Flexible rapidly fielded COTS solutions for predictive maintenance (PM), health and usage monitoring systems (HUMS), condition-based maintenance (CBM), and data monitoring applications
ASHBURN, Va. – April 9, 2019 – Curtiss-Wright’s Defense Solutions division, a trusted leading supplier of aerospace instrumentation solutions, has launched a new initiative to increase its presence in the MRO, fleet, and OEM markets as a provider of rugged system-level avionics solutions. The initiative focuses on open architecture commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS)-based solutions for post-test operational use and includes support for Predictive Maintenance (PM), Health and Usage Monitoring Systems (HUMS), Condition Based Maintenance (CBM), and other data monitoring applications.
Current Curtiss-Wright Usage Monitoring and Predictive Maintenance solutions customers include major airlines, airframe manufacturers, OEMs, helicopter operators, and government agencies.
With well over 20 years of experience fielding usage monitoring solutions that provide data acquisition for aircraft monitoring and sustainment, including many proven implementations in both civil and military applications, Curtiss-Wright offers low-NRE COTS products that offer customers and fleet owners significantly more flexibility when compared to custom solutions from vendors of traditional Aircraft Condition Maintenance Systems (ACMS).
"We are very excited to increase awareness of our highly flexible COTS-based usage monitoring data acquisition solutions for the avionics market,” said Lynn Bamford, Senior Vice President, and General Manager, Defense Solutions division. “Customers benefit from our leadership position in the development and deployment of FTI and flight data recorder products, bringing unmatched expertise in open architecture design and rugged packaging to give MRO, fleet, and OEM customers more control over their configurations and speed delivery of next-generation capabilities.”
Curtiss-Wright offers four distinct solution types for deploying data acquisition capabilities on commercial and military aircraft:
- Data Acquisition Systems (DAS): Curtiss-Wright fields the Flight Test Instrumentation (FTI) industry’s most popular data acquisition units (DAU). These compact, rugged and lightweight units support a vast number of configurations through the simple integration of I/O modules. Able to fit into any location on an airframe, these versatile COTS solutions are easily configured from a full range of I/O modules:
- Avionics bus monitors
- Sensor, video and audio interfaces
- Integrated solid-state recording
- Fortress™ Flight Data Recorder: Curtiss-Wright is one of the original pioneers in the development of flight data recorders (FDR), popularly known as “black boxes.” These FDR solutions are part of the original installation on many aircraft, both fixed-wing and rotorcraft. The data acquisition capabilities of these FDRs can be easily expanded to capture critical maintenance and diagnostics data. For example, because of their modular design, the compact Fortress units can be easily expanded to support HUMS capabilities to monitor the health of the aircraft’s avionics systems.
- Production Fit Instrumentation Package: For military aircraft, Curtiss-Wright provides an internally installed alternative to costly data acquisition pods that are traditionally deployed externally on fighter jets. The cost-reducing benefits of the data collected by the instrumentation package originally on only a subset of aircraft are now driving installation on every aircraft in the fleet.
- ACMS: Curtiss-Wright has developed and delivered COTS-based ACMS system solutions. The use of a modular DAS provides customers with greater flexibility, a prototype for testing within weeks (rather than many months), and a system that can be rapidly reconfigured at a significantly lower cost as new requirements emerge.
The Benefits of the COTS System Approach
Unlike custom-designed solutions, whose design is “locked-in” during the aircraft’s initial design phase, Curtiss-Wright’s data acquisition solutions enable OEMs, operators, and system integrators to easily adapt their instrumentation after the initial configuration of the aircraft has taken place. This flexibility augments the aircraft’s ability to collect critical condition data and helps drive maintenance decisions that increase safety, operational availability, and lower costs. In some applications, the user is seeking to extend the benefits of a permanently installed Instrumentation Package in order to perform post-flight analysis of system behavior or to troubleshoot a known usage anomaly.
Curtiss-Wright’s proven standard products are modular, which makes them ideal for rapid prototyping, enabling development to commence rapidly. In contrast with traditional ACMS solutions that can’t be easily changed to add more data acquisition capabilities after deployment, Curtiss-Wright’s modular approach greatly reduces the cost, effort, and time required to add new functionality. In fact, these proven solutions are easily integrated into existing systems and are currently providing enhancements to deployed, ACMS hardware.
About the Curtiss-Wright Aerospace Instrumentation business unit
In 2017, Curtiss-Wright integrated its Dublin business unit (Ireland) with the Teletronics Technology Corporation business unit (based in Newtown, Pennsylvania), to form the Industry’s broadest and most experienced single source for customers of commercial and defense aerospace instrumentation system solutions. Curtiss-Wright now supports more aerospace flight test customers, platforms, and programs than any other competitor around the world. What’s more, with its increased resources and global reach, the Company is able to significantly expand the availability of its unmatched quality and customer support, while bringing even larger system-level solutions to market.
About Curtiss-Wright Corporation
Curtiss-Wright Corporation 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 9,000 people worldwide. For more information, visit www.curtisswright.com.
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