REALTIMEWAVE

South Korea has emerged as a major player on the aerospace and defense spectrum, becoming one of Asia’s top markets for building and procuring aircraft components and equipment.

Parallel to this drive for aviation excellence, KyoungTak Ha and ByungGi Baek, experts in avionics testing, simulation, and verification software and hardware for commercial and military avionics, founded REALTIMEWAVE. With a proprietary technology, it specializes in testing & verification during the development process of high-tech equipment and is dedicated to testing & verification system production and software development for more than 20 years. REALTIMEWAVE excels in manufacturing and supplying of hardware in the loop simulation (HILS), system integration laboratory, and unit and integrated test equipment for each component based on real-time simulation in the defense, aerospace, and space sectors.

Weapon systems, aircraft, launch vehicles, and other equipment made with advanced technology require a perseverance and painstaking development process till completion. They must be thoroughly tested and verified during the development process; otherwise, their performances cannot be guaranteed with the time and cost invested rendered unrecoverable.

Used in the development and testing of complex real-time systems. REALTIMEWAVE’s HILS provides an effective platform for the control status of the tested equipment. Dynamic system models are applied to the testing and development process of complex units to check on their functions. The HILS tool allows testing the integration of mechanical, electrical, data and networking equipment as well as validation of the system integration.

REALTIMEWAVE has an array of experience and technology, including flight control HILS of fixed-wing aircraft, rotary-wing aircraft, and unmanned aircraft, aviation electronics SIL, armed integrated test equipment, guidance control HILS of guided weapons, satellite launching vehicle SIL of satellite systems, and vehicle control HILS of tanks and unmanned vehicles.

“Our products have been widely used in testing and verification in the defense, aerospace, and space sectors and have a proven track record of perfection, excellence, and reliability as illustrated by our performances in various strategic weapon system projects,” says Baek, Co-founder and CTO. “Our advanced technology is unmatched in Korea, and we are the only testing and verification software manufacturer to use hundred percent proprietary technology,” elaborates Ha, Co-founder and CEO.

REALTIMEWAVE was founded with the goal of localizing the core software of HILS & SIL equipment that had been mostly imported until then. After continuous investment and R&D, it successfully developed “RTNgine” and “TestNgine”. The launch of these products that demonstrated performances equal to or superior to foreign competitors opened a new chapter in the field of real-time integrated testing in Korea.
RTNgine and TestNgine, launched in 2009 and 2011 respectively, have been used in over 90 projects until 2022, with total sales surpassing KRW 50 billion. REALTIMEWAVE does not relish on the past glory, and makes relentless efforts to develop products satisfying customer needs. It’s extensive suite of testing and verification tools include interface control document (ICD) management tools, configuration management tools, test automation technology, advanced interface technology, and high-performance real-time simulation technology.

Convenient Testing and Thorough Verification, RTNgine

RTNgine is an integrated testing and development platform for real-time simulation and testing of aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, guided missiles, ships, and ground weapons.

Users define models or control algorithms, and then configure a test environment by selecting (configuration) and connecting (mapping) interfaces to interlock. It is basically a package of hardware and software.

The hardware comes in building blocks with the latest CPU board and avionics interface technology. System configuration involves flight control HILS, mission computer software test environment, system integration test equipment, etc. and varies by the size of unit under test. The software comes in modules and consists of tools optimized for real-time simulation and integrated testing of avionics.

Users can read hundreds of thousands of ICDs with ease, check errors in ICDs, and manage their versions. Automated testing, real-time data monitoring and analysis, etc. are available, too. RTNgine’s software enables various tool-based simulations and testing, vast data input, fault injection, and more accurate and diverse analysis.

To extend further value to clients, REALTIMEWAVE also has capabilities to support various ICD formats, and includes an ICD management tool in its RTNgine package. Users can create an ICD, and import existing ones to link with it. Creating documents of standard format is possible through integrated ICD or Interface/LRU classification. With no restrictions on ICD formats, users can manage ICDs with greater flexibility. Documentation functions satisfying users’ needs add to convenience.

RTNgine also allows users to create headers or source codes to develop models, as well as definitions for communication settings for most interfaces (e.g., 1553B, ARINC429). The System Bridge tool automatically creates an environment for flight system development and testing, thus improving productivity, and enabling easy data control and management by providing customized interfaces.

Optimized for Automated Testing, Test Automation

Test Automation enables users to measure traceability and coverage between requirements and test cases, and to create automated test cases linked with various testing platforms by using commands included in the library. Users can create an automated, integrated test environment involving standard documentation, and the creation, execution and analysis of various test cases. Test results are stored in a database, based on which to produce reports and statistics. Automatic documentation (SRS/STD/STR) function supports the creation of software outputs with ease.

It also provides the statistics and analysis charts of test data in real time, so users can quickly detect faults and identify their causes through tracking during the development and testing processes.

Core Software for Real-time Data Storage, Monitoring and Analysis, RDSS

Users can monitor up to 16 interfaces (e.g., 1553B, ARINC429) at the same time. ICDs are classified into messages serving as monitoring interfaces and displayed in the form of a tree, which enables the users to easily check the receipt of data and compare arriving data with existing data in real time.

Framework for Functional Testing and Unit Testing, TestNgine

TestNgine provides a fast and integrated test execution framework to enable users to create, manage and reuse test scenarios for unit under test (UUT). It consists of “ATStudio” operated on the user’s PC and “ATImage” loaded in TestNgine hardware to run scenarios.

Users can create test scenarios based on ATStudio flow charts quickly and make different types of test cases using various symbols and commands. It is also possible to import user ICD variables and link ICD with scenarios. Test scenarios made by TestNgine are highly reliable and reusable, and their execution can be monitored and analyzed in real time. Users can also create and print out the reports of scenario execution results.

ATImage is an embedded execution program to interpret scenarios and execute commands. It supports a hard real-time execution environment and provides control commands for various I/O interfaces. It also supports the remote control of external equipment, such as measuring instruments and provides proven command templates to control I/O interfaces. It can judge pass/fail of and respond to commands under various conditions and provide information on status, timetag, etc. based on execution results.

Guided Missile

REALTIMEWAVE creates environments to verify tracker performance and test guidance control computers, and also air-to-ground/air-to-air test environments. It undertook a project to “create a HILS environment for simulated flight tests on the visible light/infrared image sensors of guided weapons”.

In addition, it participated in a project to “create an interlocking environment for simulated flight tests on the visible light/infrared image sensors for air-to-ground guided weapons”.

Fixed-wing Aircraft

RALTIMEWAVE’s main business in KF-21 includes creating environments for testing flight control computers, electric rig, and terrain following computer (TFC) tests. It develops integration SIL to verify the TF/TA function and performance of TFC, and equipment to test and verify software for KF-21 FLCC/RIU. REALTIMEWAVE also developed test environments to verify the electrical effects of aircraft generators and electrical systems, and created environments to develop radar avionics integration software.

Rotary-wing Aircraft

REALTIMEWAVE conducts LAH avionics software test, avionics weapon system integration test, LCH avionics system integration test, and KUH (derivative) avionics system integration test. It created (un)manned, integrated test and verification environments, and developed integrated environments to test the function and reliability of software embedded in LAH SMFD (smart multifunction display)/SCDU (smart control display unit), manufactured integrated avionics SIL to upgrade LCH avionics, and produced aviation weapon system SIL for integration test of LAH avionics system.

Unmanned Aircraft Vehicle (UAV)

REALTIMEWAVE conducts air vehicle system integration tests and developed HILS test environments for flight control computers and test environments for mission computers. Among major tasks were the production of an integrated verification environment to develop common architecture and standard protocol technology for unmanned air vehicle (UAV) systems, the development of video simulator for EO/IR/SAR of UAVs, and the creation of simulation environments for integrated testing of MUAVs and corps-level UAVs and aircraft armament, the development of corpslevel reconnaissance UAV integration SIL, avionics simulation console test environment to verify the autonomous avigation/mission management technology performance of unmanned UAVs, and flight control computer (FLCC) HILS environment for joint unmanned combat air systems.

Satellite and Launching Vehicles

REALTIMEWAVE manufactured core systems for the SIL simulation of KSLVII launch vehicle supervised by Korea Aerospace Research Institute. The purpose of this project was to create a verification environment to design and manufacture the attitude control system (6DOF attitude control algorithm) and telemetry unit for the KSLVII launch vehicle, verify electrical interfaces interlocked with the launch vehicle, and manufacture equipment for real-time simulation test (HILS) and integrated simulation test. To this end, REALTIMEWAVE run non-linear simulation programs for 6DOF launching vehicles, simulations on posture control systems and the characteristics of telemetry unit motions, and conduct fault injection to imitate faults, data monitoring, and graphic user interface (GUI) operation.

FADEC HILS (aircraft engine)

REALTIMEWAVE develops real-time simulation computers for FADEC HILS with its own technology. In a FADEC verification test, using a real-time simulator that can simulate virtual signals similar to a real engine offers great advantages in terms of cost saving, facility requirements, and safety enhancement. The real-time simulation computer used for FADEC HILS is equipped with a multi-core SBC and has powerful computating capability, simulating an engine model in the transient state and an engine model in the steady state just as a real engine within a limited time frame (00μs~00ms) set by users.

A real-time simulation computer loaded with engine models implemented by Matlab/ Simulink can simulate various sensor signals just the same as a real engine.

“Our real-time simulation computer for FADEC HILS simulates general analog and discrete signals as well as various sensors, including sinusoidal wave, thermocoupler, press transducer, RTD, and LVDT,” elaborates Ha.

Putting People and Technology First

The growing export of the Korean defense industry is expected to open up opportunities to export domestic, integrated testing equipment for aircraft, UAVs, and missiles that are used in the domestic defense system industry.

RTNgine-based products of REALTIMEWAVE are widely used for various weapon systems development in the defense, aerospace, and space sectors. Drawing on its accumulated experiences of undertaking defense system projects for over 20 years and proprietary technology, REALTIMEWAVE is actively adopting fast-evolving, advanced technologies and making the uppermost efforts to manufacture the best products in the global marketplace.