UAV Airframes and Missions Drive Embedded Computing Choices

Sunday, August 01 2010

Every branch of the armed forces has a need for capabilities delivered from unmanned aerial vehicle/ unmanned aerial system (UAV/UAS) platforms. These unmanned vehicles have proved critical to improving situational awareness with surveillance and data collection, real-time communications, and even armament deployment. Key to the military’s technological approach to a modernized battlefield, new ideas for UAS use and deployment are spurring their expanded development as a priority among the Joint Forces. Enhanced systems are required to enable more sophisticated functionality, weaponization, and longer flight time at greater altitudes. Systems also need to be versatile to support a broader size range of UAS/UAV vehicles, from tanker-sized vehicles all the way down to micro-sized equipment. These diverse requirements are certainly a challenge to designers who must also ensure high reliability when operating in the rugged environment of a battlefield.

According to a recent U.S. Armed Forces report, “Standards and interoperability are keys to the Joint Forces gaining information superiority in today’s network enabled environment.” As a result, UAV development goals mandate a common set of airframes. Each UAV platform needs to be tailored to support one or more of the Joint Forces’ priorities that are based on a family of systems using standard interfaces and interoperable “plug-and-play” payloads.

This mandate for interoperability means that military embedded designers must take an open-architecture, commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) form factor approach that will allow them to focus on meeting UAV platform objectives while integrating the system with the Joint Forces’ worldwide information network. Consider in turn, the range of airframes such as Predator, Global Hawk, Fire Scout, Raven, and many others; their accompanying ground command and control systems; and ultimately, their role in keeping soldiers safe and sharing critical information. To deliver on this promise, designers must develop a deep understanding of their options for high-bandwidth, high-performance, standards-based systems that not only handle compute-intensive applications, but also deliver essential upgradability and interoperability.

Embedded Computing Form Factor Options

Implementing a truly form-factor-independent approach requires that military system designers understand the advantages and tradeoffs of any number of embedded computing form factors. Today’s broad range of standards-based form factors include Computer-on-Modules (COMs), VPX, MicroTCA, CompactPCI, and AdvancedTCA, and each delivers specific features that need to be weighed against the requirements of the airframe and its mission.

As an example, space-constrained applications that require high performance may be ideal for COMs-based solutions. The design, however, must be able to handle a two-board solution, allowing for customization through the module’s accompanying carrier board. MicroTCA provides a ruggedized solution with high-bandwidth performance that is well suited to ground control systems processing data nonstop. Leveraged from the ANSI/VITA 47 specification that defines operation in these types of environmental conditions, standards-based MicroTCA provides multiple options that include rugged air-cooled MicroTCA (MTCA.1), hardened MicroTCA (MTCA.2), and conduction-cooled MicroTCA (MTCA.3).