Common Bus Interface Adapter Chip

ABSTRACT: A key problem in the rapid and lower cost development of spacecraft is that the various devices that comprise the spacecraft bus do not typically provide a single standard interface and/or communications protocols. This forces a design-to-order paradigm in which a spacecraft bus is developed on a per-mission basis with little reuse of existing software. Efforts such as SOA have defined an interface adapter that translates between the native protocols and standard protocols. To date for SPA, that adapter has been an ASIM. While serving an important role in the early development of SPA, ASIMS are inefficient in their design due to the lack of an appropriate COTS device to fulfill the needs of this domain. They add significant power requirements, weight, cost, and software development effort to as project. Design Net Engineering has developed a solution to the standard interface problem, enabling component manufacturers to create SPA-complaint devices rapidly with significantly lower usage, mass, costs and effort than the exiting alternatives. BENEFIT: Space Plug & Play Avionics (SPA) has been designed to enable rapid, lower cost development of spacecraft. Adoption of SPA by the wider industry to reach a critical mass of available components is vital to its success. The development effort, hardware costs, power usage and mass of existing SPA interface solutions have served as deterrents to wider adoption to date. Design Net Engineering"s solution provides a cheaper, low effort, low power and low mass solution to the problem thus enabling and encouraging component manufacturers to provide SPA compliance to their hardware with minimal impediments. This will enable wider adoption of SPA as a standard and allow the full benefits of using SPA to be realized, resulting in faster development and lower cost spacecraft for DoD, NASA and commercial spacecraft.