By John Rhea
WASHINGTON - MIL-STD-1553 interfaces will play a key role in upgrading the avionics of military aircraft over the next five years, says Anthony Jordan, standard product marketing manager at UTMC Micro- electronic Systems, Colorado Springs, Col.
1553 is a 1-megabit-per-second serial data bus that moves data over copper wires between electronic boxes in integrated electronic architectures. It has been a mainstay of U.S. military avionics and vetronics for more than a decade.
Jordan says possible solutions include standard products such as his company`s SUMMIT standard products and applications specific integrated circuits (ASICs) with embedded 1553 macro-cells and external transceivers.
Jordan estimates the military avionics requirements at more than $2 billion through 2003. Driving the modernization and upgrades is a need to meet the requirements of a new communication, navigation, surveillance, safety, and air traffic management standards, he says.
For example, analysts predict that U.S. Defense Department officials will spend $1.9 billion over the next five years to meet the requirements of the Global Air Traffic Management System and another $693 million in navigation and flight safety system upgrades.
Systems targeted for upgrades are flight management systems, ground proximity warning systems, traffic collision and avoidance systems, flight data recorders, cockpit voice recorders.
