Web-enabled COTS-supported alternative to Interactive Electronic Technical Manual Database (IETMDB) specification

An Interactive Electronic Technical Manual (IETM), is a digital package of information required for diagnosis and maintenance of complex weapon systems and, both, military and commercial equipment. The lack of interoperability within and among IETM systems has become a major challenge to the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) IETM community. The initial phase of user-level interoperability support has been undertaken by the development of a Web-based Joint IETM Architecture (JIA). Within this architecture, there is a need to develop a standardized Web-enabled alternative to the IETM database specification. Object oriented modeling provides the conceptual foundation for assembling the Web-enabled alternative out of Web components using Web technology such as Java and XML.; This thesis introduces an original IETM Object Model. This is a UML-based model that captures the dynamic aspects of the specification. We define UML extensions to capture the semantics of the IETM database specification. We propose a COTS-supported IETM display system architecture based on the developed IETM Object Model. We also demonstrate the applicability and merit of the approach by implementing a prototype Web-based IETM display system.