Patriot missile software clock

Patriot missile defense failure caused by loss of precision. The patriot, seen as an emerging and highly impactful war technology at the time, first fired in war about 30years ago iraqi scudkilling gulf war patriot missile still lives. During the 19911992 operation desert storm conflict between coalition forces and iraq, the coalition used a military base in dhahran, saudi arabia that was protected by six u. One part of its internal calculations used a decimal representation of time, and. The nearby patriot missile battery failed to intercept the scud. You can change your consent settings at any time by unsubscribing or as detailed in. The patriot system detects, tracks, and engages uavs, cruise missiles, and shortrange or tactical ballistic missiles. General accounting office gao imtec9226 entitled patriot missile defense. I like the ease of use and the fact that it will export directly to quickbooks. The software error of a mim104 patriot caused its system clock to drift by one third of a second over a period of one hundred hours resulting in failure to locate and intercept an incoming iraqi al hussein missile, which then struck dharan barracks, saudi arabia february 25, 1991, killing 28 americans. Putting it all together a patriot missile battery operates differently depending on whether it is firing pac2 or pac3 missiles. B247094 the heart of the patriot system is its weapons control computer.

The anmpq53 at the heart of the system is known as the phased array tracking radar to intercept on target which is a. Ballistic missile engagements mandate a higher level of automated support than provided by patriot. Patriot missile software problem unc computer science. Patriot missile failure thursday, march th, 2014 by michael barr during the gulf war, twentyeight u. New missile maintenance bay brings new life to old. A report of the general accounting office, gaoimtec9226, entitled patriot missile defense. Software problem led to system failure at dhahran, saudi arabia. It is through these switch indicators and the patriot user interface software that the system is operated. Dhahran air fields and seaports protected by 6 patriot batteries.

Pac2 missiles operating v34 of the ecs operational software. When patriot systems were brought into the gulf conflict, the software was. Global patriot solutions is a missile defense system consisting of radars, commandandcontrol technology and multiple types of interceptors, all working together to detect, identify and defeat tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, drones, advanced aircraft and other threats. Contemporary issues in cs a study of the software failure in the patriot missile system. The us army had been made aware of this software issue and had released an update on february 16. The time disparity was such that it looked in the wrong part of the sky for the incoming missile and therefore found no target. A programming error and a big loss to america youtube. Software problem led to system failure at dhahran, saudi arabia provides a nice concise writeup of the problem. During the gulf war the patriots software was modified six times.

With patriot clock screensaver you will be able to view the correct time. Patriot s anti tactical ballistic missile capability was first used operationally against iraqi scuds crude tactical ballistic missiles during operation desert storm in the early 1990s. With this limited purpose in mind, raytheon designed the system with certain constraints. The cause of the failure was later found to be a programming. Software problems led to system failure at dhahran. Page 1 gaoamtec9226 patriot missile software problem. A 140e patriot system technician warrant officer basic course instructor will.

Air force pilots hated and feared army missile batteries many allied pilots believed that the patriot posed a greater threat to them than did any surfacetoair missile in iraqs. To avoid detection it was designed to be mobile and operate for only a few hours at one location. The patriot missile battery defending the area never even fired at the incoming scud. We use this software for our parttime employees and they really enjoy the ease of maneuvering thought the program as it is very user friendly.

Patriot software, inc we simplify employee management with our online software for payroll, employee payroll taxes, time and attendance, employee selfserve, hiring software. When patriot systems were brought into the gulf conflict, the software was modified several times to cope with the high speed of ballistic missiles, for which the system was not originally designed. When the machine had been booted in the recent past, such as every time in testing, the floating point number spent most of its precision to the right of the decimal point. Page 1 gaoimtec9226 patriot missile software problem. Round off errors and the patriot missile the numerical. Read about our humble beginnings, and learn why we have a heart for small business. Characterize system or software performance using test results.

Raytheons new patriot missile software is more first. Patriots had to be shut down for at least 1 to 2 hours to install each software modification. New missile maintenance bay brings new life to old missiles. The patriot missile failure university of minnesota. The missile battery did detect the incoming scud missile but in order to check against false alarms it had a serious of checks. The patriot missile battery at dhahran had been in operation for 100 hours, by which time the systems internal clock had drifted by one third of a second. The mim104 patriot is a surfacetoair missile sam system, the primary of its kind used by the. An investigation discovered a bug in the patriots tracking software that caused the systems internal clock to drift gradually from the real time. It turns out that the cause was an inaccurate calculation of the time since boot due to computer arithmetic errors. On the clock is a great resource for any company to use.

Be the first to see new patriot missile system jobs. Learn about the functions of a patriot missile battery. Patriot missile software failure, 28 soldiers died. Clock cycle of 110 seconds was represented in 24bit fixed point register. The wcc is the main computer within the patriot system. Time is recorded by the system clock in tenths of a second, but is stored as an. Leaner, meaner patriot missile at osan news stripes. At least one of these software modifications was the introduction of a subroutine for converting clocktime more accurately into floatingpoint. This resulted in some portion of the time value being lost as it incremented each 0.

The patriot system was originally designed to operate in europe against soviet medium to highaltitude aircraft and cruise missiles traveling at speeds up to about mach 2 1500 mph. A subroutine was introduced to convert clock time more accurately into. Ga0 united states general accounting office washington, d. Patriot advanced capability2 pac2 missile defense agency. Software problem led to system failure at dhahran, saudi arabia reported on the cause of the failure. Patriot missile defense system missile defense advocacy. It is a 24bit parallel militarized computer with fixed and floating point capability. Patriot advanced capability2 pac 2 the patriot advanced capability2 pac 2 is a us army onestage, solidfuel, groundlaunched interceptor designed to destroy tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, or aircraft with a conventional highexplosive warhead. The errors were proportional to the time on the clock. Mtriot missile software problem led dhahran, saudi arabia y 199805 249 iihi.

At the time of the attack, the patriot missile battery in question had been operating for 100 hours. The mim104 patriot is a surfacetoair missile sam system, the primary of its kind used by the united states army and several allied nations. Patriot clock screensaver free download and software. The time was stored as an integer number in a 24bit register with an accuracy of 110 of a second. Mtriot missile software problem led dhahran, saudi arabia. Included in this report is prefatory background on how the patriot system is designed to work. The patriot missile defense system is a groundbased, mobile missile defense interceptor deployed by the united states and many other nations.

These 20 per cent were 55 meter in total and equalled a clock error of. On the day of the mishap, the battery on the patriot missile was left on for 100 consecutive hours, hence causing an inaccuracy of 9. The software error wiki alludes to is that the patriot missile kept track of its internal clock with floating point numbers. As part of desert shield patriot batteries were deployed to protect the buildup of allied troops prior to the liberation of kuwait. Patriot is the foundation of integrated air and missile. Ppt patriot missiles powerpoint presentation free to. Employees can easily clock in and out online with patriot software. Iraqi scudkilling gulf war patriot missile still lives.

With regards to the patriot missile, what caused the failure. The patriot missile failure in dharan, saudi arabia, on february 25, 1991 which. Due to the closure speed of the interceptor and the target, this resulted in a miss distance of 600 meters. Causal analysis of the 1991 patriot missile system failure. Page 3 gaoimtec9226 patriot missile software problem. Rebooting takes about 60 to 90 seconds and sets the time back to zero. It is organized in a multiprocessor configuration that operates at a maximum clock rate of 6 megahertz.