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Aviation History
1993
1993 - 1495.PDF
The Improved UK Air Defence Ground Environment (IUKADGE) entered formal op eration on 1 June, a mere six years behind schedule. To many, it is a pleasant surprise that the IUKADGE en tered service at all. It has been a salutary lesson in managing and implementing a software-intensive project. Staff Requirement (Air) 888 emerged from a Ministry of Defence (MoD)-funded study by Plessey into improving the UKADGE. Bidding to replace the existing Linesman system began in mid-1979. UKSL — a consortium of Hughes, Plessey and Marconi — emerged victorious, al though Thomson-CSF came close. The £150 million contract for the IUKADGE/ Improved command and control system (ICCS), the heart of the upgrade, was to prove a poisoned chalice for UKSL. The IUKADGE was an attempt to knit together radars, airborne platforms, com mand reporting posts, com mand reporting centres, sector operations centres (SOC) and air defence opera tions centres (ADOC). While many of the elements worked in a discrete environment, plugging them together crashed the system. By 1987, when the IUKADGE/ICCS was due to come into service, it was ap parent that the project had severe problems and was not working. The ICCS, along with the British Aerospace Nimrod Airborne Early Warn ing (AEW) aircraft and the Marconi Foxhunter radar, provided a triptych of software-driven problem systems. For some time, the lUKADGE/ICCS's future hung in the balance. It could have been binned like the Nimrod AEW or patched and fixed like the Foxhunter. Hughes drafted in Nancy Price, a Hughes troubleshooter, to head up UKSL, turn IUKADGE/ICCS around and deflect growing MoD and parliamentary concern. Price had previously worked on the NATO airborne early-warning/ground environment-integration segment. Price is now a vice president with Hughes and Canadian Air Traffic Control System programme manager. She is, in retrospect, candid about the IUKADGE/ ICCS's problems. "UKSL fought about whether it was my fault or your fault — we had to change the culture of the organisation," she adds. As to the system itself, she says: 'There were design problems. Operational con cepts were not defined properly, so we sat down with the RAF and NATO.' By the late 1980s, concern over the programme was such that Donald Spiers, . controller of aircraft at the MoD, called for an internal audit of IUKADGE/ICCS. Software house Systems De signers looked at the techni cal issues while Coopers and Lybrand was tasked with management issues. Price says: "The conclu sion was that the original design was flawed, but if we were allowed to continue, then they would give the project a qualified 'yes'." Price says UKSL "took a big-bang approach" with the radar and communications: "It would have been better to do it sequentially. Uniter [a packet-switching commu nications network] still had problems, so there were in terface problems at its end." Price adds: "We looked at the design again. We didn't try a piecemeal way in, nor CADGE delays would have meant finding Mikoyan MlG-29s in earnest in the 1980s — no easy task BETTER LATE THAN NEVER The Improved UK Air Defence Ground Environment has finally come onto line, after a long series of delays. Douglas Barrie reports on a history of software hiccups. quick fixes. The companies did, however, agree that we could get things done." One big technical challenge was the requirement for automatic reconfigurabil- ity to withstand battle damage. Price notes, with only a hint of irony, that this was also specified for its predecessor, the Linesman system, but never met. If reconfigurability was to be achieved, all computer nodes within the system needed integrity of data. This was a headache, with inconsistencies between sites bringing the system down. Price says that, with the decision to shift from Digital Equipment PDP 11/780 and PDP 11/785 computer to DEC Vax 8650s, most of the inconsistencies disappeared. This reduced the number of computers re quired within the overall system. COMPLEX PROGRAMME In trying to turn IUKADGE around, Price abandoned the "big bang" approach for incremental improvements. "We laid out a programme plan of increasing complex ity, dubbed 'The Way Ahead' plan," she explains. It had five stages: running a single CRC; then two CRC's; then ADOCs; and finally, Shadow ADOCs." As soon as one stage was completed, the Royal Air Force was given the soft ware to run. This was intended was to build confidence in the programme. Stage five was effectively the formal testing, run as an informal test. Testing of the system was completed by June 1991. UKSL then had to demonstrate to the RAF that the baseline system was functioning. This took place during twelve months of operational hand-over. While the IUKADGE has the Link 11 data-communications link, the MoD is still pondering integrating the Link 16, or the Joint Tactical Information Dis tribution System, into the ground environment. Parts of the Link 16 were in the original requirement, but as Price points out, "the interface was totally undefined". The MoD and UKSL would have breathed a sigh of relief on 1 June. They may need to take another deep breath before embarking on integrating the Link 16. Price, for one, would relish the challenge. Q 48 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 16 - 22 June, 1993
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