In the dynamic aerospace and defense landscape, systems integrators relentlessly pursue reductions in size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C) to support the deployment of advanced sensor/vetronics payloads across a diverse spectrum of manned and unmanned platforms. This concerted push towards SWaP-C optimization is instrumental in enabling a wide range of airborne and ground vehicles, including unmanned air systems (UAS), unmanned ground vehicles (UGV), unmanned undersea vehicles (UUV), unmanned surface vehicles (USV), manned fighter aircraft, helicopters, and tactical ground vehicles to maximize and expand their mission capabilities and effectiveness.
The good news is commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technology can shrink electronic subsystems, enabling systems integrators to more effectively support the insertion of advanced processor and network backbone architectures. Size-and weight-constrained platforms often require multiple computer processing elements and sensors as part of their vehicle electronics payloads to gather and share information.
These systems are ultimately interconnected. The need to fit more electronics into a very limited space envelope is driving demand for increasingly smaller processor and network connectivity solutions.
This white paper focusses on a new class of highly capable, rugged COTS mission systems, ultra-small form factor (USFF) solutions, and highlights how these line-replaceable units (LRU) are helping to drive down costs, capability tradeoffs, and SWaP-C for size-and weight-constrained platforms.