Release from TMC Technologies:
FAIRMONT, W.Va. — TMC Technologies of West Virginia, a leading-edge technology services firm, is proud to announce its software management and assurance support for NASA’s X-57 “Maxwell” all-electric aircraft is deemed ‘highly instrumental’ during the recent high-voltage functional ground test at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California.
“TMC has been highly instrumental in helping bring the software development up to the standards that NASA requires for the flight, which is a ‘win-win-win,'” NASA X-57 Principal Investigator Sean Clarke said.
NASA’s X-57 is the agency’s first all-electric experimental aircraft, or X-plane, and is NASA’s first crewed X-plane in two decades. TMC Senior Systems Engineer Steve Yokum manages the software development and assurance side of the X-57 project as part of a subcontract with California-based ESAero.
The ground test focused on the critical traction system, consisting of two independent battery packs, redundant power distribution buses, two cruise motors, and the software components TMC verified and validated.
“This is the first test where the cruise motor controllers…are using the software that we’ve developed at NASA to manage those, and TMC was instrumental in helping to validate and provide code coverage of that software,” Clarke explained.
Yokum wrote and tested the software requirements on two critical software components for the ground test.
The first is the Traction Contactor Controllers (TCC), a unique battery pre-charger system designed to safely and reliably force power to the experimental plane’s motors.
“We’ve used these systems before the TMC testing,” Clarke explained. “But we weren’t able to rely on it. Now that we have the test results from what Steve Yokum has been doing, we can rely on these Traction Contactor Controllers to perform the way they are designed to.”
The second software is the Battery Monitoring System (BMS), designed to report on the custom-made 5,120 lithium cells’ health during the flight. The battery system on the X-57 includes 500 temperature sensors the BMS is constantly pulling and checking and packaging with other onboard instrumentation data. That telemetry is downlinked and watched in real-time.
“It’s critical,” Clarke said of the BMS software Yokum wrote and verified. “I can’t overstate the importance of monitoring the health of the batteries.”
The X-57 is one of the latest in a long line of experimental aircraft. The first roared across the heavens and the history books in 1947 when West Virginia’s Charles “Chuck” Yeager pushed the Bell X-1 faster than the speed of sound.
Like Yeager, Yokum is a native of the Mountain State. Similarly, his software development and assurance effort push the boundaries on the X-57 program, making sure it is at “manned-quality” standards.
“That means there is a pilot in the plane, and if the software does something bad, it could kill somebody,” Yokum added.
To ensure its success and safety, Yokum built a duplicate X-57 environment to make the flight software believe or think it’s operating inside the aircraft, for real.
“I have models of the battery and motor systems so I can simulate how they behave,” he explained.
TMC Senior Systems Engineer Steve Yokum is working at his custom-built NASA X-57 software testing lab. The “Yokum-Made” software tester or laboratory computer system includes a battery management system, battery simulator, motor controller, and motor simulator identical to the flight and control systems on the X-57 aircraft at NASA Armstrong.
The “Yokum-made” software tester or laboratory computer system includes a battery management system, battery simulator, motor controller, and motor simulator identical to the flight and control systems on the X-57 aircraft at NASA Armstrong.
“The lab also can create or simulate test failures in a controlled environment,” he said.
According to Clarke, Yokum’s low-level software testing performed in West Virginia contributed to the recent ground test’s success at NASA Armstrong.
“We are developing a lot of new systems, and one of the old adages is we really need one miracle at a time,” he said. “Because the technology development is challenging, we need to make sure we can validate individual pieces at a time, and that’s where TMC has been instrumental.”
The X-57 will undergo as many as three configurations as an electric aircraft. The final configuration features 14 electric motors and propellers (12 high-lift motors along the leading edge of the wing and two large wingtip cruise motors). The experimental aircraft will undergo a verification and validation ground test sometime this summer, followed by the taxi and flight test by the end of the year.
TMC President and CEO Wade Linger said the successful software management effort on the X-57 is an excellent example of ingenuity and commitment to safety assurance.
“The outstanding software management and assurance process Steve has perfected on the X-57 will help ensure the safety and success of the experimental aircraft’s mission,” he said.
Steve Yokum, Senior Systems Engineer / NASA X-57 Software Manager
For more information, please contact John Dahlia at TMC Technologies of West Virginia by phone at (681) 404-1225 or email [email protected].
For additional information from NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center and the X-57 Program, please contact Sarah Mann, Public Affairs Specialist (661) 233-3758; (661) 276-6815 or email [email protected].
About TMC Technologies of West Virginia (TMC)
TMC drives innovation by challenging tradition. Even as a leading-edge technology small business, TMC consistently delivers high-quality, mission-critical solutions on time and budget. Our services and experts support all agile software development practices, systems engineering, cross-domain data dissemination, information assurance, cybersecurity, spaceflight modeling/simulation, and other relevant competencies. We are proud of our stellar reputation among our customers and industry partners in the National Security, Defense, Cybersecurity, Space, and other Federal Civilian sectors.
TMC headquarters are in Fairmont, West Virginia. The firm also maintains a branch office in King George, Virginia. TMC is a Certified HUBZone Small Business and has earned an ISO 9001:2015 certification for quality management.
About the NASA X-57 ‘Maxwell’ All-Electric Experimental Aircraft
NASA’s X-57 ‘Maxwell’ is the agency’s first all-electric experimental aircraft, or X-plane, and is NASA’s first crewed X-plane in two decades. The primary goal of the X-57 project is to share the aircraft’s electric-propulsion-focused design and airworthiness process with regulators, which will advance certification approaches for distributed electric propulsion in emerging electric aircraft markets.
The X-57 will undergo as many as three configurations as an electric aircraft. The final configuration features 14 electric motors and propellers (12 high-lift motors along the leading edge of the wing and two large wingtip cruise motors).
The X-57 team uses a “design driver” as a technical challenge to drive lessons learned and best practices. This design driver includes a 500 percent increase in high-speed cruise efficiency, zero in-flight carbon emissions, and much quieter flight for the community on the ground.
The X-plane is a modified baseline Italian Tecnam P2006T to be powered by an electric propulsion system. The advantage of using an existing aircraft design is that data from the baseline model, powered by traditional combustion engines, can be compared to data produced by the same model powered by electric propulsion.