This project is concerned with the problem of automatizing the software development process for satellite on-board applications. The specific technology it considers to address this problem is automated instantiation techniques built upon the JavaBeans component standard. Its aim is to build a prototype automated instantiation tool for an on-board system. The starting point for this tool is the Java version of the AOCS Framework. This framework is an object-oriented component-based software framework for on-board satellite control systems. The project investigates the use of commercial design tools for JavaBeans-based applications as a means to instantiate the framework. Although the project focuses on software for satellite control systems, its results are more generally applicable to embedded control systems.
The construction of a prototype JavaBeans-based framework instantiation environment using commerical bean builder tools proved impractical. This project was therefore terminated early. Its orginal objective - exploring automated techniques for instantiating a software framework - is instead studied in the follow-on project on Automated Framework Instantiation that uses a different technology based on generative systems to achieve the same goal. Both this project and its follow-on are done under contract to the European Space Agency at ESA-Estec (contract number 15753/02/NL/LvH, see the disclaimer) by P&P Software of Germany as prime contractor and the group of Prof. Schaufelberger at the Automatic Control Laboratory of ETH-Zurich as subcontractor. The project manager is Alessandro Pasetti of P&P Software. He is assisted by Vaclav Cechticky of ETH-Zurich. The contact person at ESA-Estec is Jean-Loup Terraillon of Estec TOS-EME.