White Paper

How the pilot got us here Since the Wright Brothers first free-powered flight in 1903, air vehicles have relied upon discrete, analog sensors to supply the information re- quired by their pilots. These sensors and their dashboard-clustered indi- cators may be regarded as the first and the analog approach to platform situational awareness. The evolution of electronics and more recently, digital processing has augmented these sensors, giving them greater capability. Fundamental air speed, altitude, pitch/bank, direction and temperature instruments are increasingly being complemented with newer radar, electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) and other electronically enabled sensors for environmental awareness, threat detection, intelligence, surveil- lance and reconnaissance (ISR). Although smarter, each sensor is often developed as the response to a specific threat or technology opportunity and consequently becomes a standalone proposition. Sensor integration into existing platforms is a best-fit affair and is characterized as being "siloed" and bolted-on. The absence of a holistic, scalable, refreshable architecture with the ability to efficiently share common resources has meant that each additional siloed sensor relied upon its own proprietary processing chain, comprising of signal acquisition, digitization, process- ing, exploitation and dissemination functions. ACQUIRE DIGITIZE PROCESS STORAGE EXPLOIT DISSEMINATE 100101010 001101011 110101100 Sensor processing chain Electronic integration of sensors is implemented via platform data busses, most notably MILSTD-1553 and ARINC-429. Platform process- ing evolution has developed one program at a time and over countless technical insertions. The result has been the creation of ad-hoc platform processing topologies, which are most suitably described as distributed and federated, comprising of data busses that connect a grid of siloed sensors. As platforms have become more complex and the array of effectors they can implement has grown, electronics and computers have come to aid the pilot here too. Mission and flight computers help the pilot execute a host of critical functions from avionics, to countermeasures, and to fire 3 control. These effectors, like sensors have evolved and been introduced over time and for similar reasons. Both are integrated into platforms in a distributed, federated manner, which has become the de facto sensor and mission processing architecture for military platform processing. "Threats are evolving faster than our architectures and processes can respond to" - Dr. Ilya Lipkin, Sensor Open Sys- tems Architecture (SOSA) Meanwhile, commercial enterprises have invested billions of dollars defining platform processing architectures that are delivering driverless cars and other platforms that will ultimately dominate many aspects of the autonomous domain with their IP – and they are not using a feder- ated approach to accomplish their missions. Unmanned vehicles developed for military applications opened the door to this commercial autonomy revolution. Disadvantaged by being first and having to react to a myriad of unforeseeable global threats, military leaders realize that the roadmap they started needs a major recalibra- tion to remain vibrant and effective. "We spent millions taking a sensor from one platform and integrating it into another…and we do it over and over again". Major prime contractor program manager. As in other commercial processing domains, digital convergence will redefine the game as autonomous vehicles from many enterprises and other nations become increasing prevalent. If the same technology can be made ready for defense applications, then agile, adaptable, efficient platform processing will enable autonomous military vehicles to have all the capabilities the best commercial technology has to offer. Commercial enterprises are focusing their IRAD to develop agile, adaptable and holistic platform processing architectures. Guided by the hindsight obtained by being second to the unmanned vehicle chal- lenge, their platform autonomy solutions emphasize performance, size, weight & power (SWaP), affordability and upgradability which they are achieving through digital convergence. A similar approach, modified for military applications will return the technology initiative back to our military solutions. Evolution of platform processing, from analog, to federated to digitally converged

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