1. www.DLR.de • Chart 1 > Open Source Software Framework for Applications in Aeronautics and Space > Doreen Seider > 05/03/2012
Open Source Software Framework for
Applications in Aeronautics and Space
Doreen Seider
IEEE Aerospace Conference
05/03/2012, Big Sky, MT, USA

2. www.DLR.de • Chart 2 > Open Source Software Framework for Applications in Aeronautics and Space > Doreen Seider > 05/03/2012
Motivation for Framework
- Beginning: Collaborative and distributed design and simulation
environment for shipyard industry
- Experience: Form software technology side of view many requirements in
common with aerospace software projects
- Why not design a framework as base system that fits all?
- Idea was born: Software framework RCE (Remote Component
Environment) poviding frequently needed functionalities as software
components

3. www.DLR.de • Chart 3 > Open Source Software Framework for Applications in Aeronautics and Space > Doreen Seider > 05/03/2012
Design and Simulation Environments
Source: Ilan Kroo

4. www.DLR.de • Chart 4 > Open Source Software Framework for Applications in Aeronautics and Space > Doreen Seider > 05/03/2012
Identified Common Requirements
- Distribution: provide capability to realize distributed software.
- Data Management: provide management for scientific data.
- Privilege Management: provide user management with authentication and
authorization support.
- Workflow Engine: provide environment for coupling of tools to automated
compute workflows.
- Graphical User Interfaces: provide general-purpose elements.
- Platform Independence: executable on different operating systems.

5. www.DLR.de • Chart 5 > Open Source Software Framework for Applications in Aeronautics and Space > Doreen Seider > 05/03/2012
Software Framework RCE
- Built on top of Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP)

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Provided Functionality by RCE

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Application in Aeronautics: Chameleon
- DLR develops Chameleon to support multidisciplinary projects in
aeronautics fields
- I.e. engineers of different disciplines work towards a common design of a
new aircraft
- Chameleon focusses on collaborative simulation (automated compute
workflows) in preliminary aircraft design

8. www.DLR.de • Chart 8 > Open Source Software Framework for Applications in Aeronautics and Space > Doreen Seider > 05/03/2012
Application in Aeronautics: Chameleon
- Architecture on top of RCE: Re-use and specified new implementations

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Application in Aeronautics: Chameleon

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Application in Space: Virtual Satellite
- DLR develops Virtual Sattelite to target needs in an Concurrent
Engineering Facility (CEF) during early phase studies of planning new
spacecrafts
- I.e. engineers in one room with workstations gaining good and reasonable
idea of planned spacecraft
- Virtual Satellite supports handling of the desing data distributed over all
involved workstations

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Application in Space: Virtual Satellite
- Architecture on top of RCE: Re-use and specified new implementations

12. www.DLR.de • Chart 12 > Open Source Software Framework for Applications in Aeronautics and Space > Doreen Seider > 05/03/2012
Application in Space: Virtual Satellite
Screenshot

13. www.DLR.de • Chart 13 > Open Source Software Framework for Applications in Aeronautics and Space > Doreen Seider > 05/03/2012
Open Source Strategy of RCE
- At DLR we develop software to support research and development
activities and rarely for pure selling purposes
- Business model differs from vential software companies: development is
mostly done within research projects
- Challenge: Convince project partners and public institutions (funding) to
develop a specified software or re-use and extend an existing one
- Decision to change RCE into an open source project was caused by this
challenge, because non-commercial software get better acceptance in
DLR research environment and beyond

14. www.DLR.de • Chart 14 > Open Source Software Framework for Applications in Aeronautics and Space > Doreen Seider > 05/03/2012
Future Work
- Integration of further frequently used workflow components like optimizer
- Integration of knowledge of involved disciplines to enable user (experts) of
one discipline to create simulation involving foreign disciplines
- Gather provenance (history) of involved data and deduce information out
of it – as it is more and more a requirement to retrace the becoming of a
aircraft design

15. www.DLR.de • Chart 15 > Open Source Software Framework for Applications in Aeronautics and Space > Doreen Seider > 05/03/2012
Contact
Doreen Seider (Doreen.Seider@dlr.de)
Philipp Fischer, Markus Litz, Andreas
Schreiber, Andreas Gerndt
Simulation and Software Technology
German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Cologne/Brunswick, Germany
http://www.DLR.de/sc