Reducing the number of vendors can help you meet the challenge of increased system complexity
Modern aerospace instrumentation systems can be highly complex and it can be difficult to know how to meet program needs. This is compounded by the fact that you generally must work with multiple vendors. Risk can be lowered by using COTS products that integrate to form larger systems. Critical to this strategy is getting cross-vendor systems to work quickly and reliably. While efforts such as iNET are trying to create a unified system, it is difficult at present to simply ‘plug and play’ products from different vendors.
Working with an expert partner can help to ensure your system meets your requirements correctly while strong support will lower risk in the event of unforeseen problems. However, the issue of integrating different systems remains. One solution is to outsource the task to a third party – let them work with multiple vendors and thus you only have one point of contact. A downside of this approach is it will add cost and time delays.
Another solution is to only use one vendor, but finding a vendor that can provide everything you need is not currently possible. Curtiss-Wright has taken a big step towards this however, with the recent acquisition of TTC. TTC is a recognized leader in comprehensive and integrated data acquisition technologies through telemetry systems that include data analysis units, sensors, transmitters, receivers, and ground station analysis tools to measure, record, transmit, and analyze aircraft and munitions parameters during test.
The acquisition provides increased breadth to Curtiss-Wright’s existing data acquisition product portfolio, as well as geographic expansion. The business operates within Curtiss-Wright's Defense Solution division and is working closely with other business units to provide a wider offering to the market.
Our aim is to be able to provide you with a single point of contact for your system needs so you can concentrate on delivering the data you need rather than spending your time troubleshooting systems.