Sharon Donald
Electrical Engineer, Digital Systems Group
Task Leader, Trident Life Extension (LE) Common Processor Task
 “What surprised me most about this task is that coordinating the requirements and schedule constraints of the various
applications was just as interesting and challenging as the technical aspects of the project,” says Sharon Donald.
To reduce development and life-cycle costs, commonality has been emphasized in LE. Donald’s team had the significant
responsibility of evaluating and selecting a common processor for use in not only the four guidance processor-based subsystems led by Draper, but also the Flight Control and Reentry subsystems led by Lockheed Martin. According to
Donald, “This was an interesting problem, which meant recognizing that ‘good enough’ for all applications could be a
better solution than ‘best’ for any one application, as long as requirements were met for all.”
Coordination with Lockheed, General Dynamics, Honeywell, Raytheon, Crane Naval Surface Warfare Center, and Draper
meant that Donald had to work with resources distributed both corporately and geographically. “Our first challenge was
to identify effective interfaces at each organization. Throughout the development effort, we relied heavily on collaborative
design tools to work effectively at a distance,” says Donald. “It was a totally different kind of challenge than I was used
to. A surprising benefit to this arrangement turned out to be that the ability to leverage the strengths and talents of each
organization resulted in a very effective team.”
In May 2006, the first implementation of the common processor support chip in its first round of testing was verified
to work as designed. “Delivery of this chip, which functioned properly in all applications right out of the box, was an
extremely satisfying accomplishment for the entire team,” says Donald. |
