Real-time embedded software design for onboard computer of Anti-Ballistic missile system

The Missile Onboard Computer (OBC) is an embedded computer to perform control, guidance, target data estimation, mission sequencing and various other critical operations during flight. The real-time embedded software for the OBC must be designed to achieve deterministic response times and quite minimal jitters (in the order of 50-100μs) for the accurate control and guidance operations and precise scheduling of computational modules and IO messages subsequently. The synchronization mechanisms of OBC with all other avionics subsystems has to ensure that it gets the latest updates of the data from sensors and outputs the latest command to actuators within specified bounds of time. For the specific case of Anti-Ballistic missile system, these requirements become further challenging to achieve because of the higher velocities of the moving target and the interceptor missile which demands higher data update rates from sensors, high frequent commands to control system. This paper discusses the design issues of the OBC software of Anti-Ballistic Air defense missile system.