Web

Workshop	Presentor
Quality of Service Provision in Mobile Ad- hoc Networks (MANET) Abstract Presentation	Dr. A. Ganz
Software Evolution and Software Reuse Across Multiple Abstract Presentation	Dr. V. Rajlich
Vehicle Power Systems: Architecture, Dynamics, Control,& Stability Abstract Presentation	Dr. M. Ehsani,
Safety Critical Systems Development Abstract Presentation	Dr. F. Milli
Land Vehicle Motor Drives & Starter-Generators: Selection, Sizing & Control Abstract Presentation	Dr. M. Ehsani,
Crew-Centric Decision Support Systems Abstract Presentation	Dr. F. Milli
Automotive Power Electronics-Devices & Circuits Abstract Presentation	Dr. J Shen
High-Efficiency Permanent Magnet Machines Abstract Presentation	Dr. C. Mi
Web-Based Software Testing of Systems and Sub-Systems Abstract Presentation	Dr. G. Singh,
Real-Time Systems Abstract Presentation	Dr. S. Ganesan

Two approaches for Web based software testing are discussed. Our assumption is that the Software Under Test (SUT) deployed on a server accessible over the Internet. Strategies for a distributed testing of such software systems are covered in this workshop. The term Distributed software testing implies that several remotely located testers and developers can simultaneously accesses the software and validate test-vectors, estimating quality, or execute benchmarks.

Firstly, Simpler solutions, such as the CGI are handy because of the short turnout time needed to build the distributed test-bench and are mostly suited for black-box validation where input/output relationships need to be tested. This would be useful for example, if the software was needed to be tested with some unique test-vector that is discovered on the field. The ability for the software to adequately respond to this new test case is thus established over the web.

And secondly, server side technologies such as CORBA and EJB offer higher flexibility and control over the execution of test vectors and result in enabling us to perform white-box testing from a remote site. Using server side objects, remote execution of test-regimens that require managing transactions and state information is possible. This encompasses the execution of test cases that, for example, might require execution over a period of several days to demonstrate algorithm's validity.

Real time embedded systems are used in military applications widely. Theoretical analysis, design, use of advanced design tools, using the latest real time software, performance monitoring, simulation and testing of real time embedded systems in a systematic way are vital for the future. This course emphasizes hard and soft real time computer system design for uni- processor embedded system applications and distributed real time systems. Topics covered include characterizing real-time systems, performance measure, task assigning, scheduling, Fault tolerant scheduling, run-time error handling, run-time support, compiler, linker, debugger, kernel, real time databases, real-time communication, software development techniques; practical applications. Research areas in the above topics and military applications will be emphasized.

Power electronics and power semiconductors are playing an increasingly important role in modern vehicles. As an enabling technology, power electronics is widely used in vehicle subsystems, such as electromechanical load (i.e. solenoids, motors, and relays) drivers, electric and hybrid drivetrains, in-vehicle power generation and distribution, and electrical architectures. Power electronics controls and processes electrical energy flow instead of information (or signal) flow as in the cases of digital and analog electronics. This encompasses multiple disciplines in electrical engineering, such as circuit theory, solid state electronics, control theory, signal processing, electromagnetics, and electric machines.

This 4-hour session introduce the basic concepts of power semiconductor devices and power electronic circuits with special emphasis on their applications in vehicle system. The ideal power switches and basic semiconductor device theory will be first introduced, followed by a discussion on several power semiconductor devices (diode, power MOSFET, IGBT, MCT, SiC devices, and power ICs). Basic power converter configurations such as AC/DC, DC/DC and DC/AC converters will be reviewed. A range of case studies of traditional automotive power electronics applications will be provided, which includes load driver circuits for fuel injectors, ignition coils, and bi-directional DC motors, in-vehicle power management and electrical architectures, and 42V PowerNet.

Recently, a new and more realistic model of systems lifecycle has been published. The staged model consists of initial development, system evolution, servicing, phase-out, and shutdown. During evolution, system requirements are sharpened or new requirements are introduced. The inevitability of system evolution stems from the fact that both system engineers and the users learn new facts during the initial development, and the system environment constantly changes ("requirements volatility"). Recent developments support the staged model and make system evolution the central stage of the system lifecycle. Examples of recent developments include incremental delivery, Rational Unified Process, agile system development methodologies like SCRUM and XP, etc.

System architecture and the team's knowledge are the factors that enable system evolution. They both can be lost ("architecture decay") and after that, the system enters stage of servicing ("legacy") where large changes become prohibitively expensive and risky. Routine activities are limited to only minor maintenance. Reengineering, redocumentation, and reimplementation are the manager's options at this stage, but they are often very expensive.

Software reuse across multiple platforms transfers the software into a different operating environment. The issues of interest include layering for the portability .However an important factor is the operating environment features that propagate through the layer into the core of the software and therefore impact software portability.

One session of the workshop wilt be devoted to the issues the audience wants to emphasize. If the attendees prepare a list of these issues several weeks in advance, the author will address them in more detail in this session.

The More Electric Vehicle (MEV) concept emphasizes the utilization of electrical systems instead of mechanical, hydraulic, and pneumatic systems to optimize vehicle fuel economy, maneuverability, mission ability, survivability, and reliability. In addition, the need for improvement in safety, security, performance, and communications necessitates more electric vehicular systems. Advancements in the areas of power electronics and motor drives along with fault tolerant electrical distribution systems and control electronics enable the transforming of present systems into the MEV systems. In this short course, we address fundamental issues in land, air, sea, undersea, and space vehicular power systems. In order to meet the needs of TACOM, specific emphasis will be placed on land vehicles, including combat vehicles. Furthermore, a brief description of the conventional electrical systems and the role of power electronics will be presented. Different applications of power electronic converters and motor drives will be explained. Moreover, present and future electrical loads will be described in detail.

Advanced vehicular electrical power systems are multi-converter power electronic systems. The number of power electronic converters (AC/DC, DC/DC, DC/AC, and AC/AC) in these systems varies from a few converters in a conventional land vehicle to tens of converters in the advanced aircraft, spacecraft, and ship power systems, to hundreds of converters in the international space station. Power electronic converters, when tightly regulated, behave as constant power loads. Constant power loads have negative impedance characteristics. This means that although, in constant power loads the instantaneous value of impedance is positive, but the incremental impedance is always negative. In fact, the current through a constant power load decreases or increases when the voltage across it increases or decreases. This implies a destabilizing effect for the system that is known as negative impedance instability.

Development of compact, efficient, and fault tolerant electrical power generation systems is of paramount importance to aerospace and military applications. In fact there exists an increasing demand for higher levels of electric power to accommodate advanced weapons and more electrification of inefficient engine driven loads. Replacement of mechanical components by electronically driven systems will not only boosts the efficiency but also favors survivability of the system. Furthermore, it provides grounds for control by wire which is of vital importance to remote web based control/monitoring systems. As the need for higher levels of electrical power continues, development of a robust yet efficient generation system plays a central role.

In the case of land vehicle applications, variable speed operation is needed to cope with the variation of speed in the prime mover. It must be noted that the proper application of a generator to a system requires an understanding of the characteristics of the prime mover. In the land vehicle applications, the prime mover is able to provide essentially constant power over a wide range of speed. Equally important are the characteristics of the electric power system into which the adjustable speed generator provides energy. This indeed reenforces the important fact that the design of the generator should take place in the context of the system. Since electromagnetic torque, for a given power, mainly determines the size of the electric machine, a higher speed of operation will favor the compactness of the system. Therefore, an optimal adjustable speed drive

should be capable of offering a very wide speed range in its constant power mode of operation while demonstrating a highly efficient performance at high/super-high speeds. Super-high speed operation calls for certain attributes in a adjustable speed drives among which structural stability and ruggedness, position sensorless controllability, high efficiency are of great importance. The absence of any magnetic source on the rotor, a very wide constant power region and overall efficient performance of Switched Reluctance Machines makes them a unique solution for this challenging application. External position sensors at ultra-high speeds (10k.r.p.m. and above) will have an adverse effect on the reliability, cost and compactness of the system. Therefore, Integration of a reliable position sensorless control turns into a necessary step towards development of super high speed Switched Reluctance Generator (SRG) drives. This short course offers a solution for an efficient, compact, and fault tolerant electrical starter-generator system in vehicles. This will include novel technologies addressing magnetic design, power electronics and control aspects of the SRG based generation unit. This will offer a unique package meeting the basic requirements of this applications but also paving the way for future enhancement as characterized by enhanced survivability, sensorless control and web based remote control.

During this half-day workshop, we will focus on high efficiency rare-earth permanent magnets (PM) machines for vehicles and other applications. We will start the session by introducing the latest developments of rare-earth PM materials, such as samarium-cobalt, sintered and bonded neodymium-Ferrite-Boron. We will explain the principle and theory of various types of PM machines, including AC generators, DC motors, synchronous motors, brushless motors and axial flux motors. We will also look into the unique advantages of PM machines including their torque capability at zero speed. We will explore the application of PM machines in vehicles, including private, commercial and military applications. We will then switch to the design and practical issues associated with the manufacturing and construction of PM machines. We will also discuss the detailed control strategies of PM machines through an example control scheme using MC68332 micro-controller. We will identify practical issues associated with the control and application of PM machines.

In this tutorial we first present the challenges of obtaining quality of service in MANET. We introduce a QoS architecture as a viable solution to UGV networks. The course will include:

Combat vehicles have evolved from simple "mechanical weapon carrying machinery" to "sophisticated integrated electronics weapon systems" [VI00]. The level of sophistication of these systems is closely correlated to the complexity of the embedded software and hardware systems. Combat vehicles' operations are often safety-critical and mission critical. They must be designed with a high level of quality and reliability.

Ad hoc and test-based approaches to software quality assurance, although still widely used, have proven to be inadequate. In this workshop, we focus on more systematic approaches to software quality. We discuss techniques for fault prevention, fault tolerance, fault detection and removal, and fault forecasting. Fault prevention is achieved using rigorous methods and tools for the specification and the design of software systems. Fault tolerance is usually achieved through redundancy. Different techniques to achieve redundancy will be discussed. Fault detection and removal is an important component of quality assurance. Techniques and tools for fault detection will be discussed along with their strengths and limitations. Fault forecasting is necessary when dealing with hardware components whose integrity and performance may degrade over time.

This workshop recognizes the national need to develop understanding and expertise in the area of software quality assurance especially for safety critical and mission critical systems. Its main objectives are

1. To raise awareness of the importance of rigorous and systematic approaches to quality assurance.

2. To familiarize the participants with available tools and techniques and provide them with a good understanding of the scope and limitations of the different techniques introduced.

3. Help them identify opportunities for using some of the tools and techniques introduced in the workshop.

The Vetronics concept has emerged as an answer to the increasing complexity of combat vehicles resulting from rapid advances made in technology, the level of sophistication of electronic components, and the ever increasing expectation in terms of lethality and operational tempo [VI00]. The Vetronics concept takes an all encompassing/integrated view of the battle vehicle with its environment and its crew.

In this workshop, we embrace the Vetronics concept and view the vehicle and the environment as the crew's communications, command and control center. We take the view that the vehicle's functionality is essentially that of a Decision Support System providing the crew with all the resources needed to plan, make, execute, and evaluate decisions. This workshop will review the major components of a Decision Support System in terms of data, models, and control. We will then discuss the specific issues of decision support in the context of Vetronics vehicles. Decision Support in the context of integrated combat vehicles raises specific challenges and presents unique opportunities. The challenges include the stringent timing requirements, the stress conditions, the potential uncertainty in the data, the need for fault tolerance, and the need for continuous evaluation and revision of decision plans. The opportunities include the integration of planning, decision making, execution and evaluation, as well as the immediate feedback received from decisions. Issues will be identified and traditional and novel solutions will be discussed.

The aim of the workshop is three-fold: 1. Framing a combat vehicle as a decision support system will give attendees a new perspective on the nature of integration required in Vetronics vehicles, and help them identify important issues. 2. Provide attendees with a working knowledge of Decision Support Systems knowledge and tools. 3. Acquaint attendees with recent advances as well as ongoing research in areas related to addressing the issues identified.