CompactPCI Reports for Military Duty

CompactPCI Reports for Military Duty
cPCI SBCs gain ground in GPS, missile guidance apps.

Andrew J. Long
General Micro Systems

CompactPCI is on the attack, infiltrating VME-based mil app territory. Defense systems have long been a VME stronghold. Now, CompactPCI, the darling of the commercial Telecom and communications world, is making inroads into these applications. Increasingly, military designers find that cPCI-based computers can meet the demanding requirements of their critical applications (and also enable them to meet the COTS mandate).

cPCI's attributes (see "The CompactPCI Advantage", p. 21) make it low in cost and easy to integrate with existing computer and network equipment. CompactPCI also delivers the speed and reliability needed for critical, high-throughput applications. These capabilities enable cPCI boards to meet the military's requirements for high throughput, rugged reliability and ease of use.

CompactPCI is on a winning streak. It has been selected for a number of current military and government system programs, demonstrating that cPCI has won the confidence of some of this nation's toughest evaluators: military program managers. In two instances, both military projects, cPCI SBCs were recently deployed as host processors. The selected boards were C2P3/MPs from General Micro Systems, Inc.(GMS). In a third example, cPCI is deployed in the nation's largest fusion reactor project.

The Pseudolite System
In one example military application, the cPCI boards serve as the host processor in a new mobile Global Positioning System (GPS). This GPS informs mobile military units of their precise location. The system also provides a method to determine the exact location of other objects in the combat arena.

For example, during active combat it is important to know where all the friendly forces are located. And, needless to say, nothing is more valuable than a GPS reading on the enemy positions. However, with a standard GPS-to-satellite uplink there are places where mobile units will lose the line of site they need to receive a satellite signal. And unfortunately, our mobile military units often locate themselves in such places to hide from enemy satellites.

Until recently, being out of range of GPS satellite signals also meant that a mobile unit could not take advantage of targeting information and other benefits offered by GPS contact. To solve this problem, the Raytheon Corporation developed ground-based transmitters known as pseudolites. Pseudolite boxes can be positioned at different locations within the combat arena. Knowing its own position exactly, a pseudolite box can calculate the coordinates of other nearby units relative to itself and provide them with GPS-type positioning information. Pseudolite boxes are not just used for combat applications; they can also be placed around airports for precision instrument landings and for any other purpose requiring exact positioning coordinates.

Raytheon's pseudolite boxes have a cPCI architecture. Within each box will be a GMS C2P3 cPCI board and a proprietary integrated PMC card that conducts GPS simulations. The GMS cPCI was selected for its current technology base, scalability, high bandwidth and COTS compatibility.

The C2P3 single-board cPCI features single or dual 550 MHz Pentium III processors, each supported with 512 KB of L2 cache and one gigabyte of memory. GMS will be developing new PMC cards with expanded capabilities to provide coordinates for both friendly and potentially hostile mobile units. To meet COTS requirements, GMS also supplies military designers custom software and guarantees five years of compatibility with every new release of Intel processors.

The PMS-429 Weapon Selection System
cPCI is also at work in critical weapons systems. The Maryland-based Tracor Corporation is testing the GMS C2P3 for use in a new program called The Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC ) for the Keyport facility. With divisions in Newport, Rhode Island and Keyport, Washington, The NUWC is the Navy's research and development center for submarines and other weapons systems associated with undersea warfare. NUWC's PMS-429 Weapon Selection System will analyze targets based on data sent from a headquarters location.

This target data is gathered from ground reports and the use of several classified technologies, then relayed by Milstar satellite to the conflict arena. If the most appropriate weapon is not already specified, the PMS-429 system combines the target data with GPS satellite positioning information and determines the weapon system that can best respond to the threat. After selecting the weapon of choice, the program transfers the targeting information to the control system of the selected weapon.

The weapon selected by the PMS-429 can range from a computer-guided five-inch gun to a Tomahawk missile. If the Tomahawk missile is selected for a land-based operation, the Tactical Tomahawk Weapons Control System guides the missile to its target. For targets at se, the Advanced Tomahawk Weapons Control System (ATWCS) guides the Tomahawk.

The ATWCS allows shipboard operators to generate and maintain a surface track database, coordinate strike activities with other ships in a battle group and launch the Tomahawk missiles. Many of the control applications and interfacing applications for this project were developed on desktop computers running Windows NT. This made porting the applications to a ruggedized cPCI board running Windows NT easier than porting to a VME/UNIX system or other development package.

DIII-D Fusion Research
In addition to GPS field systems and weapons selection, cPCI is being tapped for non-military Government applications. For example, cPCI is currently being tested to control I/O functions in a fusion energy system. The DIII-D Tokamak project includes over fiftyinstitutions as participants, including collaborators at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.

Located at the General Atomics Corporation facilities in San Diego, the DIII-D Tokamak fusion research reactor is the largest in the US and the third largest in the world. General Atomics designed and built the DIII-D Tokamak with funding from DOE and other agencies. The project's main objective is to reduce the size and cost of a fusion power plant. The project is resulting from basic fusion physics including the understanding and control of energy and particle transport in a high temperature plasma, disruption control and heat and particle exhaust.

For three decades, the Tokamak has contributed (under different project names) to the advancement of fusion technology, removing most of the roadblocks to commercial viability. The participating agencies develop new technologies, staff the DIII-D Executive Committee and the DIII-D Research Planning Committee and provide many of the task and project leaders used in Tokamak experiments. Although they are spread all over the United States, the collaborating agencies maintain direct network contact with the General Atomics Fusion Group via the Energy Sciences Network (ESnet).

The DIII-D is equipped with some of the world's most advanced instruments for fusion energy science research. For the last decade, the facility has employed multiple banks of VME rack-mounted computers. Now, General Atomics system designers are looking to cPCI for superior throughput and a high level of reliability. Unlike many commercial applications, large physics experiments must be designed with very long life cycles. Equipment and systems must often operate for decades.

General Atomics is testing the CompactPCI computer for use in processing the I/O for about 500 sensors that gather research data and monitor the Tokamak's vital signs. To gather this data and run the necessary calculations, General Atomics needs several banks of highly reliable processors with very high throughput rates. cPCI offers broad compatibility with existing programs and interfaces, and as the latest advancement in PCI technology, it promises the greatest longevity of any computer in its class.