Software Engineering Institute

The Architecture Centric Virtual Integration Process (ACVIP) addresses architectures for complex software-intensive embedded computing systems. Engineers apply ACVIP during development and sustainment of these systems to reduce implementation and integration risks. ACVIP leverages the Architecture Analysis and Design Language (AADL) to capture core design elements as a collection of models and a variety of analysis tools to detect integration errors and collect evidence the system meets key performance, safety, and security objectives. ACVIP is a part of the US Army S&T effort in preparation for the Future Vertical Lift (FVL) programs. Based on results from Army ACVIP research, ACVIP promises improved affordability, quicker time to field, improved adaptation to new mission scenarios, and opportunities for systematic reuse. In this talk the Army, the SEI, and Adventium Labs will introduce key ACVIP references, products, and support services: the ACVIP Acquisition handbook, the ACVIP Modeling handbook, ACVIP examples, and tool support through OSATE (by SEI) and CAMET (by Adventium Labs) along with in-class and online training material.

Alex Boydston is an electronics engineer for the U.S. Army’s Development Command Aviation & Missile Center (DEVCOM AvMC) Technology Development Directorate for Aviation at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama.  Mr. Boydston received his bachelors in electrical engineering in 1992 and masters in electrical engineering in 2001, both from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He has over 25 years of engineering experience. Prior to becoming an engineer, Alex worked as a draftsman for Ladd Engineering, a telecommunications engineering consulting company for rural telecommunications.  At Ladd Engineering, he transitioned their work from manual hand drafting to computer aided drafting (CAD) with relational database to account for outside plant and central office equipment inventory in their CAD systems.  After Ladd Engineering, he began working for Teledyne Brown Engineering as a cooperative education student in Advanced Space Programs working various research projects, such as the Thermal Enclosure System (TES) and Protein Crystal Growth (PCG) capabilities, some of which have flown on the Space Shuttle or are flying on the International Space Station (ISS) today.  His first full-time engineering position was a Communication Test Engineer on the National Missile Defense (NMD) Program where the design, establishment and testing of the data and voice links to missile testing into Kwajalein Missile Range (KMR) and ensure distribution to places such as the National Test Facility (NTF) in Colorado Springs, Colorado, the Kinetic Hardware in the Loop Simulation (KHILS) facility in Eglin AFB, Florida and Advanced Research Center (ARC) in Huntsville, Alabama.  Subsequently to NMD work, he was an experiment integration engineer on the Space Shuttle Payload Mission System Integration Contract (PMIC) leading integration of experiments for the United States Microgravity Laboratory (USML) and Space Shuttle Middeck Glovebox experiments.  Afterwards, Alex transitioned to commercial digital communications industry, working 13 years as an engineer for Adtran in positions of technical support, product qualification test, and embedded computing design engineering. Mr. Boydston worked for Draper Laboratory as a Flight Computer Architect supporting the Instrument Ring computing system for the Ares I Rocket which was the precursor to the current Space Launch System (SLS).  Since April 2009, Alex has been working as an Army Civilian Servant Electronics Engineer.  As an Army Civilian engineer, he has served as a functional lead Air Vehicle Management Systems (AVMS) engineer and providing airworthiness assessments on Iraqi 407, Kiowa Warrior and Chinook platforms.  Mr. Boydston was the Project Lead for the Architecture Centric Virtual Integration Process (ACVIP), System Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA) and Authoritative Source of Truth (ASoT) efforts for the Joint Multi-Role (JMR) Science & Technology (S&T) effort to mitigate risks and inform the Future Vertical Lift (FVL) Program.  Now that JMR Science & Technology program is completed, he working with the FVL efforts for the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) and Future Long Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) Programs to transition these technologies to support the federally mandated Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA).

Sholom Cohen is a Principal Engineer at Carnegie Mellon University, Software Engineering Institute.

Tyler Smith has over 10 years of experience that covers data modeling, software integration engineering, and user interface design. Tyler is leading the Army-funded Future Vertical Lift support effort, for which Adventium Labs is providing Model Based Engineering expertise, and FRIGATE, a NASA-funded effort to generate failure recovery plans from traditional engineering models. Tyler has led Adventium's data modeling and open API development efforts and spearheaded Adventium's analysis interoperability strategy, which enables rapid integration of AADL-based analysis tools into a wide range of third-party system engineering environments. Additionally, he oversaw the Capstone Pilot Multi-Organization Model Integration exercise that validated AADL-based model integration, Authoritative Source of Truth (ASoT) practices, and Continuous Virtual Integration Toolkit (CVIT).