SOSA Standard Taking Hold in Military Embedded Computing

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September 24, 2021

SOSA Standard Taking Hold in Military Embedded Computing

Published in Military & Aerospace Electronics
Written by Jamie Whitney

NASHUA, N.H. - Government and industry partners are working together to ensure that technology is vendor-neutral and easily upgradable thanks the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Consortium.

The emerging SOSA open-systems standard — overseen by The Open Group in San Francisco — aims to enable military embedded systems designers to create new systems and make significant upgrades to existing systems much more quickly than today’s technologies allow.

SOSA is heavily influencing the backplane and chassis development in military embedded computing applications, and is driving development of backplanes, chassis, connectors, high-speed switch fabrics, VME, VPX, CompactPCI, PCI Express, and embedded computing computer boards.

The high-level goals of SOSA include openness and being platform- and vendor-agnostic while being aligned with Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) using standardized software and hardware. The consortium aims to leverage existing and emerging open standards and align with U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) service objectives. Finally, SOSA aims to keep technology affordable and adaptable.

While the consortium buttons up its rules ahead of the pending “1.0” release, SOSA still is attracting members from the military embedded computing industry.

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What is Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA)?

The SOSA Technical Standard defines a common framework for transitioning sensor systems to an open systems architecture. The SOSA standard leverages OpenVPX to define card profiles with specifications for features such as pinouts, Ethernet capabilities, and serial ports.

 

See our SOSA- and CMOSS-aligned solutions

Read more about our SOSA-aligned PICs, chassis options, and integration services in our brochure.

Read the Brochure

Exploring SOSA, CMOSS, FACE, VICTORY, and more

We examine the 2019 tri-services memo regarding MOSA, and what open standards such as SOSA, FACE, and VICTORY mean for today’s military programs.