The cost of sustaining deployed complex weapons system over their lifetime is typically many times the upfront cost. A large part of that sustaining cost is the cost of repairs – not just the actual repair operations themselves, but the logistics tail of mobile repair shops and spares holdings. By far, the most cost-effective and efficient way to maintain and upgrade today’s warfighting systems is to repair and replace faulty components in the field. In-the-field maintenance and upgrading of individual modules is significantly faster and substantially less complex and costly than today’s most common approach, the removal and replacement of an entire subsystem (chassis, modules, power supply and disk drives) with the faulty system then transported to a remote repair depot. Until recently, the dirt and dust of the battlefield or the static-rich environment of a pitching aircraft carrier deck have been the big barriers to wide adoption of this superior Line Replaceable Module (LRM) approach. The lack of an open standards solution for LRM left the military with the costly and complex logistics inherent in the status quo subsystem-level Line Replaceable Unit (LRU) replacement strategy. The good news is that in recent years, Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing, prime military integrators and other COTS industry leaders have come together to collaboratively tackle the military’s urgent need for LRM based systems and have responded with new open standards, technology, and products that now make LRM a practical reality.

LRM technology solves a fundamental problem. When a standard unprotected system module is improperly handled or inadvertently exposed to electro-static discharge (ESD) its sensitive electronics can be easily damaged. Today’s new LRM modules and LRM-based systems are designed using the first open standard, VPX-REDI (VITA 48), that defines enhanced ruggedization using top and bottom metal covers, builtin ESD protection and fault isolation down to the module/card level. VPX-REDI LRMs enable for the first time the deployment of COTS circuit boards that can be quickly and easily removed and replaced in the field without special training or tools. Key to VPX-REDI is its innovative use of protective metal covers that, while shielding the circuit board from the environment, also provide enhanced stiffening against the shock and vibration typical of harsh battlefield conditions. The new standard also specifies the use of the new high bandwidth connector, the MultiGig RT-2, that provides built-in ESD protection by routing static discharge away from sensitive electronics. The MultiGig connectors are designed to withstand a discharge of 15 kV (per ANSI/VITA 47).

At Curtiss-Wright, we’re helping to drive the move toward two-level maintenance through our leadership role in bringing rugged, ESD (electro-static discharge)-protected VPX-REDI modules to the embedded COTS market. We continue to introduce COTS single-board computers and DSP engines that support LRM maintenance requirements.

Curtiss-Wright’s VPX6-185, the industry’s first 6U VPX single board computer, employs the Freescale 8641 single/dual-core PowerPC processor and provides a nominal backplane bandwidth of 8 GB/sec via four Serial RapidIO or PCI Express ports. It also includes two PCI Express VITA 42 XMC/PMC sites, Gigabit Ethernet (GbE), serial ports, and mass storage interface options. It’s joined by the VPX3-125, a 3U single board computer utilizing the PA Semi PWRficient™ PA6T-1682M processor and providing two 4-lane PCI Express fabric ports.

The CHAMP-AV6, a DSP engine based on the new VPX-REDI standard, is also available in an LRM variant. It features quad PowerPC 8641 processors, four Serial RapidIO ports and an option for one PCI Express port. For applications requiring a reconfigurable platform, the CHAMP-FX2 is a 6U VPXREDI format processor combines the power of two Xilinx Virtex™-5 FPGAs, a Freescale 8641D dual-core PowerPC processor and a Serial RapidIO switching fabric to provide unprecedented computational densities.