lakota Tactical Emulator Ecosystem (LTEE) provides the ability to accurately execute software of legacy systems in a modern host environment. LTEE interprets the legacy software at the machine code or assembly statement level; simulates code execution with accurate clock cycle tracking; provides adaptation to host operating system methods and services, and adapts all inputs and outputs to services and devices on the host system. LTEE's approach is highly favorable in the use case when legacy code is under test; LTEE provides an authentic representation of legacy software execution since it emulates binary code execution code at an assembly instruction level. Direct translation of CMS-2 code into a modern host system architecture would lose the timing and precision characteristics of existing AN/UYK-43 architecture. LTEE solves many of the problems related to translation of legacy system code, such as interfacing to legacy executives and system libraries, I/O with legacy hardware, and the intermittent use of direct code. The LTEE is being developed to execute UYK-43 legacy software in an x86/Linux host, but is extensible to other legacy hardware and hosts systems utilized in the military, business, medical, automotive, and telecommunications industries.
Benefit: There are several anticipated benefits of the Lakota Tactical Emulator Ecosystem (LTEE), which provides an accurate execution of legacy systems in a modern host environment. This is because it interprets the legacy software at the machine code or assembly statement level. Using this approach for instruction set simulation, it is able to simulate legacy hardware code execution with accurate clock cycle tracking. The LTEE also is able to provide the adaptation of legacy executive functions to host operating system methods and services. Many legacy systems were implemented with run-time executives that are defunct or unavailable on modern host systems. Thus, the functionality of this processing needs to be adapted to services available on the modern host. Likewise, some of the Input/Output (I/O) hardware and services are unavailable on modern systems. These communications need to be adapted to services and devices on the host system. Thus, LTEE provides this essential feature to adapt all inputs and outputs to services and devices on the host system. The testing of legacy system code on non-native hardware needs a most authentic representation of legacy software execution. LTEE provides this because it emulates binary code execution code at an assembly instruction level. LTEE also solves many of the problems related to translation of legacy system code, such as interfacing to legacy executives and system libraries, I/O with legacy hardware, intermittent use of direct code. The modular design and run-time configurability of LTEE facilitates its extension to other legacy hardware and hosts systems that need these benefits such as military, business, medical, automotive, and telecommunications industries. The following is a list of commercial applications that could use the benefits of this technology: - Situations where the ability to execute legacy system software in environments where legacy hardware is not available, due to obsolescence, cost, or supply chain issues. - Situations where support for software developed for legacy military systems and CPUs still in use, with limited supply, support, and expertise, such as UYK-44, AYK-14, and MIL-1750A compatible processors. - Situations where a pure hardware solution is deemed necessary. The LTEE has the potential to be extended to run in a pure hardware solution using FPGAs, providing cost effective alternatives to expensive processors in a dwindling supply chain.
Keywords: Legacy Hardware Emulator, virtualization, Legacy System Emulation, Host Services Adaptation, Emulation Framework, Instruction Set Simulation, Transport Service Adaptation, Operating System Adaptation
