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MOSA Standards Gain Momentum in the Market
SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT MOSA Standards Gain Momentum in the Market
By John Reardon, Editor
SOSA announces SOSA 1.0
If you are still trying to figure out what the 3rd “C” in C4ISR is, this is for you. Acronyms should not slow you down as they are prevalent and many still in use have lost their original meaning. An example that comes to mind is the VME International Trade Association that we now refer to as VITA. The ideas are to introduce you to some new standards, why they came about, and their importance to the segments of the market they address.
The idea of an open standard is nothing new and has throughout history been driven by the idea of inoperability, lowering costs, and broadening the availability to multiple sources. History is littered with Open Standards that never reached critical mass or found themselves not advancing with the times. It is tempting to go through the history of architectures such as Multibus, Versabus, VME, G64, Futurebus, Compact PCI along with the many others to review what precipitated their rise and fall, but we should probably look to the future.
The move today to an open standard is very similar to the needs of history, but with one important distinction. In the past, the vendor community would join ranks and create an open standard that they felt might best advance their companies profit motives. This created debates about connectors, CPU choices, and other features that were at times politically charged to advance a companies IP expertise. Today users within the Department of Defense and to a lesser degree the vendors are driven by the application to employ advanced architectures that are SWAP-C optimized.
This inverted style has challenged the norms and has created a whole new library of open standards described within MOSA or Modular Open Systems Approach. The idea is to address the applicational needs of the modern, joint
Figure 1: Annapolis Microsystems announces The WILD100 7-Slot 3U OpenVPX SOSA-Aligned Chassis (WC3170) is a COTS benchtop 3U VPX Chassis and Backplane that was specifically designed to economically speed the development of SOSA-aligned 100Gb Ethernet boards and systems. domain battlefield with advanced open architectures that are defined and proven. To cherry-pick those that are optimized to the applicational needs of the market.
But before we get ahead of ourselves let’s look at the MOSA. MOSA is not by itself a technical standard. It should be thought of as a technical and acquisition strategy for the future warfighter. A few years ago, the DoD issued a memorandum entitled “Modular Open Systems Approaches for our Weapon Systems is a Warfighting Imperative.” Within the memo, it described how vital to our success the use of open standards would be. It went on to mandate that MOSA supporting standards be included in all future requirements for weapon systems. Now by itself, this is not too earth-shaking as it was vague on details and seemingly stated the obvious advantages of adopting an open architecture for defense compute platforms. But things accelerated quickly as several supporting standards began to address the specific applicational needs. These are:
SOSA – The Open Group Sensor Open System Architecture
FACE – Future Airborne Capability Environment
VICTORY – Vehicular Integration for C4ISR/ EW Interoperability
CMOSS – C5ISR/EW Modular Open Suite of Standards
GVA – Generic Vehicle Architecture
HOST – Hardware Open Systems Technologies
MORA – Modular Open Radio Frequency Architecture
OMS/UCI – Open Mission Systems/Universal Command and Control Interface
In developing MOSA and the underlying standards, starting from a white sheet of paper to re-create the wheel was not seen as a winning strategy. What was decided is that they would draw upon industry standards already in existence to rally the best possible. This strategy seemed sound enough when determining an in-
terconnect, but in addressing a bus architecture or form factor, the political landscape had the potential to grow exponentially. It is unclear how disputes about future iterations of a standard will be decided. Will the MOSA Technical working groups mandate future feature sets to the underlying standards group, or will a harmonious relation emerge?
On the other side of the equation, is the adoption across all services. The needs of the Space Force are significantly different attributes than those of the Navy. Will the ability of the standards to draw from a plethora of proven standards take the day, or will this be their downfall? The idea that the delta of applicational needs from one space to other leads to such a diluted standard as to leave it inconsequential. In numerous conversations on the topic, there was no clear consensus. It was clear that the DoD was incorporating MOSA compliance into RFQs, but it wasn’t clear whether the standard definitions would meet the array of applications that need to be addressed.
The importance of SOSA
Sensor Open Systems Architecture recently released SOSA 1.0 this past November. Defining a common technical standard defines common software and hardware components for seniors processing systems at the edge. The standard provides a hardware foundation for the next generation defense capabilities involving Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. In complimenting industry standards such as VITA’s Open VPX, SOSA has found numerous vendors who want to pursue opportunities that require SOSA compliance. Members of SOSA on next page.
Addressing Avionics with FACE
The Future Airborne Capability Environment addresses the same need for open standards to support inoperability for lower costs of implementation. Focused specifically on the needs of Aircraft, FACE too has seen several vendors with previous avionics experience, rush to affirm their products followed the new specification.
Green Hills Software, for example, has added Intel® architecture to the certifications of conformance for its INTEGRITY®-178 Time-Variant Unified Multiprocessing (tuMP™) RTOS to FACE Technical Standard edition 3.0. The certification covers both the Safety Base and Security profiles and includes verification for C, C++, and Ada support for both profiles. The INTEGRITY-178 tuMP RTOS was the first software component of any type to be certified conformant to edition 3.0, and this latest certification extends that commitment to open standard certification. Members of FACE on page 23.
In Conclusion
Open architectures have ebbed and flowed throughout our history as technologies have evolved. For a standard to thrive it must meet the broadest possible set of applications without diluting its technical merit. It must meet the applicational needs of the market without costly and unnecessary features. This same course of action has occurred before with standards such
Figure 2: General Micro Systems (GMS) Announces “Apex” Dual Intel Xeon® OpenVPX Server Developed in Alignment with SOSA™ Technical Standard.
as ATCA and VME, but not seemingly with the broader support that MOSA is enjoying. In each case, the life cycle of these standards was impacted by a different threat. In the case of ATCA, the specification was so broad and feature-rich, that the average sale price became prohibitive in the market. As for VME, the strength of knowing what it was and wasn’t allowed it to have a long and successful history, but in the end, it fell to the side in favor of technical advancements better suited to a new architecture.
The lofty goals of open standards of the past to become the Swiss Army Knife of the military has had their successes. The ambitious goal of MOSA to address the entire applicational needs of the military space has significant challenges that will be tested as commercial advancements may challenge their direction. Questions as to how systems will evolve at the edge, how Inference-based architectures and Computational Storage will integrate, along with many others, all hang over the traction and longevity of MOSA.
Figure 3: Systel Successfully Demonstrates AiTR Rugged Computing Capabilities at U.S. Army Project Convergence Event
Members of SOSA
SOSA Sponsor Members Total members: 9
USA NAVAIR USA U.S. Space Force Space and Missile Systems Center USA US Army CCDC C5ISR Center USA US Army PEO Aviation USA US Army Project Manager Electronic Warfare and Cyber USA
SOSA Principal Members BAE Systems Inc Booz Allen Hamilton Cubic Corporation Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions Elbit Systems of America FLIR Systems GE Aviation Systems General Dynamics Mission Systems Huber+Suhner Astrolab Intel Corporation L3Harris Mercury Systems Northrop Grumman Corporation Raytheon Technologies Sierra Nevada Corporation SRC, Inc. VadaTech Total number - 17 USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA
SOSA Associate Members Abaco Systems Acromag, Inc. Aegis Power Systems AirBorn, Inc. Aitech Defense Systems, Inc Amphenol Ampro ADLINK Technology, Inc Anduril Industries Annapolis Micro Systems Inc. AREA-I, Inc. Ascendant Engineering Solutions LLC Atrenne Total number - 100 USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA Ball Aerospace Behlman Electronics CACI CAES Chameleon Consulting Group CodeMettle Comtel Electronics Concurrent Technologies Inc. CoreAVI COTSWORKS, Inc. Critical Frequency Design Crossfield Technology Cynosure, Inc. Dawn VME Products Delta Information Systems Digital Receiver Technology DornerWorks DRS Signal Solutions EIZO Rugged Solutions Elma ENSCO Avionics EPI Epiq Solutions FEI-ELCOM TECH, Inc FiberQA Freedom Power Systems General Micro Systems, Inc. Georgia Tech Research Institute Herrick Technology Laboratories, Inc. IDEAS Engineering & Technology iRF Solutions ITZ, LLC Jacobs Jovian Software Consulting Kontron America LCR Embedded Systems, Inc. Lead Dog Technologies Leidos Leonardo Electronics Meritec Micro Focus (USA) Inc. Micropac Industries, Inc. Midwest Microwave Solutions Milpower Source USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA UK USA USA USA Motorola Solutions Inc. New Wave DV North Atlantic Industries, Inc NVIDIA Orion Technologies, LLC Orolia Defense & Security PacStar Parry Labs, LLC Pentek Perspecta Labs, Inc. Pixus Technologies QRC Technologies RADA Technologies Radiall USA, Inc. Rantec Real-Time Innovations, Inc. Red Rock Technologies REDCOM Laboratories Riverside Research RTD Embedded Technologies, Inc. Saab, Inc. Samtec, Inc. Sciens Innovations ScioTeq Sealevel Systems Skayl LLC Smiths Interconnect Southwest Research Institute Spectranetix, Inc Spirent Federal Systems SR Technologies StreamDSP, LLC Systel, Inc. TE Connectivity Corporation Technology Service Corporation Tektronix Telephonics Tomahawk Robotics Tucson Embedded Systems, Inc. University of Dayton Research Institute ViaSat, Inc. VITA W.L. Gore & Associates Wolf Advanced Technology USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA
Members of FACE
FACE Sponsor Forum Members List Total members: 8 Air Force Life Cycle Management Center USA Boeing USA Collins Aerospace USA Joint Tactical Networking Center USA Lockheed Martin Corporation USA NAVAIR USA Raytheon Technologies USA US Army PEO Aviation USA
FACE Principal Members AdaCore AeroVironment, Inc. Bell Cubic Corporation Elbit Systems of America FLIR Systems GE Aviation Systems General Dynamics Mission Systems Green Hills Software Honeywell Aerospace IBM Total number - 20 USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA
L3Harris USA
USA USA USA Sikorsky Aircraft USA US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation and Missile Center USA Wind River Systems USA
FACE Associate Members Total number - 63
Abaco Systems Adventium Labs Aitech Defense Systems, Inc Alta Data Techologies Ampro ADLINK Technology, Inc. ANSYS USA USA USA USA USA USA
Avalex Technologies Avilution, LLC
USA USA BAE Systems Controls Inc USA Carnegie Mellon University, Software Engineering InstituteUSA CoreAVI USA Craft Designs USA CS Communication & Systems USA CTSi USA Cyient, Inc. USA DDC-I, Inc. USA Draper Lab USA ENSCO Avionics USA EXB Solutions GaN Corporation General Atomics General Micro Systems, Inc. Infinite Dimensions Integration, Inc. Integrated Solutions for Systems, Inc. Inter-Coastal Electronics, LLC ITZ, LLC Jovian Software Consulting Kearfott Corporation KIHOMAC, Inc LDRA Technology Leidos Leonardo Electronics Lynx Software Technologies, Inc. Micro Focus (US) Inc. Moog, Inc. North Atlantic Industries, Inc OAR Corporation Parasoft Performance Software Inc. Presagis USA, Inc Rapid Imaging Technologies Rapita Systems, Inc. USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA UK USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA RDRTec, Inc. Real-Time Innovations, Inc. Riverside Research Rogerson Kratos SAIC Skayl LLC Southwest Research Institute Terma North America Inc. Textron Systems Unmanned Systems Thales Avionics Trideum Corporation TTTech North America Inc. Tucson Embedded Systems, Inc. Twin Oaks Computing United Electronic Industries University of Dayton Research Institute Vector North America Verocel, Inc. ViaSat, Inc. wolfSSL Zodiac Data Systems USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA
