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Lockheed Martin Selects Linux for Missile Defense
m3lt writes "Business Wire is reporting that Concurrent announced today that Lockheed Martin Space Systems has selected RedHawk(TM) Linux as the operating system for their United States Army Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) program." From the article: "Lockheed Martin selected RedHawk for the THAAD program due to the precision and guaranteed response time of Concurrent's RedHawk Linux real-time operating system. Only RedHawk Linux was able to ensure the high frame rates required in their HIL simulation without frame overruns, thereby ensuring the highest quality of system test."
This is still important however. From their wording it looks like they will be replicating hardware via "mathematical models". I think it shows a lot in that linux can provide a real time software drop in for various missile guidance hardware.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
How about a nice game of chess?
Does anyone have any more information on RedHawk Linux? I went to their website and it appears they modified the stock Linux kernel to make it hard realtime. I'm a little skeptical after following kernel developments over the years. Even with the preemptible kernel patch, Linux is still nowhere close to being able to claim hard realtime response. Any ideas on how RedHawk is able to make these claims?
What the - you sound like George McFly. "What if the system were to fail? I just don't think I could handle that kind of rejection!"
"To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing."
- Elbert Hubbard
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
First point. THAAD is actually "Terminal High Altitude Area Defense" and is being developed concurrently between Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.
I worked on the THAAD project for Raytheon from 1999-2000. Here is the unclassified description of how it functions:
Upon radar detection of an incoming missile (such as a SCUD) the THAAD missile is launched against it. Unlike earlier technologies for missile defense (such as the PATRIOT*), the THAAD missile does not contain any explosive warhead, instead using the available space and weight for a more sophisticated guidance system. The THAAD warhead contains an active guidance system that will seek the incoming missile and collide with it, destroying the incoming missile with its own warhead.
Earlier technologies relied on a wide-area warhead that would be detonated once the missile was within a certain diameter about the target, relying on the concussion wave and shrapnel to destroy the missile. This was unsatisfactory as in some circumstances the missile would destroy only the target's propulsion system and allow the undamaged warhead to fall to the ground, resulting in collateral damage.
*The PATRIOT missile was not designed as an anti-missile weapon, it was in fact designed as an anti-aircraft weapon, but was retasked during Operation: Desert Storm to shoot down SCUD missiles. It was considered very impressive that it worked at all, considering it was designed for use against much slower-moving targets.
You may treat all information submitted above as wild speculation.
I know several engineers who work on the missle defense project. They have performed several tests. Basically someone fires a ballastic missle, the radar detects it and the interceptors knock them down.They have had some sucessful tests, although some people question if the tests are realistic.
e nse
I tell you though, what these guys can do does almost seem like magic. What they do is really impressive. Kind of like tracking and shooting a bullet out of the air fired from someone elses rifle. The collision speeds are huge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Missile_Def
Maybe the KV hardware test article is gymbal mounted but again, how does one "project" an IR "image" on a "screen"?
THAAD is exoatmospheric. Fins would be useless. It uses vectored thrust.
See now, if you are modeling the dynamics of the vehicle, why bother actually physically moving it? In this case, you aren't testing the vehicle dymanics, you are imposing them, the only purpose of which would be to exersize the seeker mechanisms (of which the missile has none.) Why not simply vary the seeker's simulated target signal (what you call an "image" projected on a "screen" but which is probaby purely electronic)?Modded +5. Lordy.
Equine Mammals Are Considerably Smaller
Jeez. After DECADES of research (much sponsored by the USN) into real-time scheduling we get real-time Linux running "frames". Also known as "a big loop of code run as fast as possible". Makes me want to retch.
K.
The guy I reported to was one of the smartest people I've ever met and fortunately for the project, he was responsible for the software. He'd come into our offices (the only people that worked in cubicles back then were HP employees) and see how we were doing. He'd frequently find us waiting on a compile as the machine was hard pressed to have 30 or so developers using a single computer to compile with. It began to bother him quite a bit because he'd read the design spec which called for the system to handle a couple of 1000 radar returns each minute. As he was technically capable, he sat down one day and wrote a radar simulator that fed radar packets to a "processor." All the processor did was count the number of packets it received and all the radar simulator did was send empty packets. Not a very complicated piece of software but it was enough to show the hardware wasn't going to meet the spec. It couldn't do that simple task, let alone process the packets, draw positions on the controller screens etc.
He wrote a memo and sent it up the chain. A week passed and no response so he wrote another memo saying the same thing but he changed the memo title. The new title was "I know you're out there - I can hear you breathing." That got his bosses moving and the problem was addressed.
Old men debating whilst young boys die? Well how about this:
If political leaders wish to send troops to battle for _offensive_ (not defensive[1]) purposes, they have to put their own lives at risk as well.
This could be done in the following manner:
A referendum is held. If there is an insufficient majority, the proposers' lives are forfeit. They are put on deathrow.
If there is actually a majority, there could be a "redemption" referendum, and their lives depend on the results.
A similar referendum is also held if at any time it is found that a politician caused the public to be deceived/misinformed (even unknowingly) and "justify" a war or similar military action.
If a leader's life is not successfully redeemed, but later it is found the war was justified, the leader will get the equivalent of a "purple heart".
The idea is that even leaders who have no qualms about lying about "caring about the lives of soldiers" would then actually think twice about sending soldiers to risk their lives. Even amoral people without a conscience would be inclined to take things a bit more seriously when it's not just a matter of losing the next election, or going to jail for a few years.
After all if a leader thinks it is worth risking the lives of soldiers and civilians, that leader should also be willing to risk his/her life. That's only fair right?
Also, if >= 66% of Nation A thinks it's worth attacking Nation B, then it might be easier for people in Nation B to decide whether to kill people in Nation A or not.
[1] Defensive wars are different of course.
I agree that point (3) is a problem. Points (1) and (2) are technological issues that can be solved with time.
I think the "cruise missiles and container bombs" argument makes no sense, because these two delivery systems do not have the same potential as ICBMs. A cruise missile is basically a jet aircraft, and we already know how to shoot those down. They also take a relatively long time (i.e., hours) to arrive at their target, giving plenty of warning. As for container bombs, you could use them to attack a city, but you could never get one close enough to a hardened military installation to do significant damage. It would be an effective tool for terrorists, but totally worthless as a military strike. And it would be almost impossible to co-ordinate more than a few simultaneous container-bomb attacks.
By contrast, ICBMs can be used to attack any target in the world, take around 45 minutes from launch to impact, can be used in co-ordinated attacks of unlimited size, and cannot be stopped with existing technology.
The promise of missile defence is to make massive nuclear attack obsolete as a weapon of war. I think that is a worthwhile goal.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Fortunately THAAD is built by Lockheed, whereas the Patriot is built by Raytheon. Raytheon is the classic example of a large, sloppy, wasteful defense contractor that continues to get defense contracts by purchasing its competitors, leaving it the sole source for many types of systems. My father worked for Hughes Aircraft, a Rytheon competitor, for thirty plus years and he repeatedly had to deal with astounding engineering incompetence in Raytheon-supplied subsystems (the DOD forced Hughes to "second source" many parts from Raytheon; smells like graft to me). Imagine his dismay when Raytheon bought Hughes from GM. He retired a year later after watching idiot managers from Raytheon come in and turn the well-run, competent, efficient Hughes Missile Systems Group into a clown factory. Lay-offs for the old timers making too much money, pay cuts for the mid level guys, and lower hiring salaries for new engineers have essentially turned it into a typical Raytheon division.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
I used one of the "real-time modified" linux kernels in my work too. I can see why LM selected it. For those who don't understand "real time" is does not mean "runs fast" it means that if I need a task to run once every 100 miliseconds it does just that. If you are doing something like controling a radar transmitter you need _exact_ timming. For jobs like running a web browser a real-time OS may seem unresponsive and "not smooth" They will likely need access to the kernel source code if they are fielding a military system. These systems have long (25 years plus) lifetimes and you need the ability to repair the OS 20 years from now. I used a real time Linux inside an astronomical CCD camera to generate the waveforms that shift the charges acros the rows and out to the amps and digitiziers. the camera moved relative to the target and the charge was shifted in sync with the moving image. Linuix was great. The hard real time stuff could be done with interrupts disabled inside a kernel level driver and the data was written to disk by a user land process. Standard tols and debugers could be used to develope the camera controller. I'm not surprized at all that LM went this way. But the "Linux" they are using is NOT the "linux" you see when you get Ret Hat or Debian.
Gyroscopic mount: typically, the seeker for the missile (radar, ir, video, whatever) in question is mounted on the gimbals. The rest of the guidance section is in a nearby rack. The reactions of the rest of the missile (fins, motor, body) is simulated in the kinematic codes running on the HWIL simulation computer(s).
Projection screen: a jargon problem. For Radar: an array of radio frequency feed horns are mounted on a wide hemispheric frame about 50 to 100 feet in front of the seeker, which is at the focal point of their output. By varying the frequency, power, and polarity of the energy from each feed horn, one or more targets can be represented. The simulation computer usually takes care of the radar pulse delay to represent range. Simulated changes in target angle are handled by moving the seeker on it's gimbals.
IR projection: a "hot" video display, to my experience using an led array no bigger than a laptop display a few feet in front of the seeker. Video: to my experience, either a large front or rear video projection system, or a tv display a few feet in front of the seeker.
Fins/vectored thrust: in a HWIL system, the aerodynamic controls are usually simulated. The control computer intercepts the commands from the guidance section, and feeds them into the kinematic software for use in the virtual environment.
Movement in 3D space: Why move the seeker at all? Because it's cheaper than moving the display mechanism (whether radar, ir, or video). The seeker is built to withstand intense shock and vibration, small, and usually weighs anywhere from a few tens to hundreds of pounds. The display system is usually custom built, touchy, and too unwieldy to move in angle or rate in degrees per second needed to represent how a target might present itself. Depending on the scenario, the simulated target may well start 'waaaaaaay off to the side of the seeker's POV. So, throw the seeker on gimbals and move it.
Before moving into an expensive HWIL lab, the guidance software, or guidance computer and s/w, will have been put thru it's paces on a computer-in-the-loop simulation, where nothing moves except logic states. HWIL is the final stage of integration testing before trying the whole missile out on a test range.
Just between you, me, and the lamp post, I believe Lockeed won the THAAD contract on price, and the Army has been paying the price for what, twelve years? If (my previous employer) had won this, I assert we'd have a deployable system by now.
Luke, help me take this mask off
This is an interesting problem.
Yes it is good to have enough weapons to deter someone bad from attacking, invading or destroying you. There are bad people in the world, and there are people who good or bad don't like what you do or stand for.
A problem today is certain American enemies know full well that they can't go toe to toe with the U.S. in conventional or strategic war. They don't and can't squander $500 billion on weapons, the military and intelligence a year, much of that money borrowed by the way. So they don't even try and don't need to.
What do the do? Well they use hijacked jetliners, suicide bombers, IED's, propaganda and other forms of asymmetric warfare. They have proved in Iraq that they can spend millions of dollars on asymmetric weapons and tie up the U.S. military in knots, which is spending billions a month, and which has hundreds of billions of weapons most of which are useless in urban guerrilla warfare. They can launch attacks that costs millions of dollars, if that, that cause, billions of dollars in economic damage to the U.S.
THAAD is in a lot of ways a good weapon if it works. Its main goal is to keep someone with ballistic missiles from killing people weather they are civilian or military.
There are other classes of weapons which unfortunately are dual use, and can be used both offensively and defensively. There have been times when American's have shunned foreign adventure and aggressive warfare. During those times our defense department was really for defense, to deter attack and counter ruthlessly when attacked.
Sadly political and military elites have at various times forgotten the basic difference between defense and preemptive or aggressive warfare. Preemptive and aggressive warfare is something only bad people, like the Nazi's did. Well not ture, The U.S. for example launched the Spanish American war largely under false pretense and to cover a large colonial expansion in the Carribean and the Phillippines. In the Phillippines there was an entire, lengthy, bloody war in the early 1900's never taught in American history classes where the U.S. ruthlessly killed civilians in a largely vain attempt to suppress an insurgency that didn't appreciate decades of American colonial occupation. It holds a lot of parallels to Iraq today, and probably could teach some lessons if we hadn't pushed it out of our collective conscious because it was so ugly.
I guess what I'm saying is that I'm all for paying for enough weapons to defend the U.S. but the U.S. military is completely beyond that today. Its is a cold war relic turned in to an preemptive, offense tool for dominating the world and that flies in the face of what many people want the U.S. to be. What's worse it isn't even any good to deal with terrorist attacks or insurgencies like the ones in Vietnam and Iraq which are far more likely than a conventional war today.
You also need to look no further than the Duke Cunningham case yesterday to realize the Pentagon is mostly just a vast corrupted mechanism for funneling vast quantities of money from tax payer's pockets in to the pockets of largely corrupt defense contractors.
There is irony that China may well dominate the U.S. militarily and economically in the near future because the U.S. is squandering its wealth on excessive defense spending, and watching its economy wither in the face of globalization, budget and trade deficits. The Chinese might well win World War III without firing a shot. They will win it with a steady stream of containers ships to the U.S. and of U.S. dollars to China. The U.S. spends billions developing new weapons technology and the Chinese spend thousands to steal them. The Chinese will soon have all the manufacturing base to make weapons and the U.S. wont be able to make any without importing them from China.
@de_machina
I make HILs.
You don't need the whole missile. You need the guidance electronics and the seeker. I've seen THAAD's HIL.
Yes, you absolutely can project IR imagery. Look for the word "mirror". You can make mirrors that are RADAR transparent. I've seen them.
I don't the details of THAAD, but for the lower stages (since they simulate from launch), you intercept fin commands and use that information within a simulation to calculate updated attitude and position information. This is then used in returning data to the missile (altering IR imagery, etc.).
For the upper stage, they can detect the commands to set off the little "poppers", and they jitter the image with a high-speed mirror. They adjust the position, too.
For my missile, we don't feel a HIL is necessary: we will inject everything, including the video, and fully simulate the inertial measurement unit (IMU). But what if the Army wants to take a missile out of its container and test it? You can't tell them to take the whole damn thing apart, but you can usually get them to take the motor off. Then it goes in the table. It's not strictly necessary, since you can provide modes and still simulate everything, but they have millions of dollars and it gives them warm fuzzies, and they are the customer.
For THAAD, they may have rate sensors on their seeker that need to be fooled by putting them on a table. They may want to combine real and synthesized IMU data (real data for rates, synthesized data for unsimulatable acceleration (gravity, thrust)). Javelin and AIM-9x have to do this for various reasons: I'm not sure of them all. I think Javelin has *no* IMU: because it's lock-on before launch, you can figure out how you're moving based on how the seeker gimbals are pointed. Something like that.
You do HIL tests to make sure things work. For the early models, you want to make damn sure your seeker is good before you shoot off a $1 million missle in a test that costs $30 million (range time is *damn* expensive, and THAAD can only use White Sands cuz they shoot so far). In general, including as much of the flight hardware as you can is good. If you can't mount the CAS on the 3-axis (or whatever: I've seen up to 5-axis (3 for missile, 2 for target (no roll)) table, then you can put it on the floor in a test fixture and apply torques to the fins to simulate pressures and stresses. Depends upon what your requirements are.
In general, though, you use what we call a CIL: Computer-in-the-loop. No seeker: imagery is all injected, no IMU: all simulated, etc. This is purely for flight software and electronics hardware check out. I make these, too.
The Iraq war is different, I think, because it is a war waged for one [set of] reason[s], justified with another, funded with yet another, and finally morphed into something altogether different. It's also irritating how much false information, from all sources, is floating around there, so the citizenry cannot form a coherent picture of what's going. The result: anger and a growing desire to flee, which would be disasterous for all parties involved.
Some straight talk from the politicians would be in order. But we will never get that.
Arm developers are a very important industry. Without it we wouldn't have realistic weapon models in our games.
Try to get realistic data for any firearm bigger than a handgun sometime...