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.

Some environmental constraints for deployed military computing systems are operational temperature, humidity, sand, dust, vibration, shock/basic, leakage (immersion), steam and water jet cleaning, rapid decompression, contamination by fluids (e.g. oil, fuel, cleaning), nuclear hardness, and input voltage.

The proliferation of connected systems has been enabled by the U.S. military embrace of the commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) revolution.

Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components are being embraced so the technology can be serviced at the base instead of waiting for specialized parts or sending the system back state-side.

Rick Hearn explains how the key computing elements of an avionics system must all be designed with safety in mind and endure stringent testing to prove they can meet the required Design Assurance Level (DAL).

Given its complexity and the critical applications for which it is designed, embedded avionics software must undergo a rigorous approval and testing process before it can be approved as airworthy.