A legacy modernization driven ATS commonality/interoperability paradigm

Currently, the United States Air Force is developing roadmaps for various automatic test systems (ATS) under its management. These roadmaps provide a vertical analysis of the systems under study based on defining and analyzing sustainment options over the life of the supported weapon system. This paper postulates that these roadmaps can be leveraged beyond a weapon system centric planning activity and integrated into a larger logical framework that provides an Air Force corporate level strategic path for vectoring legacy system modernization programs toward a common core system (CCS). The goal of this approach is to exploit legacy system sustainment activities to achieve commonality and interoperability across multiple ATS/weapon systems. The fundamental concepts of this legacy modernization driven ATS commonality/interoperability paradigm and how it can be integrated with ongoing ATS roadmap activities are presented.