By John Keller
SUNNYVALE, Calif. - Software engineers at the Boeing McDonnell Aircraft & Missiles Systems in St. Louis are standardizing on the MATRIXx design environment from Integrated Systems Inc. (ISI) in Sunnyvale, Calif., to help them design mission-critical software for jet fighters, transport aircraft, helicopters, missiles, and spacecraft.
Boeing McDonnell, formerly the McDonnell Douglas Corp. Aerospace division, is a longtime user of ISI software tools, says ISI president Dave St. Charles. Boeing McDonnell engineers also will use MATRIXx on their share of the NASA Space Station Freedom project.
Boeing McDonnell, which formed in August when leaders of the Boeing Co. and McDonnell Douglas Corp. completed their merger, builds the C-17 airlifter, F/A-18 fighter-bomber, F-15 jet fighter, AV-8B Harrier jump jet, Harpoon anti-ship missile, and several other aircraft, missile, and space systems.
The MATRIXx product family includes the Xmath, SystemBuild, AutoCode, DocumentIt, and RealSim software engineering tools. Boeing McDonnell engineers use these tools on their X-36 tail-less aircraft research program, as well as on several other aircraft programs.
Boeing McDonnell designers test flew a tail-less X-36 remotely piloted aircraft at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., in May. At least 24 more X-36 tests flights are scheduled at Dryden over the next six months.
MATRIXx helps software engineers with graphical design, simulation, automatic code and document generation, and with testing of real-time code.
