Five aircraft to be developed, sharing common hardware

The US Army has selected Rockwell Collins to conduct collaborative studies on advanced systems design and integration processes for the Architecture Implementation Process Demonstration (AIPD,) part of the Joint Multirole (JMR) Mission Systems Architecture Demonstration (MSAD) Science and Technology effort. The AIPD will inform standards, processes, tools and architectures for the Future Vertical Lift (FVL) family of systems.

FVL envisions development of a family of five different sizes of vertical lift aircraft for the US Armed Forces, sharing common hardware such as sensors, avionics, engines and countermeasures. Rockwell Collins – the Government Systems business unit will lead the company’s effort in collaboration with its Advanced Technology Center –  will assist the US Army in investigation of the advanced open-systems architecture technologies and architectural-centric model-based engineering capabilities required to achieve cost-effective system design and certification for future mission equipment packages. The company’s work will help to highlight issues around affordable development of complex mission systems and identify new techniques and processes available to government requirements developers.

Rockwell Collins has over 15 years’ experience in open systems architecture development, developing common, flexible and affordable solutions aligned to the Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) standard, selected as part of the solution for the Army’s Contemporary Operating Environment initiative.
“Rockwell Collins is pioneering modelling and analysis methods for complex electronic equipment development, such as those envisioned to be required for FVL,” said Heather Robertson, Senior Director, Rotary Wing Solutions for Rockwell Collins. “These technologies automate error-prone, costly manual methods for specifying and designing products, which helps us to deliver value to our customers.”