COLLABORATIVE AND DISTRIBUTED ENGINEERING APPLIED TODESIGN, SIMULATION AND VERIFICATION IN SPACE PROJECTS:THE 'DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS ENGINEERING' (DSE) PROJECT

摘要

The Distributed Systems Engineering (DSE) Project, in the frame of the IST Programme of the European Commission,rnis aimed at building-up a multi-layer architecture supporting the engineering activities as carried out during the wholernSystem Engineering Life Cycle. It in particular puts special emphasis on Design and Verification in large internationalrnprojects involving a complex and multi-level customer-supplier network.rnThe main project objectives are focused on the improvement of the collaborative engineering process by enablingrndifferent teams to interact with each other from their own location, simultaneously accessing and operating on remoternapplications, global data repositories or archives. The engineering teams can in such a way effectively support:rn1. Distributed System Design & Analyses Tasks, requiring the distribution and collaborative evaluation of analysisrnand simulation results among Customer, Prime Contractor, Level 1 Contractors and Suppliers;rn2. Distributed Design Reviews, involving different nodes for the consolidation and the formal assessment of thernsystems design in a distributed Review Team;rn3. Distributed Systems Verification Engineering Process, allowing the evaluation of system test since thernpreparatory phases and up to the test results; connecting the main sites where the system has been designed,rnintegrated and tested with specialised test facilities where specific tests are conducted.rnIn this paper the project goals, the requirements and the defined architecture will be presented along with the technicalrnchoices made during both the design and development phases in terms of system structure, components and interfaces.rnThe results of the validation tests performed on selected space scenarios will also be presented, highlighting thernpotential benefits for the users community.