NEW TECHNOLOGIES
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www.oxleygroup.com
07 Dec 04. Enhanced maritime security in major ports across the nation may soon become a reality, thanks to a new harbor defense system being developed and tested by Northrop Grumman Corporation to identify and track potential underwater and surface ship threats. Called Centurion, the integrated sensor and display product, developed by Northrop Grumman engineers, showed the harbor vicinity and potential threats on a standard Navy display system located at the test site. During the demonstration, divers with a battery-powered underwater propulsion device were easily detected attempting to penetrate the harbor. Surface craft traveling in the test area, and entering the restricted Port of Hueneme, were also detected and tracked. The proof-of-concept demonstration was completed within three months of the contract award by the Navy’s Maritime Surveillance Systems Program Office, utilizing passive fiber-optic sonar arrays and support equipment delivered by Northrop Grumman’s Navigation and Space Sensors Division, coupled with commercial-off-the-shelf equipment provided by Northrop Grumman’s Sperry Marine business unit in Charlottesville, Va. The equipment provided by Sperry Marine included the marine radar, shipboard identification system and the digital electronic charting system that provided the integrated harbor picture.
07 Dec 04. SBS Technologies(R) has introduced the Tsunami PMC A30 and A40 advanced FPGA-based computing PCI Mezzanine Cards (PMC). Based on the Altera(R) high-density Stratix(R) device family, the A30 and A40 PMCs leverage FPGA capabilities for high-performance commercial and military computing solutions, including software defined radio, radar, sonar, image and video processing applications. The result is a complete computing system capable of supporting algorithm-intensive, high-bandwidth applications using far less real estate, lower power, and lower cost than existing multi-CPU or DSP systems. Using Altera’s high-performance Stratix EP1S30 or Stratix EP1S40 FPGA devices, the SBS Tsunami PMCs feature micro-mezzanine architecture to offer a selection of off-the-shelf and custom I/O interfaces. User-defined data can be routed through the P4 connector up to 1 Gbytes/sec for high throughput.
03 Dec 04. Thales Naval France has revealed details of its MRR-3D New Generation (NG) lightweight three-dimensional surveillance radar. The system has been selected for France’s two Batiments de Projection et de Commandment (BPC) vessels and the Royal Norwegian Navy’s (RNoN’s) new Skjold-class fast strike craft. (Jane’s Defence Weekly)
03 Dec 04. Demonstration vessel gives X-Craft technology a lift. The US Navy (USN) has successfully completed initial trials of a technology demonstrator vessel incorporating an advanced underwater lifting body of the type that will also be used on the US Office of Naval Research’s (ONR’s) X-Craft high-speed demonstrator. (Jane’s Defence Weekly)
07 Dec 04. SBS Technologies(R) has introduced its first Remote Interface Unit that can be used in rugged environments. The RIU-1000 offers a cost-effective, lightweight, low power, compact system with both connectivity and control electronics to support distributed military applications. Ruggedized for defense and aerospace applications, the SBS RIU-1000 design is leveraged from SBS Technologies’ DIO (DSP-based Input/Output) product line, allowing distributed I/O communications, controlled over a MIL-STD 1553 bus. The RIU-1000 is the first in a new line of general purpose remote interface units, giving a true off-the shelf solution to the challenge of providing low-cost, high density data and control communications within an integrated avionics, navtronics and vetronics architecture. Originally developed for vehicle management system applications, where interface flexibility, physical robustness, weight, power, and space are critical considerations, the rugg