In recent years, a better approach toward battlefield maintenance has emerged, which utilizes Line Replaceable Modules (LRM) to speed, simplify and significantly lower the cost of system repair. At Curtiss-Wright, we're helping to drive the move toward LRM maintenance through our leadership role in bringing rugged, ESD (electro-static discharge)-protected VPX modules to the embedded COTS market.
The innovative LRM approach promises to greatly reduce the logistics burden by removing and replacing modules such as pluggable processing and I/O boards directly at the platform; this eliminates the traditional step of first removing the system-level "black box" and sending it back to a depot for the eventual replacement of a pluggable circuit board. By designing a system around the concept of LRMs, and holding spares at the LRM level instead of at the box level, the cost, volume, and weight of spares holdings can be reduced. LRM design considerations include ESD protection, mechanical protection, fault diagnosis/isolation, LRM insertion and replacement, cooling, and handling sensitive data.
Some products available as LRMs include:
VPX6-187 | Freescale QorIQ P4040/4080 SBC |
CHAMP-AV9/VPX6-463 | 6U OpenVPX Intel Core i7 4th Gen Digital Signal Processor Card |
Flash Storage Module (FSM) | 1TB FIPS 140-2 Validated or 2TB AES-256 Encrypted Removable Storage |
VPX3-215 | 3U VPX Carrier Card for PMC/XMC Modules |