Development of interface module emulator architecture for spacecraft life support systems

The article gives an analysis of special characteristics of ground-based experimental evaluation of on-board radioelectronic equipment, taking the control unit of up-to date spacecraft on-board control complex as the test objective. The focus is the problem of providing testing procedures of the specific software employed in design and manufacture process. A solution of the problem is worked out on the basis of performance of a hardware-software complex which emulates interface modules for the computing module of control unit. According to the general operation algorithm of the control unit, the developed complex is regarded as a multi-user system. The main functional requirements for hardware-software emulator, regarded as the corresponding queuing system, are also defined. The results of the experiments with the computer module operation prompted the requirements for the emulator response time from the point of view of its operation stability in real strict-time mode. In order to ensure the required efficiency of operation, the emulated functions of the interface modules are classified according to the severity level of their execution determinacy. The results of experimental evaluation оf the service channel hardware design variants when applying multi-functional reconfigurable input-output digital devices allowed to develop a hardware-software emulator structural circuit based on operation parallelism of programmable integrated logic circuits and flexibility of software reconfiguration. The realization of emulated functions of selected classes within the available architecture was carried out using the corresponding hardware blocks and software module. The presented analysis of the emulator response limits was performed with the application of National Instruments technologies. The results of the developed hardwaresoftware emulator evaluation and practical application, as well as other possible ways of applying the proposed approach for tests of spacecraft on-board radio-electronic equipment and space system components were also analyzed.