A cost-effective approach for incorporating open-systems architectures within existing avionics platforms

During an era of continually declining defense budgets, the defense establishment is being required to maintain or expand existing capabilities while expending fewer resources. In conjunction with this austerity dictate, our weapons platforms and their associated systems are being required to expand their capabilities in ways never envisioned during their initial designs. The B-52 bomber is a consummate example of this capabilities extension. As the lineage of this weapons platform now stretches into its fifth decade of service, the aircraft and its systems, upgraded many times over its life span, must maintain the capabilities of its critical mission with improved reliability and at reduced life-cycle costs, while providing the ability to add new functionality and adapt to ongoing technology improvements. The B-52's Avionics Computer Units (ACUs), the AP-1O1C Mission Computers, illustrate many of the problems of the aging military electronics being utilized to support today's requirements.