Flight Control and Vehicle Management Solution for Commercial and Defence Platforms

Collins Aerospace launched the PERIGON computer on 20 July, aiming the system’s advanced computing power, open-system architecture and configuration flexibility at enabling future flight control and vehicle management for a broad range of commercial and defence platforms.

“From autonomy to cybersecurity, customers want their platforms to do more than ever before,” explains Kim Kinsley, VP/GM Environmental and Airframe Control Systems. “Yet more capabilities require a commensurate increase in processing power. Enter PERIGON. With its unique combination of power and flexibility, PERIGON stands ready to help customers meet the […] flight computing requirements of tomorrow.”

Collins announced the development of a next-generation vehicle management computer, designed to support autonomous flight, at Farnborough in 2018. Since then, the company has built a working prototype and is currently performing detailed development and integration testing, with an eye toward qualification testing in 2022. The computer has been branded PERIGON, a mathematical term for a 360° angle, seeking to represent the many capabilities PERIGON can offer customers, the holistic view of systems and inputs it provides, and its enhanced flexibility.

PERIGON will have the ability to provide 20 times the processing power of Collins’ existing flight control computers, thousands of which are currently in service on a multitude of platforms worldwide. Combined with its open-system design, PERIGON’s high computing power will allow customers to load it with a variety of complex software applications, including autonomous and fly-by-wire flight control, cybersecurity, vehicle management and predictive health maintenance. In addition, capabilities that previously required multiple computers on a platform may now be able to be performed by PERIGON alone, thanks to its enhanced processing power. This, in turn, could enable customers to reduce the number of computers onboard and enjoy space, weight and cost savings as a result.

Depending on customer needs, PERIGON can be configured as simplex, duplex or triplex redundant. It will be FAA-certifiable, to facilitate aircraft-level certification, available for commercial or military rotary- and fixed-wing platforms. “From air transport, to sixth-gen fighters, to the US Army’s Future Vertical Lift program, to aerial firefighting and beyond, we see broad opportunities for PERIGON across the aerospace and defense industry,” said Kinsley.

PERIGON is supported by the LYNX MOSA.ic for avionics product and AdaCore’s QGen TQL-1 qualifiable autocode generator for SIMULINK/STATEFLOW models.