Complex airborne surveillance and intelligence gathering missions rely on the collection and amalgamation of data from many sensors. As the number of onboard sensors continue to increase, defense organizations worldwide expect more capabilities and higher performance from mission systems. Software continues to evolve to address real-time need for decision making and visibility to the war fighters. Developing an integrated system that leverages the full capabilities of customer software, while keeping an eye on constrained budgets and development times, continues to be a challenge.
To find the optimal balance for a new mission system that leveraged the mission software suite, a defense agency turned to Curtiss-Wright. Having considered proposals on the upgrade program, the customer needed a solution that could deliver the required performance in less time and at a lower cost.
The project specifications called for a mission system upgrade built with ruggedized hardware that could fit into the constrained space on a fleet of deployed platforms. Capabilities and performance were required to match the results produced in the development lab.
By working with the customer and the mission software suite developers, Curtiss-Wright was able to deliver the required capabilities and performance in a new mission system based on the Intel Xeon D processor, while reducing development time and budget significantly. The new system was delivered ready for deployment and integration in eight months, rather than the two to three years originally projected for the project. In addition, by leveraging its portfolio of pre-validated, pre-integrated, COTS-based ruggedized CPU and GPU products, Curtiss-Wright was able to maximize the embedded system’s processing performance, significantly reduced the weight and power requirements within the constraints of an existing chassis. Download the case study to learn more about the Curtiss-Wright system.