Navy orders PMC daughter cards from GE for shipboard aircraft approach and landing system
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.
PATUXENT RIVER NAS, Md., 5 Sept. 2014. U.S. Navy air traffic control experts needed data-transfer embedded computing cards for the Joint Precision Approach and Landing System (JPALS). They found their solution from GE Intelligent Platforms in Huntsville, Ala.
Officials of the Naval Air Systems Command at Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Md., have announced their intention to negotiate a sole-source purchase for the GE PMCD3 PCI Mezzanine Card (PMC) for the JPALS system.
The PMCD3 is a multifunction PMC with Gigabit Ethernet, serial, and Firewire (IEEE 1394) interfaces that supports three copper 10/100/1000BaseT ports and two fiber optional optic 1000BaseLX or 1000BaseSX Ethernet ports. GE discontinued producing the PMCD3 in 2011.
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JPALS is a differential GPS that will provide an adverse weather precision approach and landing capability. It works with the GPS satellite navigation system to provide guidance for fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters with anti-jam protection for use in hostile environments.
The GE PMCD3 daughter card can enable three its ports can be active at any one time, company officials say. Two of the copper ports are routed to rear I/O, the third can be routed to either the front or rear . The two optional fiber optic ports are routed through the front panel via fully rugged low-profile optical receivers.
The card implements two fast asynchronous/synchronous serial ports via the Marvell Discovery III integrated system controller, and implements two additional asynchronous ports via the dual universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART). Three Firewire (IEEE 1394) ports on the card are available with two ports dedicated to rear I/O a third routed to front I/O.
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Navy officials need the discontinued daughter card from GE to meet form, fit and function compatibility requirements to provide interface with the mother boards already used by the JPALS program, Navy officials say. The PMCD3 enables high data transfer that JPALS needs.
For more information contact GE Intelligent Platforms online at http://defense.ge-ip.com, or Naval Air Systems Command at www.navair.navy.mil.
John Keller | Editor
John Keller is editor-in-chief of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine, which provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronic and optoelectronic technologies in military, space, and commercial aviation applications. A member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since the magazine's founding in 1989, Mr. Keller took over as chief editor in 1995.
