PSAS/ PsuAessBeepArticle2006

2006 Article for the IEEE BEEP

Background

Background: we got a $1,000 grant from the IEEE in August of 2004 for truck rental to haul our asses out the black rock desert of Nevada. We launched, and destroyed an airframe, but we didn't launch the avionics. We had to wait until August 2005 to destroy bitter.

But: to get the $1,000, we agreed to write two articles for the IEEE BEEEP.

Overall Article

Answering the question: why did it take 5 years to complete the LV2 avionics system. In otherwords, what mistakes did we make and what would do differently and what "got us". In a nutshell: system complexity got us - we though we were modularizing the problem by having nodes but in fact we were complicating it more by hiding the complexity in the interfaces between nodes. other mistakes were underestimating the complexity, the non-open nodes, writing device drivers, etc.

Part I: Introduction to PSAS

Part II: Grappling with Design Complexity

Part III: Dealing with Design Complexity