Military Embedded Systems - Fall 2005 - Volume 1 Number 2

Industry Analysis
Better architectures hit
the ground
One hears a great deal about transforming
the military from the current platformcentric
approach to network-centric operations.
The underlying computer technologies,
including chips and software, are
also undergoing fundamental change, and
it is good news for designers and users of
military computers.
Command Center aboard a heavily modified
Boeing 707 aircraft known as the
TACAMO, the system maintains communication
and control in the event that
other command centers are damaged
or destroyed. It provides networking
and routing within the aircraft, handling
packetized radio, satellite, radar, and
laser transmissions, and ties together
different systems on the plane (see
Figure 3, photo courtesy of Performance
Technologies, Inc.).
Performance Technologies has also
developed a unique hybrid CompactPCI/
Figure 2
VME system for use in the Global Hawk
UAV (see Figure 4, photo courtesy of
Performance Technologies, Inc.). This
computer provides near real-time highresolution
images and intelligence to
field commanders in theater or across
the world. Multicast image streams can
be ordered by a commander in a control
room or a soldier on the ground in the
next valley, providing vital current information
and situational awareness. The
CompactPCI boards are conduction cooled
and compliant with the ANSI/VITA 30.1
specification (2 mm connector practice for
conduction-cooled Eurocard systems).
Most backplane interconnect technologies,
including VME and CompactPCI, are
based on chip-level interconnects that
were intended for planar motherboards.
Hot swap was not an integral part of these
interconnects, and their parallel nature
has meant that any board plugged into the
backplane could cause the entire system
to fail if it failed. Full 2N redundancy was
often the only solution. Focus was placed
on reliability instead of the much more useful
concept of availability because parallel
bus architectures just do not adapt well
to high availability designs, which require
system management and failure domains
of a single board. Also, as core chip
voltages go ever lower, the notion of
distributing chip supply voltages often
means that parallel backplanes are required
to produce hundreds, or even thousands,
of amps of current for large systems.
IP/Radio
Ground Communications
Satellite Uplink/Downlink
Radars
10/100/1000 TX
RS-232/RS422/1553
Connections
Five
Systems/Aircraft
Command and Control
Figure 3
Military EMBEDDED SYSTEMS October 2005 / 13