Global Combat Air Programme Software: Challenges and Opportunities
Rob Ashmore
Future Combat Air System (FCAS) Chief Technologist - Software, UK MOD
Software is pervasive, to the extent that modern society is now critically dependent on it, in myriad ways. Likewise, defence is now critically dependent on software, to provide the capabilities required by our armed forces and to deliver a leading edge over potential adversaries. The Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) is an obvious example of this phenomenon. To successfully deliver GCAP, a vast volume of software, including a significant amount of high-integrity software, and the associated Complex Electronic Hardware (CEH), needs to be delivered against a compressed timescale, within a large-scale, international, complex engineering programme. This presents a number of significant challenges. Taking a "features, not bugs" approach, these challenges are viewed as opportunities, to improve our approach to software within GCAP and more widely.
About Rob Ashmore
Rob is the UK Ministry of Defence's "Chief Technologist - Software" for the Future Combat Air System (FCAS), a key component of which is the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP). He is also a Dstl Fellow for "Critical Software", in the Cyber Security and Safety group at the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), which is part of the UK Ministry of Defence. Rob has over 30 years' experience, covering all aspects of the software lifecycle in a defence and security context, including writing and supporting operational software, and the certification of safety-critical software. Rob is a Chartered Scientist, a Chartered Mathematician and a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications.
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