Officials of the Naval Air Systems Command at Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Md., announced a $16.3 million contract Monday to General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems for full-rate production of 60 lot 38 Type 3 Advanced Mission Computers.
Of the 60 mission computers, 48 are for U.S. Navy EA-18G Growler aircraft and 12 are for Australian Growler aircraft. The Type 3 Advanced Mission Computer (AMC) also is part of the avionics suite of the Navy's Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet strike fighter. The contract was awarded to General Dynamics sole-source.
The AMC is a rugged embedded computer that provides general-purpose input/output, video, voice, and graphics processing for the Navy jets, and is able to process the high-speed data flows from modern military avionics and sensor technology. The flight computer communicates with aircraft systems over several databuses, including MIL-STD-1553, fibre optic Fibre Channel, and Local PCI. The flight computer's 6U VME architecture may be tailored with PMC mezzanine modules.
Related: Electronic warfare: the cat-and-mouse game continues
The AMC provides situational awareness and combat systems control for the Growler and Super Hornet jets.avionics in the F/A-18E/F fighter-bomber, and for the EA-18G electronic warfare jet. The AMC consists of a ruggedized mission and display-processing system that relies on a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) open-systems architecture.
Single-board computers and other modules in the AMC fit in an industry standard 6U VME backplane, and the I/O configuration may be tailored with PMC mezzanine card (PMC) modules. An Ethernet interface supports software development and system maintenance.
Related: Electronic warfare to be part of all military operations
The AMC's core system software (CSS) is a real-time operating system with embedded system software, application program interface, and diagnostic software set for the AMC. The computer's I/O includes MIL-STD-1553 drivers, Fibre Channel drivers, VMEbus drivers, and discrete and serial I/O drivers.
On this contract General Dynamics will do the work in Bloomington, Minn., and should be finished by August 2016. For more information contact General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems online at www.gd-ais.com, or Naval Air Systems Command at www.navair.navy.mil.
