Many processing functions are common requirements for military trainer systems across a wide variety of applications. Examples include: instructor assignment and monitoring of student exercises; student input processing and evaluation? and display generation and management for both operational and maintenance modes of training. Common processing requirements and implementation have been identified across current and projected military trainer systems. The net result is an established baseline for future trainer systems, thus reducing development time and cost, and enhancing the reliability and maintainability of systems using this baseline.

Reusability of trainer software is the key to the development of a common trainer software baseline. A modular software architecture of generic, reusable subsystems was defined, using the principles of top-down structured design. Information hiding (a methodology which is fundamental to the Ada® programming language) was employed to reinforce functionality of trainer subsystems and localize the scope of requirements which may vary across trainers. The resulting software is table driven and is easily lifted or modified as required by new military trainer systems. Finally, configuration control of the developed software supports the common trainer by incorporating one large set of common processing modules in a common trainer software library, to be merged with project specific software modules which exist in separate libraries.

The common trainer software development project has been developed and implemented in support of two specific trainer projects - one for a weapon system and one for a communication system. The resulting common trainer software baseline is planned for incorporation into future military trainer systems.