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Tech Recon Stand-Alone Rugged Boxes
Stand-Alone Rugged Boxes: . The Newest COTS Hardware As compute density increases, military technology gets more complex and primes adopt open standards, they are asking subcontractors more often for box-level COTS solutions.
Ann R. Thryft Senior Editor
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current trend in military system design reflects both changes in what exploration prime contractors need from their er your goal subcontractors and overall trends in eleceak directly tronics. The primes are giving more rel page, the resource. sponsibility to subcontractors by pushing chnology, the definition of COTS from the board and products level to the box level. That way, the prime Figure 1 doesn’t need as many different types of ed Much of the consolidation in compute in-house expertise, turning over more to platforms is occurring in stand-alone the subcontractor. rugged boxes used for ground vehicles, Subcontractors are now providing not just board-level products, but standsuch as Humvees and tanks. In Dibbis, alone box-level products, including data Iraq, a member of Company C, 96th Civil panies providing solutions now acquisition and processing systems, lapAffairs Battalion, maintains security ration into products, and companies. your goal is to research the latest tops,technologies tablet PCs, displaysWhether and handheld from the turret of a Humvee while lication Engineer,LCD or jump to a company's the goal of Get Connected is to put you monitors, as technical well aspage, more systems inspecting abandoned buildings slated ice you require for whatever type of technology, andfor.testing. ies and productsintegration you are searching for conversion to barracks for members At the same time, advances in elecwww.cotsjournalonline.com/getconnected of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps. Photo by tronics technology are combining with Sergeant April Johnson, courtesy of U.S. Army. an increase in the adoption of open standards to help consolidate what used to be multiple, separate computers or boxes into just one or two. This is occurring or shipboard radar/sonar sensors and unin the mobile battlefield control and in- manned aerial vehicles (UAVs). formation systems in ground vehicles (Figure 1). Other environments include Smaller, Denser Systems Analyze missile-guidance systems, ground-based More Data Much of the push behind this trend comes from the current war effort. Size, Get Connected weight and power, as well as gigaflops per with companies mentioned in this article. watt, are two main drivers, says Joey Selwww.cotsjournalonline.com/getconnected vin, partner development director for Mer-
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[ 30 ] COTS Journal November 2006 Get Connected with companies mentioned in this article. www.cotsjournalonline.com/getconnected
cury Computer Systems’ Defense Business Unit. “In back of those are the need for data collection, such as more intelligence in smaller UAVs and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), and on larger platforms such as JSTARS, meaning more sensors.” At the same time, image resolution and consequently the amount of data is increasing, so more computing power is needed to get more information out of that data for target detection, identification and tracking routines. Sensor fusion is a good example of consolidating previously separate systems. Mercury’s PowerStream6600 is an integrated multicomputer that enables sensor fusion by replacing separate computers fed by separate sensors, often from separate vendors. The 6600 system comprises CPU and FPGA processing modules and I/O mezzanine carriers, interconnected via the Serial RapidIO backplane switch fabric and housed in a VPX-REDI chassis. “We’re getting hints that the primes don’t want to think about what boards are inside the box,” says Selvin. “What’s keeping them awake at night is worrying about EOL for boards, but that shouldn’t matter, so let us manage that,” he says.
Consolidation Aids Frequent Technology Upgrades Consolidating the multiple boxes inside a vehicle into a single box enables more data to be analyzed in-vehicle,