Vetronics Concepts For Military Vehicles Reviewed

1. Concepts For Additional Revenue Creation Within The Embedded Land
Vehicle Vetronics Community Eco- System
James Falasco
Product Segment Leader
GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms
High Speed Computing & Graphics
5201 Regent Road, Irving, Tx. 75081, USA
972-536-8410
james.falasco@ge.com
Keywords:
Embedded Simulation, FPGA, Modeling, Distributed Simulation, Computer
Generated Forces, Embedded Training, Sensors, UGV, Vetronics, Data Compression
ABSTRACT: The military market worldwide is adopting new embedded vetronics technology to assist the currant war
fighter in their approach to countering both traditional and asymmetrical threats. Trends are beginning to emerge that
are creating a tighter coupling of various disconnected sub assemblies into a scalable embedded computing paradigm.
GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms product portfolio has the breath to allow a vetronics designer mix and match flexibility
to aggregate solution requirements in the vertical applications reviewed below. This aggregation of “boxes” gives the
platform maker an ability to recover / improve margins; while providing the war fighter a lower cost per unit platform.
As today’s war fighter moves more and more into an approach where either mounted or dismounted he will interact
with his supporting vehicle infrastructure it becomes obvious that our currant net-centric world will be mapped into the
military vetronics space. Using a combination of computers, lasers, navigation modules, radios, and other
technologically advanced equipment to improve war fighter’s ability to communicate on the battlefield allows this to
seamlessly occur. The catalyst that is evolving to synthesize the various aspects of military vetronics seems to be
Situational awareness. Comprehension of observations is the essence of situational awareness. Law enforcement
officers use situational awareness on a daily basis. Studies show that situational awareness has three levels of critical
factors. GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms enabling technology assists the development and fielding of solution sets for
each one of these critical factors The three factors are; know your route; know who inhabits your route and their
tendencies and motivations; know current intelligence. Know Your Route: You get a transmission of an incident in
southwest Baghdad. Your unit cranks up and gets ready to roll. You want to know the best route and best way to
approach the area. You want to know what to expect along the way and what might have changed when you get there.
All these issues compose the situational awareness scenario and will change constantly depending on the circumstances.
It is for this reason that we must provide the war fighter with a scalable solution that can be rapidly reconfigured
depending upon the scenario itself. Know who inhabits your route and their tendencies and motivations: Clearly, it is
impossible for the war fighter to have an in-depth knowledge about the all the potential threats along the way It would
be possible though to keep updated information on known strong points,places of population congregation , known local
Leaders, etc. that could be analyzed and compared with new intelligence reports. The result would be a “fused” picture
that when generated as the action plan could then be communicated and progress measured against. ; Know current
intelligence: The aspect of this need can again be addressed very much from lessons learned by the law enforcement
community. Be able to place on the screen vehicles that show recent bodywork, extra fuel tanks, or antennas. Total
situational awareness is gained through increased comprehension of what we observe. It results in a greater ability to
make short-term predictions about what is going to happen and therefore make decisions regarding our response.
Comprehension is gained through education, training and experience. If you attain total situational awareness you will
be better able to prevent, respond and dominate the digitized battlefield .

2. 3. Networked Man Portable Technology
1. Military Land Vehicle Vetronics
Market Review Today’s war fighter interacts with manned vehicle
platforms through a variety of wearable technology
The military land vetronics ecosystem consists of a that enables them to participate in individual and
number of sub categories. The purpose of this paper is collective synthetic environment training and mission
to addresses the various categories and suggests rehearsal exercises either being tethered to computer
opportunities for value add to those in the eco-system systems, trackers or infrastructure or untethered . This
and to those supplying to the ecosystem. Categories interactive virtual reality driven environment provides
reviewed are; situational awareness, networked man an unparalleled level of natural movement and
portable technology, VHMS, (vehicle health interaction to the entire training experience. In
monitoring systems), sensor payload modeling & essence you have taken the classroom out into the field
simulation, embedded training, additional vehicle and allow the warrior to train the way he will fight.
computing modules. Technologies that are enablers to this approach revolve
around video compressuin , data acquisition ,
information storage and retrievel. Scalability of
hardware solutions and the ability to provide
computing infrastructure that can evolve as the
applications and mission scenarios change and evolve
are key drivers in this area.
4. VHMS (Vehicle Health Monitoring
Systems)
Figure 1: Typical Land Vetronics Platform
Today's military land vehicles are very complex
2. Situational Awareness platforms They are no longer simply iron boxes with
mechanical controls that use an electrical spark to
ignite the gasoline. They are now complex networks of
Land Vehicle Situational Awareness provides the war microprocessor controlled devices that manage
fighter with the capability to monitor his environment weapons systems and interact with a variety of other
in real time all the time. Situational awareness (SA) war fighting platforms. As military ground vehicle
involves awareness of what is happening around you manufacturers move to become total system suppliers,
to understand how information, events, and your own they are offering more then a weapons platform of
reactions will impact your goals and objectives, both transportation. They are offering constant connectivity
now and in the future. Lacking SA or having limitied with technologies like GPS, display systems, integrated
or inadequate SA has been identified as one of the satellite communications & embedded situational
primary factors of military platform occunpant awareness and training capability. At the lowest level,
fatalities. Having fully accurate and up-to-the-minute where microprocessors are integrated into the system,
data for today’s warfighter is a major design concern. they now have the ability to incorporate an artificial
SA has been recognized as a critical, yet often elusive, intelligence driven technology set . Therefore those
foundation for successful decision-making across a same microprocessors can begin to take a more active
broad range of deployed and planned vehicle role in the diagnostics process. Subjective decisions
platforms. Today’s designers are turning more and can be made about whether to shut down the platform,
more to the comcept of emebedded situational to warn the driver, to record values for the service
awarness combined with the ability to leverage the technician, to record environmental conditions, to
same assemblies into training nodes. This thinking synthesize information to keep the platform running.
maximizes space on the vehicle and assists in driving In many of these systems, the sensors will be
down program costs. The war fighter can both fight distributed across several subsystems. Diagnostic
and train on the same system. evaluations will incorporate elements from each of the
subsystems where the data will be networked
throughout the platform . Enabling ground vehicles
with this type of diagnostic capability will allow the
war fighter to squeeze additional years of performance

3. out of any platform thus enabled. Another side benefit
is the quicker return of units to operational status when 6.Embedded Training
minor issues can be addressed before they would
become major serviceability issues. GE Fanuc Today’s war fighter spends many hours learning how
Intelligent Platforms has products in its portfolio that to operate the vehicle they are assigned to and engage
can be integrated to provide the war fighter with with the various sub assemblies involved. Usually the
scalable vehicle diagnostic solution sets. training takes place in a classroom environment and
attempts to recreate the realistic feeling of a field
deployment. With increasing frequency the thinking is
5. Sensor Payload Modeling & Simulation drifting to allowing the crew to gain training familiarity
within the actual platform while deployed. The goal of
A key component to creating sensor payload modeling Embedded Training is to allow the crewman to hone
& simulation in embedded sensor design is integrating their skills in vehicle operation. They accomplish
FPGA computing into the mix. The FPGA can be best this task by engaging in simulation that requires the
described as a parallel device that makes it faster than user to utilize the vehicle facilities as if under a normal
software. FPGAs as programmable “ASICs” can be Operational State. At the end of the training scenario,
configured for high performance processing, excelling the crewman will get to review the results of the
at continuous, high bandwidth applications. session as well as results of previous sessions to check
FPGAs can provide inputs from digital and analog progression An example of the type of rugged
sensors —LVDS, Camerink, RS170 — with which the hardware needed to facilitate this task is depicted in
designer can interactively apply filters, do processing, FIG 3.
compression, image reconstruction and encryption time
of applications. Examples of the flexibility of this
approach using COTS Modules hosted by a COTS
multiprocessing base platform are shown in Figure 2.
I/O Header
Ethernet RGMII Logic Analyser LVDS RS232
JTAG JTAG
Serial Flash
Serial Flash SPI Clock Power
Serial Flash
128Mbit CPLD
128Mbit Generator Manager
128Mbit x 3
Configuration/General Purpose SPI JTAG 5 CLOCKS
DDR2 SDRAM
DDR2 SDRAM 267MHz
Virtex 5 267MHz
DDR2 SDRAM
DDR2 SDRAM
64M x 32 FF1136 64M x 32
64M x 32 64M x 32
Package
QDR2 SRAM 300MHz 300MHz QDR2 SRAM
2M x 36 LX110T 2M x 36
SX95T FX??T
Dimensions
BMM
6.77” x 9.25” x 3.25”
8 64 8
172 mm x 235 mm x 82 mm
Power dissipation
85 Watts (at maximum clock specifications)
RocketIO LVDS GPIO RocketIO
Input voltage - 28 VDC
XMC P15 PMC P14 XMC P16
Figure 3: Rugged Embedded Training Hardware
Figure 2: Typical FPGA COTS Processing Model
7. Additional Vehicle Computing Modules
Sensors exist to detect and measure all physical states.
For example: time, temperature, pressure, torque, A military ground vehicle’s vetronics is composed of a
speed, acceleration, distance, density, color, edges, variety of processing nodes. Some nodes are used for
shapes, counts, volume, etc. There are sensors to vehicle control and management while others are used
measure anything for which a value can be assigned to allow the weapons systems to function. These nodes
it. Collections of sensors can also detect and measure and applications usually represent the “fixed “ units in
non-physical information: stress, truthfulness, and pain. that they come with the system and are upgraded on a
These values are determined with some algorithm that technical insertion roadmap that allows the vehicle
synthesizes the information and allows analysis to be manufacturer a chance to take advantage of reduction
made. Enabling FPGA code is a big assist in this area in size, weight, heat and cost while improving overall
and a example package GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms performance. The second category of additional
provides for designers use. vetronics computing modules is those associated with

4. the mission specific aspects of the vehicle platform.
Vehicle processing node examples are
SIGINT,ELINT, C4ISR ,C2, UAV management and
IED neutralization
8. Future Plans
As ground military vehicles vetronics evolves a short-
term challenge is looming that could easily drift to the
right. Military planners have issued directives
mandating tactical vehicles carry enough up- armor to
insure a higher survivability against IED’s and RPG
rounds. The added weight dramatically reduces the
weight /space budget for onboard electronics. Going
forward this will cause much trade-off analysis to be
done. GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms product portfolio
allows the systems designer to mix and match modules
to integrate the most cost effective payload processing
elements possible.
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