New and efficient approaches to cabinet and console design, fabrication, integration, and qualification are enabling prime defense contractors to quickly equip the U.S. Navy with better electronics technology and enclosures while increasing return on investment.

New technologies such as virtualisation, sensor improvements and data fusion are enhancing the effect of CMS on modern fleets, allowing greater range and faster transfer of critical information.

Industry standards and guidelines such as MOSA, SOSA, CMOSS, SAVE, and FACE are driving the latest developments in enclosures, chassis, and backplane databuses, as small for factors are ready to take center stage.

It can be laborious and time-consuming to troubleshoot and repair systems on aircraft. Without granular data, it can be difficult for maintenance personnel to identify what part of a system is faulty and it can take a long time to remove, test, and reinstall parts of a system until the culprit is found.

Graham Pitcher of New Electronics Magazine speaks to Aaron Frank and Andrew McCoubrey of Curtiss-Wright about the future of VME.

Aircraft data acquisition technology continues to evolve with more modularity, increased processing power and real time air-to-ground transfer capabilities alongside increasing proliferation of engine, aircraft system and airframe component sensors.

One example of an FPGA-based VME interface alternative is Curtiss-Wright’s Helix, a field-tested and proven PCI Express-to-VME64x transparent bridge that provides a full VME64xMaster/Slave interface with a direct bridge to a PCI Express upstream port

Aaron Frank discusses the continuation of VME after the end-of-life of the popular Tempe TSI148 VMEbus bridge chip.