Editor's note: GE Intelligent Platforms changed its name to Abaco Systems on 23 Nov. 2015 as a result of the company's acquisition last September by New York-based private equity firm Veritas Capital.
BALTIMORE, 9 Nov. 2011. Two aerospace and defense industry partners specializing in rugged embedded computing and advanced data networking are developing a line of harsh-environment secure networking nodes for military combat vehicles designed to provide high-speed networking within military vehicles using Ethernet and the Internet Protocol (IP).
GE Intelligent Platforms (NYSE:GE) in Charlottesville, Va., and Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR) in Sunnyvale, Calif., are developing the RTR8GE router, which also will have RF data links for communicating with other vehicles and military assets during network-centric operations, explains Rubin Dhillon, industry manager for communications U& networking in the GE Intelligent Platforms military & aerospace embedded computing business.
The primary target for the RTR8GE router from GE and Juniper are vehicles that use the U.S. Army's Vehicular Integration for C4ISR/EW Interoperability (VICTORY) standard, which seeks to move Army vehicle design from a bolt-on integration approach towards network-centric, systems-oriented design. GE and Juniper made the announcement this week at the AFCEA MILCOM conference and trade show in Baltimore, which highlights technologies in military communications and embedded computing.
"VICTORY standardizes on how displays, radios, computers, and sensors talk to each other," explains GE's Dhillon. The rugged networking routers will carry data, voice, and video over an IP network. GE Intelligent Platforms is providing know-how on rugged computers and subsystems, while Juniper Networks is providing its secure Junos operating system, which includes features that provide intrusion prevention and detection, firewalls, packet inspection, authentication and access control.
Juniper, which also is providing networking capability for the U.S. Army Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T) program, has designed the Junos software operating system with a single-code-chain design approach for security, says George Holland, president of federal strategy and development for Juniper Networks.
The RTR8GE router offers EAL-4 security certification, FIPS-140-2 cryptography, and anti-tamper capability that includes memory zeroization and an ability to detect and warn of attempts at tampering. Future developments will include boards that can detect attempts at reverse engineering and other forms of tampering, and respond by destroying the board, Dhillon says.
The router offers secure IPv4/IPv6 connectivity for military vehicles, aircraft, and forward operating bases supporting net-centric operations. The RTR8GE has eight Gigabit Ethernet ports integrated in an enclosure that measures 5.6 by 3.5 by 8.7 inches, and weighs about eight pounds.
For more information contact GE Intelligent Platforms online at www.ge-ip.com, or Juniper Networks at www.juniper.net.
