The audience for this demonstration is expected to be military decision makers with a logistics background, preferably in a software or communications specialty. The technical background required to understand the demonstration itself is limited to the concepts of architecture and dynamic vs. static languages. Although logistics specialists would be best able to grasp the immediate consequences of the technologies we will demonstrate, decision makers with a broader view will be best equipped to envision full consequences of automated damage response, increased operational duty cycles, increased uniformity of deployed software configuration, and increased flexibility of deployed software architectures. Although the demonstration is oriented toward a specific military application, almost all of this capability is dual use. This technology is especially valuable when the vehicle is either very expensive or highly inaccessible.
Expensive vehicles benefit because of the economics of vehicle loss.
Adding capabilities for automatic reconfiguration can reduce the loss probability significantly, which has high payback for expensive vehicles. Remote and inaccessible vehicles benefit from an on-board reconfiguration capability because they need not be in contact with a base station to effect the reconfiguration. The advantages of a rapidly evolving software architecture are evident in this industry. Currently, deployed software can be upgraded only by means of expensive recalls, which have limited effectiveness. The ability to download software patches via satellite, without regard to vehicle operational state, has clear advantages to manufacturers' recall cost management efforts.