DARPA META Program

The ultimate goal of the META program is to make a dramatic improvement on the existing systems engineering, integration, and testing process for defense systems. META is not predicated on one particular alternative approach, metric, technique, or tool. Broadly speaking, however, it aims to develop model-based design methods for cyber-physical systems far more complex and heterogeneous than those to which such methods are applied today; to combine these methods with a rigorous deployment of hierarchical abstractions throughout the system architecture; to optimize system design with respect to an observable, quantitative measure of complexity for the entire cyber-physical systems; and to apply probabilistic formal methods to the system verification problem, thereby dramatically reducing the need for expensive real-world testing and design iteration.

The top-level technical objectives of the META program are as follows:

Develop a practical, observable metric of complexity for cyber-physical systems to enable cyber-vs-physical implementation trades and to improve parametrization of cost and schedule.
Develop a quantitative metric of adaptability associated with a given system architecture that can support trade-offs between adaptability, complexity, performance, cost, schedule, risk, and other system attributes.
Develop a structured design flow employing hierarchical abstraction and model-based composition of electromechanical and software components.
Develop a component and manufacturing model library for a given airborne or ground vehicle systems domain through extensive characterization of desirable and spurious interactions, dynamics, and properties of all constituent components down to the numbered part level. Develop context models to reflect various operational environments.
Develop a verification flow that generates probabilistic "certificates of correctness" for the entire cyber-physical system based on stochastic formal methods, scaling linearly with problem size.
Apply the above framework and toolset to design, manufacture, integrate, and verify an air and/or ground vehicle of substantial complexity 5X faster than with a conventional design/build/test approach.

The year one META effort was organized into the following technical areas:

(TA1) Metric of Complexity: a practical, observable metric for cyber-physical systems to enable design trades, cyber-vs-physical implementation trades, and to improve parameterization of cost and schedule
(TA2) Metric of Adaptability: a quantative metric measuring the ability of a system to change easily, quickly, and inexpensively (i.e., with minimum incurrence of cost and degradation in performance) in response to a wide spectrum of anticipated and unanticipated perturbation events exogenous or endogenous to the system
(TA3) Metalanguage for System Representation: a maximally expressive yet formal language applicable across a broad range of heterogeneous constituent components that is capable of characterizing software and electromechanical components
(TA4) Design Flow and Tools: a novel design flow that employs hierarchical abstraction and model-based composition of electromechanical and software components to achieve designs that are ultimately verifiable—at least in a probabilistic sense
(TA5) Verification Flow and Tools: a verification approach and enabling tools that generate probabilistic “certificates of correctness” for entire large-scale cyber-physical systems such as ground combat vehicles, airplanes, or rotorcraft based on stochastic formal methods, scaling no faster than linearly with problem complexity

http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/TTO/Programs/Adaptive_Vehicle_Make__(AVM).aspx