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| Abaco’s FORCE2. Photo: Abaco Systems |
[Avionics Today 03-24-2016] Abaco Systems will demonstrate its Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE)-compatible Open Reference Computing Environment, FORCE2, designed to support the planned development of safety-critical, DO-254/DO-178 certifiable applications compliant with the FACE initiative. FORCE2 is a pre-integrated small form factor system for mission computing and avionics display, which comprises a high Technology Readiness Level (TRL) SBC314 3U VPX single board computer and graphics card housed in a robust enclosure to deliver video and image applications.
DO-254 artifacts suitable for use in systems requiring Design Assurance Level (DAL) A will support the FORCE2. FORCE2 features either a 1.4GHz quad-core or a 1.8GHz 8-core NXP (formerly Freescale) QoriQ Power Architecture processor with up to 4GB of memory. An AMD Radeon E8860 GPU with 2GBs of DDR5 memory provides advanced graphics capability. It supports a range of avionics Input/Output (I/O), including ARINC-429 and MIL-STD-1553.
The FACE approach is a government-industry software standard and business strategy for acquisition of affordable software systems that promotes innovation and rapid integration of portable capabilities across global defense programs. The Open Group FACE Consortium was formed in 2010 to define an open avionics environment for all military airborne platform types. Its aims are, among others, to leverage the interoperability and portability of open standards to ensure that more capabilities reach the warfighter faster and at lower cost, and to stimulate innovation and competition within the avionics industry.