Configurable system of systems architecture for virtual prototyping of infrared search and track system

Infrared Search and Track system (IRST) is a necessity in aircraft weapon system for passively searching and tracking long-range suspected targets in the infrared (IR) region. As an effective modeling and simulation technique, virtual prototyping of IRST is increasingly considered as a required step to help evaluate pre-researched design of IRST. However, current virtual prototyping solutions for IRST are often complex and mostly focus on developing more accurate models. Proposed in this paper is a generic virtual prototyping solution for IRST that uses a configurable System of Systems (SoS) architecture to reduce the complexity of the overall virtual prototyping. Within this architecture, the virtual prototyping process is defined as distributed collaboration of well-established systems which satisfy the open systems principles such as self-governance, open interfaces, reconfigurability and modularity. Client-server architecture, Web-based and agent-based methods are applied in this solution to support distributed and multidisciplinary system collaboration. In order to support system renewal, which is necessary and frequent in the acquisition process of a SoS virtual prototyping, this solution enables configurable architecture by standardization of simulation procedure and system interfaces based on XML schema, as well as flexible definition of interconnections among systems. The resulting virtual prototyping solution is capable of satisfying IRST virtual prototyping requirements and accommodating to the changes of its systems. A simulation environment is also developed in this paper to support the proposed virtual prototyping solution for IRST.