Internal R&D resources will evaluate and prove new embedded defense and aerospace technologies before they are brought to market
EMBEDDED TECH TRENDS 2015 - Phoenix, Ariz. - January 19, 2015 - Curtiss-Wright Corporation (NYSE: CW) today announced that its Defense Solutions division has launched the Curtiss-Wright Bicycle Shop, an internal incubator for first phase exploration of next-generation market-leading technologies. Named for the historic bicycle shops where the Company's founders, the Wright brothers, and Glenn Curtiss, first launched many of their legendary inventions, the Bicycle Shop provides the resources for evaluating and proving new embedded defense and aerospace technologies before they are brought to market. For these special projects, the Bicycle Shop's resources will enable rapid focused development and analysis to ensure that new rugged system technologies have achieved the technical maturity and deliver the product integrity demanded by critical applications. The Curtiss-Wright Bicycle Shop provides the organization and infrastructure to deliver proven and trustworthy next-generation Open Architecture solutions to our customers and partners.
"We are proud to publicly announce our innovative Bicycle Shop technology incubator," said Lynn Bamford, Senior Vice President, and General Manager, Defense Solutions division. "The Bicycle Shop enables us to give new technologies a jumpstart, ensuring that new solutions are mature and proven before they are brought to market. Our goal is to eliminate customer risk when deploying next-generation electronics."
Modeled on renowned research & development centers, such as the legendary Skunk Works®, Lockheed Martin's Center for Advanced Development Programs (ADP), the Bicycle Shop serves as Defense Solutions' incubator and laboratory for the exploration of next-generation market-leading technologies.
The Bicycle Shop's Charter
The Bicycle Shop's research and development charter go far beyond nurturing and evaluating new technologies. These technologies must also conform to those key industry standards that form the foundation of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) Open Architecture system design. Curtiss-Wright is one of the leading vendors helping to define and evolve these important standards through participation and support of industry consortia such as VITA, the trade association dedicated to fostering accredited, open systems architectures in critical embedded systems, and the U.S. Army's VICTORY initiative. We are proud to serve as stewards of these open standards while exploring ways to optimize the performance and product integrity of open standard-compliant system elements.
Bicycle Shop Projects
While now being announced to the market for the first time, the Bicycle Shop was initiated internally as a stealth project over two years ago. Its inaugural efforts have already borne fruit. For example, one of the first Bicycle Shop project technologies brought to market was Curtiss-Wright's innovative Fabric40™ 10Gbs backplane and interconnect solution. Fabric40, fully compliant with existing VITA standards, delivers the highest speed system fabric performance to a full range of rugged modules, backplanes, and enclosures, enabling system designers to easily and rapidly integrate and deploy HPEC supercomputer quality processing for the most demanding C4ISR applications.
Examples of current and ongoing Bicycle Shop projects include:
- Module-based Fluid Flow Through cooling
- Direct Digital Manufacturing to cost-effectively leverage and integrate 3D printing into the manufacturing process
- Network Bridging technologies to enhance VICTORY and network-centric computing with support for both legacy and contemporary data communications interface standards and the development of Ultra Small Form Factor solutions for SWaP-C sensitive platforms.
Origin of the Bicycle Shop Name
The legendary aviation pioneers, Wilbur and Orville Wright and Glenn Curtiss, first started on the auspicious paths that led them to world-changing invention and innovation by running bicycle shops. At the end of the 19th Century, the recently begun bicycle craze caught the imagination of clever, mechanically inclined young entrepreneurs. The Wright brothers opened their bicycle shop, The Wright Cycle Exchange, in Dayton, Ohio in 1892. Eight years later, Glenn Curtiss opened his bicycle repair shop in Hammondsport, New York. In their workshops, surrounded by their tools and caught up by the energy of the new century, these young inventors embarked on their new discoveries that would alter the course of history.
About Curtiss-Wright Corporation
Curtiss-Wright Corporation (NYSE: CW) is a global innovative company that delivers highly engineered, critical function products and services to the commercial, industrial, defense and energy markets. Building on the heritage of Glenn Curtiss and the Wright brothers, Curtiss-Wright has a long tradition of providing reliable solutions through trusted customer relationships. The company employs approximately 10,000 people worldwide. For more information, visit www.curtisswright.com.
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