| | The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals, their country of origin, and what tasks each would accomplish in the statement of work in accordance with section 3.5.b.(7) of the solicitation. |
Objective: | Increase bandwidth throughput on existing aircraft wiring (signal or power, deterministic or non-deterministic). Provide high definition video capability to JHMCS, enable ultraresolution systems.
| Description: | Bandwidth on legacy aircraft does not permit planned avionics upgrades, but retrofitting with fiber optic or adding additional cables is absolutely NOT an option due to cost, depot time, or space, weight and power. Wired deterministic data on MIL-STD-1553B is 1 Mbps per bus, but needs to be orders of magnitude higher. Non-deterministic video cables were designed for low resolution sensors and displays, limiting upgrades planned for Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System (JHMCS) and other programs. Troops and crew in cabins have low or, usually, no connectivity, limiting their situational awareness during ingress/egress and upon arriving at destinations. Innovative technologies need to be developed to dramatically increase (10x-to-1000X) aircraft data bandwidth throughput on installed, legacy wiring, cables, and via powerlines, to explore wireless links for cockpit & cabin uses, and to enable affordable digital avionics upgrades requiring the additional bandwidth, including cockpit controls & displays, imaging sensors, processors, software-waveform radios, and synthetic vision. Approaches are sought at both the threshold and objective levels. The JHMCS technology need represents a threshold for bandwidth throughput increase in this topic. The JHMCS helmet-mounted display (HMD) for legacy aircraft, could be upgraded to facilitate a change from a vector scan miniature cathode ray tube (CRT) to a raster scan miniature flat panel display (FPD). To utilize the digital video portion of a new alternate display interface being purchased for JHMCS under an electronics unit (EU) upgrade, aircraft wiring (cathode triax line connection) between the EU and the HMD wiring must support a 16 Mbps non-deterministic data rate. Some fighter platforms have good to marginal capability at a reduced bandwidth (12 Mbps) necessary to drive a future FPD, e.g. miniature active matrix liquid crystal display (AMLCD), image source solution with sufficient resolution. Sufficient FPD resolution currently comprises, for example, 1280 x 1024 pixel (SXGA) monochrome 1-bit images updated at 72 Hz sent with 8:1 compression/decompression (12 Mbps). Other legacy fighters, however, have insufficient capability with reduced bandwidths down to 8 Mbps. Without such an improved interface the quality of a displayed image may suffer dynamic degradation (blanked lines, blanked frames, or possibly no display at all) that scales with the density of the symbology. Threshold SXGA video capability is desired with growth in all platforms to at least 16 Mbps for the monochrome symbology currently shown, The technology must work on existing aircraft wiring between the EU in the avionics bay and the HMD cockpit interface unit (CU) in the cockpit, and be in the form of transceiver cards installed in the EU and CU. The technology should have the potential to expand towards objective higher bandwidths needed to enable color symbology, complex imagery, higher resolution (5 Mpx), and binocular systems. The effort should leverage commercial trends in signal encoding, microelectronics,multimedia and over coax and powerlines, and should build on prior research towards high speed MS1553B, to achieve over 100 Mbps over installed wiring.
| | PHASE I: A high speed interface design for installed wiring is to be designed for avionics that takes into account reliability & maintainability issues. A roadmap is required describing the threshold and objective performance anticipated from the proposed approach, with product spirals shown as off-ramps.
| | PHASE II: Prototype boards demonstrating the technology are to be demonstrated and delivered along with a revised roadmap for Phase III commercialization and transition. The Phase II prototypes should be sufficient to evaluate the potential to develop products to meet the needs for bandwidth growth in a range of military and civil applications. A logistics plan must be provided for the JHMCS application.
| | PHASE III / DUAL USE:
MILITARY APPLICATION: Military applications include all defense aircraft, battle tanks, and many shipboard electronics. An infrastructure accessible by defense integrators to obtain COTS-based interface boards is needed.
COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: High speed digital transceivers are dual use and it is anticipated that civil applications will be developed for video distribution markets including aircraft, trains, and homes/buildings.
| References: |
1. Entropic c.LINK-270 chipsets and associated software for broadband multimedia distribution at 270 Mbps over installed/traditional coax (and, potentially other channels); data available at www.entropic.com (accessed 28 February 2009).
2. Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA), www.mocalliance.org (accessed 28 February 2009).
3. Homeplug Powerline Alliance, multimedia up to 200 Mbps over powerlines, http://www.homeplug.org/products (accessed 28 February 2009).
4. Michael G. Hegarty, 'High Performance 1553," Proc. SPIE 5801, 97-104 (2005), available at www.spie.org .
5. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE INTERFACE STANDARD, DIGITAL TIME DIVISION COMMAND/RESPONSE MULTIPLEX DATA BUS, MILSTD-001553B Notice 4 (15 January 1996); Changes 5 and 6 were canceled without replacement by Notice 7 (22 October 2008), http://assist.daps.dla.mil/quicksearch/basic_profile.cfm?ident_number=275874 ; details on MIL-STD-1553B are available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIL-STD-1553 (updated 23 February 2009).
| | Keywords: | Bandwidth, legacy aircraft wiring, high speed interface, digital video, Broadband Multimedia Distribution, coax cable, triax line, twisted-pair, powerlines, stochastic signal processing, Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), MIL-STD-1553B, Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System, JHMCS |
Questions and Answers: |
Q: I have a high speed, low bandwidth digital audio and video compression technology available today, but have had no DOD testing to date. It communciates over TCP/IP (wireless or wired) and is full 24-bit color digital video. Compresssion ratios allow the same image quality as MPEG-4 DivX but at 1/4 its bandwidth requirements. Furthermore, it is wavelet based, allowing higher compression ratios while allowing text to be read. Currently compresses a frame of video in less than a second in software, but if placed on a FPGA, is estimated to be able to provide in excess of 10,000 FPS of HDTV.
Question - am unsure giuven the tech's maturty (but no DOD testing) as to whether a SBIR or some other method is the proper submission route? |
A: There are a couple of potential approaches using the SBIR route, I think. First there is also another topic that is related to data compression called Innovative Methods for Increasing Data Link Capability. You may want to consider proposing to either or both. As for the maturity, it sounds as though there's further work that can be done (e.g. FPGA hosting) that may be able to improve performance. Additionally, there's application specific work that can be looked at - how will this be 'packaged' to work in the environment described?
|
Q: The two most likely candidate pathways for providing increased data bandwidth in existing aircraft wiring are the 1553B Data Bus and the 400Hz power cabling. Utilization of either requires some means of electrical access. If the 1553B Data Bus is employed, the augmented bandwidth (ABW) signal must be injected onto the bus. I take it as a given that the ABW cannot overlap the existing 75kHz - 1MHz bandwidth of the legacy 1553B system and that the impedance characteristics of the legacy bus over this frequency range should not be affected. It may also be necessary to block to ABW signal from entering existing 1553B legacy ports on the bus.
Question 1 - Where a legacy 1553B stub is connectorized, can I insert in series a small 3-port passive electronics package containing frequency splitting filters a) to provide ABW signal access and b) to isolate the legacy bandwidth and the ABW from each other at their respective equipment ports? By small, I mean on the order of 1 cubic inch, e.g. 2"x1"x0.5". (It is assumed that the electronic components in such a package would meet Mil-Stds, be appropriately derated, etc.)
Question 2) - If a legacy 1553B stub is hardwired, can the cable be cut and connectorized to provide the insertion capability stated in Question 1.
If the 400Hz power cabling is used, the isolation discussed above is probably not necessary, but electrical access is still required.
Question 3) - How can the 400Hz cabling to be accessed? Can an in-line scheme such as set forth in the previous questions be accomodated?
Question 4) - Can you point us to any MIL specifications to which such 400Hz access should conform?
|
A: A1. Probably yes, but cannot answer without consideration of all other integration issues being addressed first.
A2. Cannot answer without consideration of all other integration issues being addressed first.
A3. We are looking to you for this answer. An in-line solution would be considered along w/ any other solutions presented.
A4. MIL-STD-704, MIL-STD-7080, MIL-STD-464, and SAE-AS50881
|
Q: The call preamble states: "The proposed total of all consultant fees, facility leases or usage fees, and other subcontract or purchase agreements may not exceed one-third of the total contract price or cost, unless otherwise approved in writing by the Contracting Officer.".
We plan to involve two contractors with 30% obligation each. Could you kindly advise how the written approval of the Contracting Officer might be obtained?
|
A: We will first evaluate each proposal based upon the evaluation criteria published in the solicitation. Then we will look at other factors and considerations. Should a contracting officer waiver of the subcontracting limits be required, it will be accomplished after source selection.
|
Q: If we have a proposal for a wireless solution for the cockpit and cabin, do we need to address the other portions? There seem to be a few topics of need in this SBIR with it mentioning a wireless solution for high bandwidth video for the cabin.
We have a solution for high data throughput in multipath rich environments but it probably would not work in the avionics bay (enclosed metal) but could in say a C-135.
|
A: Wireless solutions will be considered. |