Low SWAP-C Open Standard Ruggedized Small Form Factor Hardware for WOSA Domains

The Armament Directorate is searching for concepts to develop, share, and swap subsystems and microservices across the munitions portfolio while increasing acquisition and fielding tempo. During the proposed effort, Antara will define the applicable CONOPs, operational and testing requirements in order to design and develop a Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA™)/VITA Aligned Small Form Factor (SFF), VNX+/VITA-90, Reference Architecture mapped to Weapons Open System Architecture (WOSA) domains. VNX+ is a SFF backplane standard for plug-in modules that are designed from the ground up to be inherently rugged and conduction cooled. The open modular standard provides a standardized mechanism to enable more rapid, compliant, and consequently cost-effective, small size, weight, power, cost (SWaP-C) systems. Antara will also research, develop, manufacture and test VNX+ rugged prototypes with architectures based on commercial heterogeneous System on Chip (SoC) and System on Module (SoM) approaches including a multiband, cognitive SDR that will fit in a ≤ 5” tube. The prototypes will achieve sufficient maturity and include base software and Information Assurance measures to allow them to be instantiated, configured, and tested with applicable CONOPs scenarios at facilities desired by the Government. The end-state of the proposed effort will directly support the Armament Directorate’s commonality vision via highly modular and software defined capabilities that enable and promote maximum reuse of software and hardware architectures across services and mission areas. The developed and demonstrated VNX+ standard for WOSA domains will enable multiple vendors to effectively compete without the need to build to proprietary interfaces, reducing cost and effort for multiple armament programs.