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Technology Rewiew: COTS Technology Opportunities
Commercial Standards and Technoloigies Give COTS a Good Name
Warren Andrews, Editor in Chief
Commercial technology and standards-not just commercial products-are starting to invade a broad cross-section of military applications, underscoring the positive direction of the COTS movement. Though even before the well-publicized "COTS initiative" a variety of commercial products that would often sneak into military applications, the technologies and standards surrounding traditional "Mil-Spec" components and systems prevailed.
To take advantage of many of the advanced processors, buses, and high-bandwidth protocols, however, makers of militarized systems are turning increasingly to commercially developed standards and technologies. These cover a broad variety of approaches ranging from standard operating systems and software to high-level communications and peripheral-interface protocols.
The following three articles are typical-though only the tip of the iceberg-of how some of the technologies and standards are being adapted to military requirements. High reliability/high availability has traditionally been part of military systems for decades. However, such systems typically required multiple levels of redundancy and complex hardware solutions in mission-critical applications. In the event of a failure, the entire system was often swapped out.
The telecom industry has many similar requirements for high availability-some perhaps as well or better defined than those traditional military standards. In his article on hot swap, VITA's executive director, Ray Alderman, discusses some of the issues surrounding hot-swap technology on VMEbus-based systems as well as in other approaches. There are many applications in the military that can take advantage of some of these high-availability techniques.
And, while it may not be practical for a fighter pilot to swap a board in an ATR box in the cockpit of his or her F-118 while in combat (or in flight for that matter), there are many other airborne, naval, and land-based applications where the ability to remove and replace a board to keep a system running optimally may be critical. Further, many of the software and hardware solutions developed are also applicable to different levels of fault management.
Hot swap is not the only technology borrowed from the data and telecommunications markets. In his article, Mitre's Robert McKee discusses the application of some networking and communications protocols such as ATM in militarized systems. It has to be remembered that military communications requirements-one of the C's in C4I-are very much the same for military as well as commercial communications.
The fallout from the commercial communications industry is expected to be a major factor in 21st-century military communications. It's expected to cover a variety of PCI-based hand-held, mobile and fixed communications targeted for next-generation systems. In addition, the transfer of commercial technology and protocols will include everything from satellite downlinks, direct satellite communication, to a variety of field-deployable, cellular-like personal communications systems.
Thus far, the lead in many of the communications areas is in the CompactPCI camp that has directly targeted many communications applications. PICMG (PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturer's Group) has identified many areas of communications and developed specifications for the CompactPCI format targeted at these uses. For example, protocols such as the H-100 bus have been fitted to the CompactPCI protocols and pinout for a variety of voice applications, and other features such as live insertion have become critical to CompactPCI's development.
But not all commercial standards and technology migrating to the military come directly from the communications end of the business. In the second article in this series, Mike Brohoski of Themis Computer details how complex beamforming is accomplished with a commercial workstation approach in place of specialized vector-processing hardware. Such solutions take advantage of the tremendous processing power inherent in today's latest-generation processors such as the UltraSPARC. There are many other examples where commercial board-level approaches and workstations have edged out many high-priced, proprietary solutions.
These are but a few of the examples of how commercial technologies and standards have found their way into military applications. Others are well on their way to acceptance. These include standards such as Fibre Channel and FireWire for high-speed serial bus links, a variety of networking and modem protocols, SCSI, I2O and any number of other approaches.
This does not, however, mean that the military and aerospace industries will discontinue any and all advanced development. As is evident here and in other publications, much advanced technology continues to be funded by, and developed primarily for, military and space applications. However, the difference is that today, a much closer relationship exists between the commercial applications and military worlds.
There continues to be a significant level of cross-development between military and aerospace technology and commercial enterprise. For example, much image-processing technology is shared between military applications such as sonar and radar and medical imaging in CAT, PET and MRI imaging equipment. Other examples range from DARPA-funded super-computer programs to advanced interface technologies.
In addition, military applications have been-and continue to be-leaders in many satellite communications technology. New techniques in digital receivers, for example, are just now emerging from military-only applications into the commercial sector. NASA, too, has developed a wealth of technology that it routinely offers to the commercial sector.
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