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| Tekmicro will provide data recording and playback for the Advanced Hawkeye Aircraft |
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| The photo shows the assembly of the keel of the first of the two E-2D Advanced Hawkeye test aircraft. The assembly work is taking place in Northrop Grummans’ St. Augustine, Florida, Manufacturing Center. |
TEK Microsystems, Inc. of Chelmsford MA today announced that it has received orders totaling $5.0M from Northrop Grumman Corporation to produce data recording and playback systems to support the next generation radar system being developed for the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye. This is the largest contract award in the history of TEK Microsystems; the work on these contracts will extend through the first half of 2006. The Company expects subsequent orders for additional options and upgrades.
The next generation E-2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft will be the U.S. Navy’s next generation airborne early warning and battle management system. The E-2D Advanced Hawkeye will be the latest version of the Hawkeye family of aircraft and will feature a new radar system along with other advanced capabilities. The E-2D will be a powerful resource in the U. S. Navy’s Sea Strike offensive capabilities by increasing battlespace awareness, providing theater air missile defense capabilities, improving detection and tracking, and shortening the link between sensor and shooter for more agile response to time-sensitive targets. Currently under development for the Naval Air Systems Command by Northrop Grumman-led Advanced Hawkeye industry team, the E-2D is expected to have Initial Operational Capability in 2011.
“The cornerstone of this program win was our integrated approach to systems development. By combining our next generation JazzFiber module, PowerRACE intelligent I/O controller and embedded switched fabric interconnect, we were able to tailor our off-the-shelf hardware, software and FPGA IP to meet all of Northrop’s requirements within aggressive size, weight and power constraints,” said Andrew Reddig, president and CTO of TEK Microsystems, Inc. “By basing our design on the existing JazzStore family of data recording solutions, we were able to leverage a huge amount of pre-existing software, hardware and FPGA IP, reducing overall cost and technical risk.”
The JazzStore family of data recording and playback systems includes several capabilities that were critical for the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye application:
– Ability to scale up to dozens of modular, heterogeneous input/output channels
– Ability to scale up to multiple 2 gigabits per second Fibre Channel Redundant Arrays of Independent Dual Inline Memory Modules (RAIDs)
– Support for real-time recording and playback using a FAT32 file system, allowing direct workstation access to recorded data files without any special software
– System-wide timestamping to < 1 microsecond accuracy across all channels
– High channel density, with eight Serial Front Panel Data Port (FPDP) channels per 6U slot
– Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) -based protocol engines to support application-specific processing in real time during record and playback
TEK Microsystems will be delivering a complete systems solution to Northrop Grumman, including deployed flight systems using ruggedized air transport rack (ATR) chassis, laboratory and playback systems, flight test equipment, and ground systems to perform transcription and post-processing of mission data.
JazzStore solutions can be configured either as an off-the-shelf standard configuration for common interfaces or as tailored solutions to meet specific customer requirements.
About TEK Microsystems, Inc.
Founded in 1981 and headquartered in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, TEK Microsystems, Inc., designs, manufactures and markets a wide range of advanced high-performance boards and systems for embedded real-time computing systems. Tekmicro’s comprehensive product line includes advanced carrier boards based on widely adopted industry standards and more than 30 PMC/XMC cards. These products are used in real-time systems designed for data acquisition, instrumentation, control systems and signal processing in customer applications such as reconnaissance, signals intelligence, satellite telemetry, mine detection, medical imaging, radar, sonar, semiconductor inspection and seismic research.