Customer Solutions
U.S. Air Force Increases Mission-Capable Rates with PXI
Author(s):
John Abdale, Mantech Test Systems
Industry:
Aerospace/Avionics, Government/Defense
Product:
PXI/CompactPCI
The Challenge:
Developing, producing, and supporting test equipment for LANTIRN systems on U.S. Air Force premier fighter aircrafts.
The Solution:
Using NI PC-based software and hardware to lower costs and reduce size of test systems by 50 percent.
LANTIRNtm system on an F-16 on the flight line. Photograph courtesy of Lockheed Martin.
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U.S.Air Force Increases Mission-Capable Rates with PXI
In 2002, the U.S. Air Force awarded ManTech Test Systems a multimillion dollar contract for development, production, and support of test equipment for LANTIRN systems. LANTIRN, or Low Altitude Navigations and Targeting Infrared for Night, is a system used on U.S. Air Force premier fighter aircraft, including the F-15E Eagle and F-16 C/D Fighting Falcon. LANTIRN significantly increases the combat effectiveness of these aircraft, allowing them to fly at low altitudes, at night, and under the weather to attack ground targets with a variety of precision-guided and unguided weapons.
Using PC-Based Software and Hardware to Lower Costs
The contract charged ManTech with updating LANTIRN test systems that will be fielded at 19 Air Force locations around the world. The original LANTIRN test system dates back to the late 1980s, and was based on MicroVAX computers tied to stand-alone instrumentation. Not only was the system large, requiring seven complete racks of space, but the Air Force faced a host of reliability and maintenance problems from the growing obsolescence of test system components. In many cases, the Air Force had to reverse engineer and redesign obsolete components on the original test station. As a result of this problem, the Air Force specified and budgeted for a new test system in 2002. A major requirement of the new system was to take advantage of new commercial off-the-shelf technology, such as industry-standard, PC-based hardware and software, to reduce the size and cost of the new test system. By specifying off-the-shelf components, the military is able to search across all industries for powerful and low-cost components that are relatively easy to replace and upgrade.
Reducing Test System Size by 50 Percent
ManTech selected PXI for a portion of the test system, largely because PXI provides the advantages of commercial off-the-shelf technology, while still meeting the needs of military specifications in test programs. For example, the specification required extended operating and nonoperating environmental conditions, which National Instruments met with the new PXI-8186 Intel Pentium 4-based PXI embedded controller. This provided ManTech with the performance and cost benefits of the latest off-the-shelf processors from Intel, while also meeting the military specifications for environmental conditions of the test system. Additionally, the replacement of the obsolete MicroVax hardware with PXI and other systems dramatically increase the mission-ready time of the test system.
ManTech was also able to reduce the size of the test system from seven racks to three, a more than 50 percent reduction due in large part to the incorporation of PXI instrumentation, which includes up to 17 PXI instruments in just 4U of rack space. Commenting on the Air Force’s award of the contract to ManTech, Peter D. Faulkner, vice president of government programs for ManTech Test Systems, said, “Our solution takes advantage of the many technological advances that have occurred in the automatic test industry since the LANTIRN support equipment was originally placed in service. The Air Force can expect a tremendous improvement in mission capable rates in a system that is less than half the size.”
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