US Navy selects I/O Controller for LCAC SBC4 upgrade

Louise Davis

United Electronic Industries (UEI) announces the US NAVY has selected the company’s DNR-MIL series I/O control chassis in conjunction with its VxWorks BSP as the new Command, Control, Computers, Communication and Navigation (C4N) SBC4 Control, Alarm and Monitoring System (CAMS) for the LCAC fleet.

UEI’s DNR-MIL chassis was selected as it was flexible enough to meet all the system’s myriad requirements, rugged enough to be deployed on the boat and at the same provided a fully COTS solution. UEI’s 10-year availability guarantee was also a primary consideration as the solution must be maintainable for many years.

Based on a robust PowerPC processor, running VxWorks with fully redundant Ethernet connectivity to the boat’s host computer, the UEI system replaces the previous controller, and provides a much smaller, easier to maintain and more reliable solution.

The VxWorks support was critical as it allowed much of the software running in the earlier system to be preserved.  I/O provided by the CAMS unit includes analog input and output, digital I/O, 16 serial ports and MIL-STD-1553 all connected through standard military style 38999 connectors.

Key to the Navy’s decision to select UEI’s DNR-MIL was it met the required MIL-STD-810 and -461 environmental specifications.