By Ray Alderman The big shift in 2011
Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ January 2011 memo on DoD budget cuts gave a good idea of what to expect in the coming years: a big shift from weapons platform spending to intelligence platform spending. In this memo, he put the Marine Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle program on two-year probation and said the DoD will revise and refresh existing ground vehicles such as the Bradle y Fighting Vehicle and the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle. So, there will not be an y major ground vehicle programs in the near future. Also, Gates reduces the number of F-22 and F-35 fighter purchases. For now, the DoD will purchase more F-18s and refresh the older F-15s.
Spending on UAVs Spending on Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) platforms will definitely increase for many years to come. The Global Hawk platforms have been refreshed several times since their deb ut, and the new high-altitude, long-endurance, hydrogen-powered AeroVironment Global Observer UAV embarked on test flights in January. The Gorgon Stare ISR system flew missions for the first time last December in Afghanistan, attached to the underside of a Predator UAV.
VEROTEC INTEGRATED PACKAGING
Continuing 50 years of excellence in bespoke
thermally managed, powered d
and wired systems for cPCI, VME, VME64x and other major bus structures.
E, VME64x and
Several things are clear here. We are beginning to field new ISR modules on older, first-generation, propeller-driven UAVs such as the Global Hawk, Predator, and Reaper. Also in the test phase are second-generation, jet-powered UAVs like Boeing’s Phantom Ray and Northrop Grumman’s X-47B UAV platform. The first- generation UAVs will be refreshed with ne w ISR capabilities for a while, and more of these platforms will be put into service as the testing and ref inement of the ne xt jet-powered UAVs continue. Then, focus will shift to deploying second-generation, jet-powered UAV platforms.
Refreshes with VME If there are VME card cages in older mil/aero and ground vehicle systems, they will remain VME. They will be continually refreshed for many years to come with newer VME boards (faster processors, faster A/D boards, and so on). My best estimate indicates that in 2010 there was more than $600 million in VME boards sold to refresh programs. The Gates memo suggests that VME sales to refresh programs will probably increase in the next few years because the purchase of ne w ground vehicles and weapons systems is unfunded in the new DoD budgets. That means that VME will remain the top COTS technology (based on sales) for military applications for several years to come.
New platforms and VPX The shift to additional spending on ISR platforms suggests that VPX (VITA 46) will be the primary technology used. VPX con- tains the trusted supply chain, processing power, ruggedness, and bandwidth to handle the massive amounts of data these new ISR systems will produce. Preliminary reports on the Gor gon Stare platform operation in Afghanistan last December showed that the amount of data produced overwhelmed the intelligence analysts. More supercomputer processing power will be needed on the ground to run algorithms ag ainst all the data coming from ISR systems in the air, and to refine and filter data that analysts must view and analyze. Those systems will also be VPX-based, possi- bly using General Purpose Graphics Processor Units (GPGPUs) such as the CUDA architectures from NVIDIA.
Small form factors VITA 73/74/75 Small Form Factor (SFF) products will find their way into these new ISR systems where Size, Weight, and Power (SWaP) consumption are critical: in UAVs (both refreshes to the older platforms and the new jet-powered vehicles), upgrades to existing ground vehicles, and perhaps in upgrades to F-18s and F-15s. At some point, SFF cubes can be used to terminate the old copper wire 1553 bus and translate that into a high-speed f iber- optic network on the aircraft.
Ph: 603.821.9921 •
sales@verotec.us •
www.verotec.us ELECTRONICS PA CKA GING
We all feared that the DoD b udget cuts would dampen our opportunities, but that is not the case. As it turns out, they just shift spending from big weapons system platforms to new, more sophisticated ISR platforms. That is good news.
For more information, contact Ray at
exec@vita.com. 8 VME and Critical Systems / Spring 2011
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32