SIMULATION DATA MANAGEMENT AND REQUIREMENTS TRACKING

FOR NASA MISSION DESIGN USING ARAS AND SHAREPOINT

Phase II SBIR

Tyler BischelDr. Peter J. RohlAdvatech Pacific560 E Hospitality Ln, S. 400San Bernardino, CA 92480

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Contents

• Advatech Pacific Overview• NASA SBIR Project Goals• NASA Ames Mission Design Center• The “Simulation Bill of Material”• Requirements Management• Integration with SharePoint• Desktop Clients• Analysis Tool Integration• Summary

Engineering Research & Development Company Founded in 1995

Primary Business Focus Aerospace Vehicle Physics Based Modeling and Simulation Integrated System and Cost Analysis Tool Development Communications Systems Interoperability Engineering Design, Analysis and PLM/PDM Services

Annual Revenues over $10M (Small Business) Approx. 50 Full Time Engineers / Scientists Locations

San Bernardino, CA (HQ) Palmdale, CA Dayton, OH Tempe, AZ

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Advatech Pacific Company Information

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Communications HardwareSatellite Tactical Comm.Disparate Network IntegrationMilitary & Civilian applications

Modeling and SimulationStrategic Missiles and RocketsSpacecraftSatellitesExpendable & Re-useable Launch

VehiclesRe-entry VehiclesSpace Shuttle PayloadIntegrated Design with Cost AnalysisHypersonicsRange Safety Analysis

Aircraft & SystemsDesignDraftingAirframe structural analysisEngineering support for compositesManufacturing support

Gas Turbine EnginesAnalysisDesignPerformanceApplications

Aerospace, Defense, and Commercial

NASA SBIR Project Goals

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• Develop a seamless environment for satellite mission design

• Introduce PLM approach to NASA mission design

• Develop a structured approach to simulation data management

• Facilitate reuse of engineering analysis models

• Integrate requirements and engineering analysis

• Integrate fragmented engineering analysis tools

• Leverage existing tools as much as possible

Customer: NASA Ames Mission Design Center (MDC)

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• Focused on small satellites

• Performs three types of mission design studies:

• Center directives

• Announcements of opportunity

• Research proposals

• Studies range from “back-of-the-envelope” studies of a few days to fairly detailed mission designs of six to eight weeks duration

• Customers are both internal (NASA/government) and external

• In all cases, the final “product” is a mission proposal in the form of a report with supporting analysis data

The Problems Faced by the MDC

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• Simulation models and data scattered all over individual engineers’ desktops and shared network drives

• No revision control of simulation models and data

• No tracking of relationships between simulation models

• No mechanism to flag simulation models that are out-of-date because the assumptions/models they depend on have changed

• No reusability of engineering analyses

• No relationships between requirements and engineering analyses to support the requirements

• Engineers spend a lot of time moving data from one analysis tool to another

• Commercial solutions for simulation data management are out of reach for the MDC from a cost standpoint

Advatech Pacific’s Solution

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• Development of a “Virtual Satellite Integration Environment”consisting of:

• A simulation data management solution,based on Aras and Microsoft SharePoint,integrated with the conceptual mission design tool (ATLAS), implementing a “Simulation Bill Of Material”

• A mechanism to link analysis models to requirements

• A “Linked Model Environment” integrating engineering analysis models and tools

• Automation and optimization

Challenges Faced by Advatech

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1. Cultural

• “Mission Design is different”

• “PLM is for manufacturing companies”

• “Every mission is unique”

• “Standardized processes limit the engineers’ creativity”

2. Resources

• The MDC operates on a shoe-string budget. The budget to purchase software licenses is very limited. A lot of licenses are shared with other NASA organizations.

• Always operating in crisis mode. The next mission design is always due yesterday. We are trying to do an engine upgrade while the car is in the middle of a race.

Virtual Satellite Integration Environment

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Science Traceability Matrix

SharePoint

Linked Model Environment

SolidWorks

Thermal Desktop

STK

Aras InnovatorSimulation Bill of Material

Mission

Requirements Design

Atlas

STK

SolidWorks

Product

Thermal Desktop

User ChangeNotifications

AutomatedCAD Interchange

Simulation Traceability and Revision Management

RemoteCollaboration

The “Simulation Bill of Material”

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• Extending the notion of the classical BOM to management of simulation data and their relationships

• Tracks the relationship between versions of analysis models

• Supports release process for simulation data

• Notifies users automatically when their analysis models may be out of date

• Links analysis data to requirements

• The classical BOM is represented as a tree structure, whereas simulation data form a graph structure

• Root of the SBOM is a “Project”

SBOM Structure in Aras

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• Custom item types defined in Aras to support satellite mission design

• Items are containers for simulation data/ documents

• Derived from out-of-the-box Aras items, support their lifecycle (versioning, release status, workflows, etc.)

Aras Innovator SBOM Item Types

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• A number of custom Aras item types have been generated, supporting the specific types of data in the SBOM

• Their behavior and metadata is specifically targeted to suit their functions

• Accessible through the Aras user interface

Item Type “Project”

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• The Project item type is at the root level of a mission design project

• It has associated with it a customer proposal, requirements, the actual mission design and the end product

Item Type “Proposal”

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• Every mission design project is the result of a proposal

• The “proposal” item type captures all proposal-related information, including the proposal documents

Item Type “Requirements Document”

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• Ultimately, mission design and analysis is driven by requirements

• Since MDC lacked a requirements management system, we decided to develop this functionality inside Aras

Item Type “Design”

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• Top level collector item for a mission design

• Contains all simulation and analysis models/data/results

• Exposes top-level metadata for the mission

Analysis Component

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• Captures metadata and behavior relevant for a particular simulation code

• Derived all from the same root class (Simulation Data)

Item Type “Product”

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• The final product resulting from a mission design study, which can be a white paper, a PowerPoint document, a full proposal or a concept study

Simplified Class Diagram

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Wrapper Interface toAras Environment

MDC-specific services

Presentation Layer for UI

Implements three levels of abstraction

Revision Control of Dependent Models

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1. Dep. node gets revised. New rev points to original master node.

2. Master node gets revised. Owner of dependent node is notified. New rev of dependent node points to new rev of master node.

Dep. SimR1

MasterSimR1

Dep. SimR1

MasterSim R1

MasterSim R2

Dep. SimR2

MasterSimR2

Dep. SimR1

MasterSimR1

Dep. SimR1

MasterSim R1

Dep. SimR2

Dep. SimR2

Access to the SBOM

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Three primary mechanisms for the user to interact with the SBOM:• From the desktop: Desktop Clients• Through SharePoint: SharePoint Client• Directly through Aras Web Client

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Exposure through SharePoint

• Project level information

• Requirements data

• Final product

SBOM View as SharePoint Webpart

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• SharePoint web parts are standard objects a SharePoint developer can use to implement custom functionality

• Users are familiar with tree-type structures

• We use a SharePoint Tree webpart to expose the project dependency structure in SharePoint

• The root is the satellite mission project

• All data related to a project is contained in the tree structure

SharePoint View of Requirements

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SharePoint Data Upload

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Simulation Data Packages.

• User fills fields with metadata and uses a file browser to upload files

• Dependencies identified manually by the user

Desktop Clients for the SBOM

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• “Drop Box” interface for easy upload/download of analysis data

• “Science Traceability Matrix” for requirements capturing

File Browser Interface

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Ease of Use:

• Engineers were used to storing their models on shared drives

• Wanted a mechanism to store and retrieve data as easy as accessing a shared drive

Science Traceability Matrix

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• The “Science Traceability Matrix” is NASA’s way of capturing and categorizing mission requirements

• Typically done in Excel spreadsheets

• We developed a “live” application that links individual requirements to analysis models

Analysis Tool Integration

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• Analysis tool integration implements the concept of a “Linked Model Environment” developed earlier at companies like GE

• Central to analysis tool integration is the geometric representation of the artifact (CAD model). Many downstream applications are consumers of geometry.

• “Tagging” geometric entities with information needed by downstream applications facilitates tool integration

• Both tight coupling and loose coupling solutions were developed

• Tight coupling leverages the respective tools’ APIs and is code specific

• Loose coupling leverages third-party integration tools, e.g. Comet (Comet Solutions), iSIGHT/FIPER (Dassault) or ModelCenter (Phoenix Integration)

Tight Coupling: SolidWorks-STK

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• SolidWorks (SW) is the primary CAD tool in use at the MDC

• Satellite Toolkit (STK) is used for orbit and mission simulation

• STK needs geometric information that is resident in SW(solar panels, their articulation, a tessellated representation of the outer shell of the satellite, mass properties, material properties, etc.)

Solidworks to STK

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• Tight coupling approach works with the tools’ API

• Here, we developed an “STK exporter” inside SolidWorks

• Standard SolidWorks look and feel, user does not have to learn a new tool

• Requires software development and maintenance

Solidworks to STK (ct’d)

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1. CAD designer downselects in the assembly tree the components to be exported to STK

2. CAD designer defines the solar panel group(s) for STK

3. CAD designer defines articulations of the solar panel group(s)

Solidworks to STK (ct’d)

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4. CAD designer saves STK model file

5. Satellite analyst reads model file into STK

Loose Coupling Using Comet

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• The Comet integration framework by Comet Solutions builds on the so-called “Abstract Engineering Model”

• It creates a layer of abstraction between the CAD model and the downstream engineering analysis or meshing tool

• This layer of abstraction, or AEM, builds on the notion of entity tagging

• One instance of geometry is easily replaceable by another instance carrying similar tags, even if the geometry itself is significantly different

• Comet had been successfully applied to a number of satellite design applications

Satellite Thermal Analysis

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• Satellite thermal analysis required complete rebuilding of the geometry inside the thermal analysis tool (Thermal Desktop)

• Using the Comet framework, we developed a seamless process that guarantees data consistency across the tools

• The thermal mesh is generated by Comet’s own meshing tool

Detailed Geometry

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• The detailed geometry contains too much detail not needed for thermal analysis

• This geometry is associatively simplified to the appropriate level of detail

Preparing the CAD Model

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• Small features not necessary for thermal analysis suppressed/hidden

• Geometry tagged with Comet tagging engine

• The tags are used by the thermal analysis model generation process to apply thermal loads and boundary conditions

Geometry for thermal analysis

Thermal Analysis Mesh

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• Thermal analysis mesh linked to geometry via the AEM

Modeling of Thermal Contacts

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• Thermal contacts are automatically applied based on the tags stored in the AEM

Thermal Results

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• Thermal analysis results can be displayed in Comet’s post-processing tool or directly through the native postprocessor of Thermal Desktop

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Summary

Contact Information:

Dr. Peter Rohl email: Peter.Rohl@AdvatechPacific.comEngineering Mgr, PI Phone: 909-307-6218 x580

• A simulation data management solution based on Aras Innovator was developed for NASA

• The concept of a “Simulation Bill of Material” was introduced, linking all engineering analysis models and data to the mission design project

• Engineering analyses and their driving requirements were linked

• Automated user notification was implemented to alert users when their models are possibly out of date

• Ease of use was a key design driver as engineers don’t like the overhead oftentimes associated with a PLM solution

• Both tight and loose coupling solutions for engineering analysis models were successfully implemented

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Acknowledgment

This work was sponsored by NASA through SBIR Phase II Contract #NNX09CA16C.

Contact Information:

Dr. Peter Rohl email: Peter.Rohl@AdvatechPacific.comEngineering Mgr, PI Phone: 909-307-6218 x580