Curtiss-Wright wins $9 million Navy contract to provide single-board computers for surface warships
LAKEHURST, N.J. – U.S. Navy aerial warfare systems designers needed VME single-board computers for the AN/UPX-29(V) identification-friend-or-foe (IFF) interrogator system aboard surface warships. They found their solution from the Curtiss-Wright Corp. Defense Solutions Division in Ashburn, Va.
Officials of the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division in Lakehurst, N.J., announced a $9 million contract to Curtiss-Wright last Thursday for 142 single board computers in support of the AN/UPX-29(V) shipboard interrogator set.
Curtiss-Wright provides the company's VME-183 VME single-board computer with NXP Power Architecture MPC7447A/7448 processor for the Navy's AN/UPX-29(V) system.
The contract calls for Curtiss-Wright to provide 92 VME-183 single-board computers for the U.S. Navy and 50 computer boards for the Japanese navy. The contract includes nine 128 end-of-life components and one year of component storage.
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The VME-183 general-purpose embedded computing processor board uses one or two NXP (formerly Freescale) MPC7447A/7448 Power Architecture processors with AltiVec technology, and as much as 1 gigabyte of DDR1 SDRAM.
The card has two 64-bit PCI Mezzanine Card (PMC) and I/O that includes Ethernet, as many as six serial ports, as many as two MIL-STD-1553 channels, SCSI, SATA and two USB 2.0 ports.
The AN/UPX-29(V) shipboard IFF interrogator helps Navy surface warships distinguish friendly vessels and aircraft nearby during combat operations.
The AN/UPX-29(V) can process and store as many as 400 targets, provide instantaneous interrogation on a target within 25 microseconds, electronically evaluate Mode 4 replies, call up operator-designated target information, display IFF targets synchronized with as many as four radars at 22 displays, and interface with shipboard computers.
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The Curtiss-Wright VME single-board computers will go into an AN/UPX-29(V) subsystem called the AN/UPX-24(V), which is the core identification-friend-or-foe (IFF) processor of the AN/UPX-29(V) shipboard interrogator system.
The AN/UPX-29(V) identifies aircraft and surface vessels equipped with selective identification feature (SIF) modes 1, 2, 3A, and C, and provides secure identification of cooperative mode 4 targets. The IFF data from one AN/UPX-24(V) can be synchronized with as many as four individual radars, and provides the operator with synthetic IFF symbology for target recognition and tracking.
This system is installed on the Navy's Ticonderoga-class cruisers, Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, Wasp-class amphibious assault ships, San Antonio-class amphibious transport docks, and Nimitz-class aircraft carriers. It's also installed aboard the Japanese Kongo-class destroyer (FMS DD 173), which is a version of the U.S. Burke-class destroyer.
On this contract Curtiss-Wright will do the work at the company's facility in Kanata, Ontario, and should be finished by April 2022. For more information contact Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions online at www.curtisswrightds.com, or the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division-Lakehurst at www.navair.navy.mil.
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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.
