http://www.dsti.net/Information/News/68115
F-22採用新大腦——易於升級的開放式航空電子系統體系架構
2011-06-07
[據美國《防務新聞》網站2011年5月30日報導]
一直以來，F-22進行升級改造不僅困難而且代價不菲。美國空軍決定採取史無前例的舉措，給F-22戰鬥機安置一個新的中樞神經系統，即將開放式體系架構引入F-22戰鬥機。通過將開放式體系架構引入F-22，美國軍方不僅期望F-22的單價能夠降低，而且期望能夠更加容易地向該“以空中優勢為核心”的隱身戰鬥機插入新技術，甚至包括給F-35“閃電”II開發的齒輪傳動裝置。
萊特-派特森空軍基地F-22系統專案辦公室（SPO）副主管David Weber表示，軍方官員計畫2011年研究備選方案，並通過驗證選擇出最佳方案。SPO辦公室官員表示波音公司和洛克希德•馬丁公司均被歡迎參與驗證合同競標。其中，洛克希德•馬丁公司早就提議將F-35的硬體和軟體體系結構移植至F-22，因此可能會提出與F-35類型的建議方案。但是，洛克希德•馬丁公司負責F-22“猛禽”的專案經理Jeff Babione表示，洛克希德•馬丁公司也可能會根據軍方需求提供一個不同於F-35的解決方案。
Weber表示，空軍最終將選擇一個承包商在總計185架（去除損失的2架）的F-22飛機上安裝新型體系架構。有人可能會認為在34架最老式的現用於訓練的F-22飛機上安裝新型體系架構耗資太大。但是Weber指出，新型體系架構可能會經濟有效地使得這些老式飛機升級至3.2標準。如果一切進展順利，作為增量3.2C開發的一部分，開發工作將於2014年左右啟動，2019或2020年開始安裝
移植工作
新的網路將移植到F-22的現役航空電子系統。在更新後的設備彼此之間通過新型網路連接的同時，F-22的現役網路將繼續在未更新設備之間傳輸資料。來自兩個體系架構的資料通過轉換和融合保障F-22的正常運轉。新型體系架構的安裝可能一步到位完成，也可能是分階段逐步實施，其中可能更可行的是後者。至於具體需要多少次才能完成安裝取決於每次都打開了哪些設備。如果同時打開CNI、雷達或者是其他設備，那麼就必須擁有足夠的人手來完成這件事。
隨著越來越多的設備打開採用新型體系架構，老式的設備將被逐步淘汰，核心綜合處理器中的一些功能也會逐漸地就會被移植出來。Weber表示，至於是否F-22的所有功能都要被移植則取決於體系架構在航空電子系統中的滲入程度。一旦新的體系結構安裝，如果想要給飛機增加新的能力，就可以通過發佈資訊徵詢書在整個企業界尋求最佳的解決方案。
F-22採用新大腦的最終目標是期望F-22具備“任務載荷未知”的能力，例如新的雷達系統可以實現“即插即用”，就像一個印表機對於一個桌面電腦來說。這樣，F-22就可以引入為F-35“閃電”II開發的新技術，而不是再去做既耗時又昂貴的綜合工作。（中國航空工業發展研究中心 羅傑）
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=6659984
F-22 Getting New Brain
Open Avionics Architecture To Ease Upgrades
By DAVE MAJUMDAR
Published: 30 May 2011 It has proved so difficult and expensive to upgrade the F-22 Raptor, whose stealthy body contains sensors and electronic brains, that the U.S. Air Force may take the unprecedented step of threading what amounts to a second central nervous system into a fighter jet.
By introducing an open architecture to one of the world's most tightly knit proprietary systems, service officials hope to make it much cheaper and easier to insert new technology - even gear developed for the F-35 Lightning II - into the stealthy air-superiority fighter.
"This jet has a very highly integrated avionics system. Because of that tight coupling and that highly integrated nature, it makes it very difficult, and we are highly reliant upon [Raptor makers] Lockheed Martin and Boeing to do any kinds of modifications to the jet," said David Weber, deputy director of the F-22 System Program Office (SPO) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
Weber said the open-architecture effort is meant to allow the Air Force to open upgrade work to competition.
Today, he said, "the architecture is proprietary to Lockheed Martin, and we're kinda stuck with Lockheed Martin when we want to integrate something new."
Weber said the work is at such an early stage that the F-22 SPO has no guess how much it might cost.
This year, service officials plan to study the options, in part by issuing a request for information inviting contractors to suggest demonstration projects to help flesh out the alternatives.
"All of them have different ideas about how to go about doing this," Weber said.
In October through December, the service will award contracts to allow contractors to demonstrate ideas in a lab or flying testbed, said Col. John Williams, who runs the F-22 SPO's modernization office.
The SPO officials said Boeing and Lockheed would be welcome to bid on the demonstration contracts.
Lockheed, which had earlier proposed to essentially port the hardware and software architecture of the F-35 Lightning II into the Raptor, might respond to the Air Force solicitation with a similar proposal, said Jeff Babione, Lockheed's Raptor program manager. But Babione said the company might propose a different solution, depending on the service's requirements.
The Air Force will ultimately select one contractor to install the new architecture on its Raptors - ideally, said Weber, all 185 that will be built, less two losses.
"From our perspective, the fleet size is so small compared to where we wanted to be, our objective would be to make this applicable to all aircraft," he said.
The SPO deputy director said it may be deemed too costly to install the new architecture on the 34 oldest Raptors, which are currently used for training. Those planes are also not slated to get the Increment 3.2 upgrade, the next major group of hardware and software upgrades for the Raptor fleet.
But Weber noted that the new architecture might also make it cost-effective to bring those oldest Raptors up to the 3.2 standard.
If all goes well, development work could begin in earnest around 2014 as part of the development of Increment 3.2C, which is slated to begin installation in 2019 or 2020, he said.
Grafting On
As currently envisioned, the new network would be grafted onto the F-22's existing avionics, Weber said. The twin-engine jet's current network would continue to carry data between existing components, while upgraded ones would be linked by the new network. The data from both architectures would be translated and fused so that the jet continues to operate as a cohesive whole.
The installation of the new architecture might happen in one step, or it might proceed piece by piece, Williams said.
"Potentially, you could do it multiple times based on what you're trying to open up," he said. "You're opening up the [communication, navigation and identification]; maybe you're opening up the radar more, something like that. You may actually have multiple guys doing it, but it will be to a common standard."
As more systems are ported over to the new architecture, the older systems would wither away.
"Gradually, you'd have to start migrating some of the functions that we currently have in our core integrated processor away from the core integrated processor, so that everything doesn't flow through that piece," Williams said.
It may or may not be possible to migrate all of the Raptor's functionality.
"It depends on the degree we can open up the architecture," Weber said.
Lockheed's Babione said it might not be cost-effective to move everything to the new system.
The F-22 has received one upgrade - called Increment 2 - since it first arrived on Air Force flight lines in 2005. Those upgrades have added the capability to drop two 1,000-pound Joint Direct Attack Munitions to the aircraft.
A planned upgrade, called Increment 3.1 and slated to begin this year, will add synthetic aperture radar mapping, the capability to carry eight Small Diameter Bombs, and other features.
In 2014, a software-only upgrade called Increment 3.2A will add electronic protection against jamming, better Link 16 receive capability and combat identification, and other improvements. In 2017, Increment 3.2B will add support for the plane's AIM-9X short-range and AIM-120D medium-range anti-air missiles, among many other upgrades.
In 2008, then-Pentagon acquisition chief John Young put the total cost of developing and installing Increment 3.1 and what became 3.2A and 3.2B at around $8 billion. The figure has likely gone up because the Air Force now plans to upgrade more F-22s.
Once the new architecture is installed, "if we want a new capability on the airplane, we can go out to industry with an RfI [request for information] and say, 'You all got good ideas; can you make it work with this architecture?'" Weber said.
The ultimate goal is to allow systems such as new radars to be "plug-and-play," as a printer might be to a desktop computer, he said.
This might allow the Raptor to use technology developed for the F-35 Lightning II without time-consuming and expensive integration work, Williams said.
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