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DisplayPort (DP++)
COM 2 & 4
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CME34GSD1000
Power
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SATA Ports
4 4 4 4 4 4
Part Number
CME34GSS615 CME34GSD1000 CMX34GSS615 CMX34GSD1000 CMA24GSS615 CMA24GSD1000
Speed
615 MHz 1.0 GHz 615 MHz 1.0 GHz 615 MHz 1.0 GHz
Cores
1 2 1 2 1 2
DDR3 SDRAM
2 GB 2 GB 2 GB 2 GB 2 GB 2 GB
SSD Max
32 GB 32 GB 32 GB 32 GB 32 GB 32 GB
PCIe x1
4 4 6 6 7 7
PCIe x4
1 1
GigE
2 2 2 2 1 1
USB 2.0
9 9 9 9 7 7
Serial
4 4 4 4 4 4
aDIO
14 14 14 14 14 14
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1 1 1 1 1 1
DP++
1 1 1 1 1 1
HD Audio
1 1 1 1 1 1
Power (W)
9.0 13.5
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10
COTS (kots), n. 1. Commercial off-the-shelf. Terminology popularized in 1994 within U.S. DoD by SECDEF Wm. Perrys Perry Memo that changed military industry purchasing and design guidelines, making Mil-Specs acceptable only by waiver. COTS is generally dened for technology, goods and services as: a) using commercial business practices and specications, b) not developed under government funding, c) offered for sale to the general market, d) still must meet the program ORD. 2. Commercial business practices include the accepted practice of customerpaid minor modication to standard COTS products to meet the customers unique requirements. Ant. When applied to the procurement of electronics for the U.S. Military, COTS is a procurement philosophy and does not imply commercial, ofce environment or any other durability grade. E.g., rad-hard components designed and offered for sale to the general market are COTS if they were developed by the company and not under government funding.
CONTENTS
August 2013 Volume 15 Number 8
Departments
6 Publishers Notebook Clock Ticks toward Sequestrations Next Bite 8 46 The Inside Track COTS Products
SPECIAL FEATURE
Rugged Box vs. Slot Card Systems for Tech Upgrades
TECH RECON
Rugged Laptops, Workstations and Display Systems
SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT
Embedded Development Tools for the Military
TECHNOLOGY FOCUS
COM and COM Express Boards
42
Publisher
PRESIDENT John Reardon, johnr@rtcgroup.com PUBLISHER Pete Yeatman, mail@yeatmangroup.com
Editorial
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Jeff Child, jeffc@rtcgroup.com SENIOR EDITOR Clarence Peckham, clarencep@rtcgroup.com MANAGING EDITOR/ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Sandra Sillion, sandras@rtcgroup.com COPY EDITOR Rochelle Cohn
Art/Production
ART DIRECTOR Kirsten Wyatt, kirstenw@rtcgroup.com GRAPHIC DESIGNER Michael Farina, michaelf@rtcgroup.com LEAD WEB DEVELOPER Justin Herter, justinh@rtcgroup.com
Advertising
WESTERN REGIONAL SALES MANAGER Stacy Mannik, stacym@rtcgroup.com (949) 226-2024 MIDWEST REGIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL SALES MANAGER Mark Dunaway, markd@rtcgroup.com (949) 226-2023 EASTERN REGIONAL SALES MANAGER Shandi Ricciotti, shandir@rtcgroup.com (949) 573-7660 BILLING Cindy Muir, cmuir@rtcgroup.com (949) 226-2000
COTS Journal
HOME OFFICE The RTC Group, 905 Calle Amanecer, Suite 250, San Clemente, CA 92673 Phone: (949) 226-2000 Fax: (949) 226-2050, www.rtcgroup.com Editorial office Jeff Child, Editor-in-Chief 20A Northwest Blvd., PMB#137, Nashua, NH 03063 Phone: (603) 429-8301
Published by THERTCGROUP Copyright 2013, The RTC Group. Printed in the United States. All rights reserved. All related graphics are trademarks of The RTC Group. All other brand and product names are the property of their holders.
4
Untitled-2 1
GE Intelligent Platforms
You cant see them but there are 300,000 people standing behind this display
What you can see is GEs Intelligent Vehicle Display, available with a 10" or 15" screen. By combining it with a powerful on board processor, memory and extensive I/O and networking capabilities, it can make a significant contribution to reducing in-vehicle size, weight and power. What you cant see are the people behind it. Every GE product comes with a guarantee of exemplary customer support the kind of support it takes to enable you to turn products into solutions more quickly and at lower cost, speeding your time to market and helping you achieve competitive advantage. At GE Intelligent Platforms, we can offer you the best of both worlds: the agility and responsiveness of a small company, backed by the resources and strength in depth of one of the worlds most dependable companies. Add the GE team to your team, and experience the GE difference.
defense.ge-ip.com
2013 GE Intelligent Platforms, Inc. All rights reserved. All other brands or names are property of their respective holders.
Publishers
NOTEBOOK
Clock Ticks toward Sequestrations Next Bite
t appears that everyone has now been reassured that the sky will not fall because of sequestration. This deep sigh of relief and relaxed attitude were taking should be reconsidered, if only from the standpoint that sequestration takes another bite every year. Congress continues to play chicken with itself and the administration. The administration just points the nger and says, its not us, its Congress. Im going to steal a line from Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos, when he stated that the governments procurement process is constipated. Its not just procurement. But that is the area where our readers are most interested and concerned. Congress, the administration, the DoD and the services are all constipated, not only with procurement but with how they should operate and manage. What each of these groups let me call them the Gang of Fourneed is a good management consultant rm to come in and get rid of the obstructive individuals and processes. Then they need to streamline operations and empower results-oriented individuals. Of this Gang of Four, only the services have a chance of coming close to making a change. Thats because they are the military with a command structure that can dictate change. No matter what both sides will say publically, for the last decade or two the environment between the defense industry and DoD has become adversarial and one of distrust. Large corporations with their emphasis primarily on the military market usually have difculty shifting gears and focusing on the commercial market. Many of these corporations are now just attempting to wait things out. Theyve made adjustments in stafng and other cost savings. Their big problem is whether they can hold out longer than the Gang of Four; many wont be able to. Decades ago the Packard Commission noted that program management had shifted from management to reporting and selling the merits of their program. If anything, today its even worse. Every program is burdened with endless reviews and administrative procedures making program managers duties even more focused on reporting and selling. The results are products that come in over or under their requirements, interminably delayed and with cost overruns in multiples of the original concept. For anyone to say that sequestration may be just what we needed is probably not politically correct. But sequestration may be the only way the Gang of Four will ever do what has to be done. We need to get back to where the top brass determines exactly
6 COTS Journal | August 2013
what is needednot desired or politically correctand works with one or two contractors on a program. They need to just get it done like the F-117, MRAP and GPS, and get it into the hands of ground troops. We need to rebuild trust between industry and the military and develop a will do atmosphere, or China will overwhelm us with advanced technology military equipment. Closer to home, what can we do in our industry? Ever since the introduction of commercially available product technology for the military, COTS suppliers have developed a range of base products and offered them with the understanding that they would be modied to meet specic requirements. This marketing technique enabled suppliers to have products they could introduce to multiple programs for different services. As time passed some suppliers developed product ranges that were more specic to one service than the others. Sequestration is pushing suppliers to even tighter focus on their products market. Were entering a cycle where rather than developing a base product and modifying it, suppliers are now developing a product, at their cost, specically and uniquely for a particular program. To succeed in this new cycle of providing electronics to the military, you need to do exactly what the Gang of Four needs to do: work closely with the military in an atmosphere of mutual trust. In some cases our people will work directly with the military, or more likely in partnership with a prime. For many smaller electronics suppliers, the risk is still too great to work like this. Most if not all the development costs are born by the supplier. And what makes this technique work is unbelievably quick development and production of a quality product that performs as envisioned. Funds are becoming tighter and tighter every year. And the military can only reduce headcount by so many. That all means that future budget reductions can only come from overhead and procurement. Having the ability to succeed in the new cycle of procurement will determine many of our current electronics suppliers business longevity. The clock has started to tick
Learn more about Marvin Test Solutions and our 25 Years of Superior Test Solutions at marvintest.com/newname.
MARVINTEST.COM
2013 Marvin Test Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved. Product and trade names are property of their respective companies.
INSIDE TRACK
Parvus Receives $3.3M Order for Army Kiowa Helicopter Program
Parvus Corporation, a Eurotech subsidiary, has announced it received a $3.3 million follow-on order from Mercom Inc. to supply DuraCOR 810Duo tactical computer subsystems that will be integrated into U.S. Army OH-58D Kiowa military helicopters (Figure 1). Deliveries will take place within year end. The U.S. DoD recently announced that Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, AL, had awarded a firm-fixed-price contract with a maximum value of $7,278,762 to Mercom for the procurement of DuraCOR computers in support of this program. The DuraCOR 810-Duo is a rugged multicore mission processor subsystem designed for high-reliability applications requiring MIL-STD810G environmental compliance with extreme temperatures, shock/vibration and ingress. Based on a modular, open architecture COTS design with an Intel Core2 Duo CPU, solid state disk, MIL-704/1275 power supply and conduction-cooled chassis, the DuraCOR 810-Duo is an ideal computing solution for harsh mobile military and homeland security C4ISR deployments. Parvus Salt Lake City, UT. (801) 483-1533. [www.parvus.com].
Figure 1
The
An OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopter from the 1st Infantry Division takes off on a mission in 2004 from Forward Operation Base MacKenzie, Iraq. It is armed with an AGM-114 Hellfire and seven Hydra-70 rockets.
MicroTCA.2 modules of all power levels benefit from the hybrid air/conduction-cooling (hybrid cooling) approach, in which conduction allows thermal sharing among modules and with the chassis. This thermal sharing effect allows additional surface area to be exposed to the airflow through the chassis to more effectively dissipate the systems total thermal load. By taking advantage of complementary conductive heat transfer through finned clamshelled module surfaces and aluminum chassis sidewalls, as well as heat sharing between adjacent chassis slots, the MicroTCA.2 hybrid cooling solution effectively provides increased thermal margin. PICMG Wakeeld, MA. (781) 246-9318. [www.picmg.org].
Figure 2
A C-130 Hercules, equipped with the U.S. Forest Service Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System, lands at Laughline Air Force Base, Texas.
when direct mounted to the airframe. In hostile environments, where dependable mission-critical communications is essential, the AR-75 outperforms all expectations. The Model AR-75HPS is a fully
INSIDE TRACK
automatic band-switching RF booster amplifier for multiband VHF/UHF Tactical Radio equipment employing legacy, proprietary and emerging waveforms. The amplifier covers the frequency band of 30-512 MHz using automatically switched filters to ensure low harmonic distortion levels, and is SINCGARS, HPW, HAVEQUICK and ECCM compatible. AR Modular Bothell, WA. (425) 485 9000. [www.arww-modularrf.com].
the cornerstone of the Armys network modernization plan (Figure 3). When combined with the AN/PRC-154 Rif leman and AN/PRC-155 twochannel Manpack networking radios, WIN-T Increment 2 delivers vital situational awareness, intelligence and mission command that keeps pace with soldiers and their commanders during every stage of a mission. During the evaluation, more than 3,800 soldiers from the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division conducted a wide range of on-the-move military and peacekeeping operations, both day and night, using the WINT Increment 2 system. The tests took place at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., from May 6 to May 23. WIN-T Increment 2 systems are currently fielded with the 101st Airborne and two Brigade Combat Teams with the 10th Mountain Division. WIN-T Increment 1, the predecessor to WIN-T Increment 2, is fielded to the entire Army with 210 systems in the hands of active-duty Army, Army Reserve and National Guard units. General Dynamics C4 Systems Scottsdale, AZ. (480) 441-3033. [www.gdc4s.com].
Simulation System (I-TESS) II. Cubic will provide an immersive training capacity that replicates the stresses and threats of actual combat. The order will replace older generation systems at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, VA. The I-TESS II system consists of a small-arms transmitter, which can be used with automatic weapons, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and AT4 rocket launchers. There also is a man-worn detection system, audio and visual effects to simulate hand grenades, and tracking and engagement gear for vehicles and fixed structures. The systems GPS and radio system provides real-time tracking of individuals and vehicles, in both indoor and outdoor conditions. The data is collected and briefed to the marine as an objective-based after-action review. Cubic Defense Systems San Diego, CA. (858) 277-6780. [www.cubic.com].
Figure 4
An EA-18G Growler assigned to the Zappers of Electronic Attack Squadron (VAQ) 130 lands on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75).
developing a preliminary design for the new jamming pods for the EA-18G Growler AEA aircraft (Figure 4). The Navys EA-18G Growler is the DoDs only tactical AEA platform and supports all services from both aircraft carriers and land bases. NGJ will replace the ALQ99 tactical jamming system and will bring increased jamming capability to the warfighter that is critical to sustaining the future missions of the Navy and other services in strike warfare, anti-access/area denial and irregular warfare scenarios. The goal is to deliver this capability to the f leet in fiscal 2020. Raytheon will be required to design and build critical technologies that will be the foundational blocks of NGJ. Keys to success include demonstrations of required capabilities as well as crafting a design that will be tested and f lown on the Growler during the subsequent 4 year Engineering and Manufacturing Development phase. Raytheon Waltham, MA. (781) 522-3000. [www.raytheon.com].
Raytheon Nabs Navy Contract for Next Gen Jammer Tech Development
The Navy awarded a $279.4 million cost-plus-incentive-fee contract July 8 that will transform how the service executes its Airborne Electronic Attack (AEA) mission. Naval Air Systems Command awarded the contract to Raytheon Co. to conduct the Next Generation Jammer (NGJ) Technology Development (TD) phase. The 22-month TD phase is the next step in transitioning mature components into testable subsystems as well as
Figure 3
Cubic Wins Marine Corps Contract for Next-Gen Laser-Based Tactical Training
Cubic Defense Applications has announced it has been awarded an additional delivery order by the United States Marine Corps to provide an advanced Instrumented-Tactical Engagement
Network Integration Evaluation (NIE) 13.2 is the fifth in a series of semi-annual, solider-led evaluations designed to further integrate and rapidly progress the Armys tactical network.
SPECIAL FEATURE
Rugged Box vs. Slot Card Systems for Tech Upgrades
10
consequence of this phase of constrained budgets and uncertainty about DoD programs is that technology upgrades are now gaining even more importance in the spectrum of todays military system design and procurement efforts. Instead of focusing on new start platforms, all branches of the DoD are shifting more toward upgrading and modernizing the embedded computing and electronics of Current Force platforms. This is actually a positive development for the embedded computing industryparticularly as prime contractors are now compelled to outsource rather than build electronic subsystems in-house. A key decision facing todays military system developer is that of caged cards versus an off-the-shelf box-level computer. The traditional approach is to use slot-card boards in a card cage. This means choosing a bus architecture, a rugged card cage and an SBC, plus any additional I/O boards to fulll the requirements. Over the past several years, traditional embedded board vendors are adding stand-alone rugged box-level systems to their military market offerings. These complete system boxes provide a complete, tested and enclosed computing solution that eliminates complex integration chores for customers.
SPECIAL FEATURE
Figure 1
The Bradley ODS-SA upgrade integrates the latest digitized electronics, providing soldiers with optimal situational awareness, network connectivity and enhanced communication hardware. applications where size, weight and power have priority over past compatibility with legacy boards, the option of rugged box-level systems that are basically monolithic integrated computers is popular. The slot-card approach brings with it a number of merits. It offers the greatest f lexibility in the I/O
complement that can be supported. If an MIL-STD-1553 interface is needed, such a board can be added. The f lexibility of a slot-card system is particularly useful when not all the I/O requirements are defined at the beginning of a projecta situation not uncommon in military programs. Moreover, some applications like comms and networking systems often require slots left open for the end-user for reconfiguring systems functionality in the field. Because upgrade programs arent as advanced as new programsand also because vendors like to guard their opportunitiesmany of these upgrade programs go unannounced. But slot-card technology upgrade programs continue to be a cash cow business for many, and such programs are expected to both expand and multiply. Among the highest profile of these include the Abrams Tank Systems Enhancement Package (SEP) Upgrade; F-18 Advanced Multi-Purpose Display Program; Bradley Vehicle Electronics
Upgrade; B-52 Mission Computer Upgrade; Aegis Guided Missile Destroyer Sonar Upgrade; B-2 Bomber Radar Upgrade; Boeing B-1B Bomber Avionics Upgrade; and C-130 Cockpit Upgrade. Standards-based embedded computer solutions such as VME are used in most all of these upgrade programs. Last fall, BAE Systems received a $306 million contract modication to upgrade 353 Bradley Fighting Vehicles (Figure 1). The Bradley ODS-SA upgrade integrates the latest digitized electronics, providing soldiers with optimal situational awareness, network connectivity and enhanced communication hardware. Its proven durability and commonality of design reduces the logistics burden while enhancing battleeld performance to meet a variety of mission requirements in close-combat, urban scenarios and open-combat situations. The contract was awarded by the U.S. Army TACOM Life Cycle Management Command with nal delivery expected in April 2014.
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SPECIAL FEATURE
Figure 2
The RIO6-8096 6U VME64x single board computer has technology that makes it possible to adapt the pinout of the RIO6-8096 to the rest of the system, making it a plug-in replacement for obsolete SBCs. ment. The RIO6-8096 introduces support for a PCIe x4 connection over any traditional VME64x backplane that is tted with VME-P0 connectors. The onboard VME-P0 connector allows PCIe links through the traditional VME-P0 backplane connectors, allowing the insertion of new technology without the need to replace the enclosures and backplanes. This PCIe over VME-P0 connection allows
MISSION-READY
Rugged ZX Servers