COTS systems cut costs of military vehicle platforms

General Electric Co. unveils two CompactPCI-based computer systems that are designed so that they can be preconfigured to suit the required military vehicle platform, including UAVs, manned and unmanned ground vehicles and launch vehicles.

The CRS-C2P-3CC1 and CRS-C3P-3CB1 from GE Intelligent Platforms are 2-slot and 3-slot pre-validated, application-ready, CompactPCI-based computer systems. They are the first two products in a family of rugged, off-the-shelf (COTS) systems designed to reduce the cost and time-to-market of developing solutions for a range of military vehicle platforms including UAVs, manned and unmanned ground vehicles and launch vehicles.

The computer systems are available in a wide range of application-specific configurations, and they can be delivered in a rugged, convection- or base plate-cooled 3U chassis. The computers are supplied as standard with a Freescale-based single board computer (SBC) and the VxWorks RTOS. I/O capabilities include Ethernet, serial, USB, MIL-STD-1553 and ARINC 429 and discrete I/O.

They integrate GE Intelligent Platforms boards and modules into open modular systems that are tested and qualified for rugged systems deployment. Configured with an SBC featuring a Freescale MPC7448 processor operating at 1.4GHz, the systems come with 512Mbytes of RAM and 256MB of Flash memory. The CRS-C2P-3CC1 measures about 100mm x 182mm x 228mm (excluding connectors) and weighs about 5kg. The CRS-C3P-3CB1 has dimensions of 142mm x 108mm x 222.5mm (excluding connectors) and weighs about 4kg.

GE Intelligent Platforms will announce similar systems based on OpenVPX in the coming months.

- Toni McConnel
EE Times