"Generative Gateway Toolkit for Heterogeneous C3I Systems"

Command and Control Technologies Corporation (CCT) has developed composable reference architecture and a comprehensive integrated software toolkit for developing interoperable platform-independent C3I gateway systems under Air Force sponsored research. Gateways provide interoperability among disparate systems by providing a transparent connectivity solution that eliminates the need to replace or modify the systems themselves. The new generative gateway toolkit (GGTK) approach achieves this interoperability by leveraging common data-transport and data-exchange semantics, and abstracting hardware platform and device interface details from core gateway functionality. Software product line architecture methods are used to ensure large-scale reuse and provide the capability to specify at a high-level ´what to build´. Generative programming techniques extend this capability, using the high-level specifications to actually build functional component-based gateways. Central to the architecture is accommodation for variation and evolutionary extension of its communications and semantic processing services. The scope of this research is focused on addressing new and legacy system interoperability problems caused by stove piped architectures and a proliferation of interfaces. Primary focus is placed on the current use of gateways to solve DoD tactical data link (TDL) interoperability problems. Traditional gateway development approaches have led to a proliferation of custom point-to-point solutions built from the ground-up on a project-by-project basis. The new GGTK approach exploits the common and variable features of the communications gateway domain, combining reusable software assets that were systematically developed and assembled for generation into fully-functional customized gateways. Instead of coding new gateways, developers ´compose´ new gateways by selecting data link protocols, I/O devices and runtime environments so GGTK can produce the actual gateway