DARPA Advancing System-of-Systems Open Architectures for Airborne Assets
Diagram outlining the intention of the SoSITE program - distributing capabilities across different networked nodes, decentralizing functionality. Image: DARPA.
In order to address the high costs and long development periods for new airborne U.S. military systems, DARPA has started the System of Systems Integration Technology and Experimentation program.
SoSITE will develop and demonstrate concepts for maintaining air superiority using system-of-systems architectures or interchangeable combinations of aircraft, sensors, weapons, and mission systems distributed across a network of manned and unmanned assets to integrate technologies faster and at a lower cost.
“It can take decades and cost billions of dollars to field or upgrade advanced airborne systems today,” says Director of DAPRA’s Strategic Technology Office Dr. Nils Sandell Jr. “As a result, the modernization of subsystems in these complex platforms has not kept pace with the rapid advances in commercial technology. A system-of-systems approach could help overcome this inherent issue with high-cost, monolithic, multifunction platforms.”
The program will leverage advances in miniaturization, improved capability and decreased cost of electronics, new algorithms and software technology, and advanced materials to create innovative unmanned platforms and open-systems architectures that create common standards for tools and interchanging modules that can be upgraded or swapped out.
“We are developing technologies to make those architectures enduring and secure, including building in defenses against cyber attacks, enabling standards to evolve as technology advances while maintaining backward compatibility, and providing tools for more rapid system composition and testing,” says John Shaw, SoSITE program manager. “The goal is to plug models that perform different airborne functions into any type of airborne platform and have them work seamlessly.”
“The potential benefit of separating payloads from platforms using open systems architectures can be understood using the example of smartphone technology and apps,” says Shaw. “The ecosystem for smartphones invites new and better apps by shifting significant portions of the development burden onto well defined development tool kits. These allow app developers to create new capabilities and get them quickly into an app store for consumers to use. You don’t need to buy a new smartphone every time an app comes out with a new capability.”
DARPA has awarded contracts to develop system-of-systems architectures to Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Apogee Systems, BAE Systems and Rockwell Collins will develop the requisite tools and technologies to advance current open architecture.
“What we would like to enable is a future scenario in which a smaller number of manned aircraft would combine with unmanned aircraft to do [a] total job,” says Sandell, according to a Defense Department News article. “They would be networked together … and the unmanned aircraft could venture into the more dangerous territory, providing some degree of risk avoidance for the pilots. The unmanned platforms would be simpler and could do individual jobs like carry weapons, electronic warfare systems or sensors — the last allowing the manned aircraft to be silent and harder to detect.”
