DOING MORE WITH LESS As the Army increases C4ISR capability, it runs out of space on its vehicles and Soldiers. CERDEC aims to drastically reduce the size, weight, power and cost burden by advancing projects that enable sharing of C4ISR hardware and software components. (U.S. Army photo by SGT Christopher Bigelow)


exploit the electromagnetic spectrum and have similar architectures, which may include transmitters, receivers, processing units and user interfaces.


In many cases, C4ISR/EW systems


overlap in their use of the electromagnetic spectrum and have similar processing requirements. Tese


similarities suggest


the potential for sharing components among C4ISR/EW systems on a military platform, which could reduce total life- cycle costs for all such systems. In addition, sharing components among C4ISR/EW systems on a single platform, such as a ground or air vehicle or the Soldier, could greatly improve interoperability and compatibility of the individual systems.


Leveraging common components deliver capabilities to is critical to realize


all of the benefits of open hardware and software architectures for implementing C4ISR and EW capabilities. However, reducing the amount of hardware on the platform to realize significant reductions in SWAP-C requires sharing components among C4ISR/EW capa- bilities


as much as possible, which


introduces new challenges. Tis extreme challenge exists because the developer controls all processing requirements. For example, EW capabilities must be more responsive to ever-changing threats. In order to rapidly upgrade for new threats,


this proposed architecture


requires that resource management tools and frameworks be developed to aid in creating


new C4ISR/EW capabilities,


while still meeting the stringent timing requirements of EW capabilities.


One can choose from numerous available standards for open hardware, but the real challenges exist in selecting a standard that can evolve with growing demands, and selecting from the many options to ensure that multiple vendors can build to the standard. For example, the pro- cessing demands and data flows required for many C4ISR/EW systems call for an appropriate data bus that supports data transfer among processing modules.


the


Most of these backplanes do not address RF signals,


dards would have to include RF interface standards. Currently, all of


so digital backplane stan- these stan-


dards leave too much flexibility in the way modules use the data bus provided on the backplane, yet there cannot be optimal interoperability without clearly defining


this mechanism. Additional ASC.ARMY.MIL 73


SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY


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