The Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) Consortium, a group of nearly 40 avionics manufacturers, military organizations and other companies, released the FACE Technical Standard, which provides guidelines for creating a common operating environment to support applications across multiple Department of Defense avionics systems. According to the consortium, the standard is designed to enhance the U.S. military aviation community’s ability to address issues of limited software reuse and accelerate and enhance warfighter capabilities, as well as enabling the community to take advantage of new technologies more rapidly and affordably.
An open avionic standard will enable developers to create and deploy a wide catalog of applications for use across the entire spectrum of military aviation systems through a common operating environment, increasing capability, security, safety and agility while reducing costs. Product development by industry and procurements by government customer organizations are already underway based on the FACE standard.
"Modular open systems are very important to the industry, our military customers, and the warfighter," said Dave Nieuwsma, vice president and general manager of Airborne Solutions at Rockwell Collins, a member of the FACE consortium. "We have seen the benefits of such systems within military rotary wing and tanker / transport aircraft and are pleased to participate as a sponsor member of the FACE Consortium. This publication, along with the forthcoming conformance certification process, will promote the use of widely adopted open industry standards, minimizing the cost and schedule of technology insertions and capability upgrades."