The use of a modular open systems approach (MOSA) will benefit the effort to integrate alternative position, navigation, and timing (PNT) technologies into platforms.

Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions is the world's leading supplier of rugged commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) computer, networking, and data storage solutions for defense and aerospace platforms. Our flexible subsystem designs can support legacy data buses, like MIL-STD-1553 and ARINC 429, making it fast, simple, and cost-effective to replace aging aircraft systems with modern high-performance equipment.

From a design and engineering perspective, there are many moving parts to consider and combine in order to arrive at a position, navigation, and timing (PNT) truth. In addition, solutions must be easy to integrate into the available space on existing platforms, whether they are unmanned aerial systems (UASs) or other aircraft, ground-based operations, or systems at sea.

Military experts are developing new enabling technologies to help unmanned aircraft, ground vehicles, submarines, and surface vessels swarm and make decisions without human intervention.

In order to keep up with the continued acceleration of new technology and to be able to protect the warfighter from the latest threats, it is essential that we can turn our deployed platforms into adaptable entities that can evolve over time and are not static. The SOSA [Sensor Open Systems Architecture] Technical Standard is the next major step in realizing this goal.

Today’s embedded-system designers have a great variety of processor types to select from, with FPGAs and GPUs adding their own various advantages and disadvantages for consideration in contrast to the more familiar CPUs.

A panel on CMOSS at a U.S. Army Technical Exchange Meeting held earlier this year provided details on new developments underway and areas in which the Army is looking to industry for help in taking the suite of standards from prototype to deployment.

Missile testing programs rely on the telemeter, a costly system that captures flight-test data. Bringing off-the-shelf modular architectures to missile telemeter design lowers costs, enables more tests, and reduces program and schedule risk.