New and efficient approaches to cabinet and console design, fabrication, integration, and qualification are enabling prime defense contractors to quickly equip the U.S. Navy with better electronics technology and enclosures while increasing return on investment.

Now that the Army has chosen its preferred Future Long Range Assault Aircraft in Bell’s V-280 advanced tiltrotor, the race is on to populate it with mission systems that will allow the machine to operate through adversaries’ sophisticated air defense systems.

The U.S. Army has long pursued a standardized infrastructure and architecture for ground-combat vehicle hardware and networking.

Vetronics systems today are increasingly focused on C4ISR [command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance], interoperability with other battlefield elements, and the capability to be optionally unmanned if necessary.

New technologies such as virtualisation, sensor improvements and data fusion are enhancing the effect of CMS on modern fleets, allowing greater range and faster transfer of critical information.

Industry standards and guidelines such as MOSA, SOSA, CMOSS, SAVE, and FACE are driving the latest developments in enclosures, chassis, and backplane databuses, as small for factors are ready to take center stage.

To lower the cost and help speed the pace of technology upgrades for C5ISR [command, control, computers, communications, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] systems on Army vehicles, the U.S. Army’s Program Executive Officer (PEO) for Ground Combat Systems (GCS) has issued an Interface Description Document (IDD).

Backed by broad support from government and industry, the release of SOSA Technical Standard 1.0 promises a new era of open standards-based system integration with flexibility and interoperability as its hallmarks.