Multiple engineering organizations will be participating in NASA’s cis-lunar infrastructure development. These organizations, their suppliers and partners create proprietary models of their components and assemblies, often in SysML. Requirements and verification methods referenced in these models often come from NASA, Military, Industry and National Standards and Specifications. DoD, some of the largest Aerospace & Defense OEMs and Standards Development Organizations are using or exploring SWISS to model their part, material and process specifications and standards.
SWISS uses an ontology-based linked data model to describe the syntax and semantics of these documents and to enable creation of smart connected models using this information. Linked data, based on Semantic Web standards, and ontological knowledge representation, are known as the best practices for relating concepts from multiple sources, querying that knowledge and ensuring its consistency. While SWISS does not address structure, behavior, and parametrics of a system, it has automated tools to transform legacy specification and standards into linked digital models. We believe, that SysML and SWISS standards are complimentary and propose to develop prototype integration through linking or transformation between SysML and SWISS models.
In Phase II, if successful, we will develop a prototype tool for such transformation, extend the SWISS API to query such models, and implement plugins to selected SysML/SWISS tools for analysis of models across distributed data sources.
Vendors in the NASA Community are following MBE initiatives. Their focus is shifting from Geometry, Dimensions and Tolerances, largely addressed in previous years, to non-geometric requirements, that are pervasive, especially in avionics. SWISS and SysML are complimentary and aim to address that niche. We anticipate significant use of the tools and PLM plugins, developed as a result of Phase II, to analyze vendor designs, and to rapidly and precisely evaluate the impact of changes on downstream lifecycle processes.
Aerospace & Defense OEMs and their next tier suppliers are serving larger DoD and Commercial needs; we see these organizations using the proposed integrated platform in a way similar to NASA vendors, especially since there is a significant intersection between these communities.