SBIR-STTR Award

In recent years, industry and government have begun adopting Model Based Engineering (MBE) practices in an unprecedented way. No longer exclusively the domain of isolated experts, MBE has been implemented across the full product lifecycle. This success is, however, giving rise to new challenges. The ability to share disparate models across teams, organizational boundaries, and among communities of practice is important for collaboration on complex projects. Model reuse is important because it minimizes the need to “re-invent the wheel” for each new project or initiative. Finally, the need to rapidly integrate disparate models together is critical for accurate evaluation of multidisciplinary systems and for evaluating different system/mission concepts and architectural variants. Phoenix Integration proposes to address these challenges by developing an analysis model sharing platform similar to GitHub, a successful software development collaboration system. This platform will be easy-to-use, web-based, and built on the Git version control system. Modifications will be made to tailor the Git repository system to version control analysis models and workflows. This model-sharing platform will have provision for documentation, tags and metadata, which includes a software dependencies list and supported OS. Shared analyses and workflows would be easily run in ModelCenter® and Jupyter notebooks. It will rely on cloud computing resources with on-demand provisioning and execute the analyses and workflows on them when requested. Additionally, published analyses and workflows would be verified automatically whenever supporting software versions change. Potential NASA Applications (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words) A successful project will help NASA further advance the MBE vision and help enable more comprehensive, broader, and deeper modeling efforts across all of NASA’s programs. Specifically, the project will help NASA to share engineering models and workflows across teams, organizational boundaries, and among communities of practice. These capabilities will directly benefit ongoing and future NASA projects and initiatives, such as the Mars 2020 and Europa Clipper missions. It will also be invaluable to foster collaboration across the NASA Centers. Potential Non-NASA Applications (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words) The proposed research will benefit all organizations involved in the analysis and design of complex systems, products, or missions. Government agencies such as the US Air Force and US Navy will benefit as they design the next generation air and sea-based vehicles. Commercial organizations such as Northrup Grumman and Boeing will also benefit from the project as MBE activities become more common.

In recent years, industry and government have begun adopting Model Based Engineering (MBE) practices in an unprecedented way. No longer exclusively the domain of isolated experts, MBE has been implemented across the full product lifecycle. This success is, however, giving rise to new challenges. The ability to share disparate models across teams, organizational boundaries, and among communities of practice is important for collaboration on complex projects. Model reuse is important because it minimizes the need to “re-invent the wheel” for each new project or initiative. Additionally, organizations face the challenge of model traceability and results repeatability. Both these qualities are critical in the lifecycle of an engineering product, and far too often is not attended to until a crisis occurs. Phoenix Integration proposes to address these challenges by developing an analysis model sharing platform, coupled with a reliable and repeatable way of deploying those analysis models. This platform will be easy-to-use, web-based, and built on the Git version control system. This model-sharing platform will have provision for documentation, tags and metadata. Software containerization is used to ensure a stable and repeatable analysis execution platform. This ensures that given a set of inputs, running the same analysis or workflow will always yield the same results. Shared analyses and workflows would be easily run in ModelCenter®, as well as on web-interfaces. It will rely on cloud computing resources with on-demand provisioning and execute the analyses and workflows on them when requested. Additionally, published analyses and workflows would be verified automatically whenever supporting software versions change. Potential NASA Applications (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words) A successful project will help NASA further advance the MBE vision and will help enable more comprehensive, broader, and deeper modeling efforts across all of NASA’s programs. Specifically, the project will help NASA to share engineering models and workflows across teams, organizational boundaries, and among communities of practice. It will also enable model traceability, repeatability and reusability. These capabilities will directly benefit ongoing and future NASA projects and initiatives, such as the Mars 2020 and Europa Clipper missions. Potential Non-NASA Applications (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words) We propose developing an easy-to-use analysis sharing platform, while enabling reliable model executions. Executing these analyses on cloud computing resources opens the possibility of easy accessibility, including automatic model verification. This can be used across all areas of engineering, including those in the aerospace & defense, automotive, scientific research and heavy industries.