For decades the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), has been trying to harness the power and rewards of Open Architectures (OA) to achieve flexible weapon systems with low costs of integration and rapid upgrade capabilities. OAs provide a method for rapidly applying cybersecurity to systems as part of standardization updates. Recently, the DoD has directly endorsed OAs as a game-changer for weapon system development and identified clear OA leaders. This sets the stage for a future generation of weapon systems that support rapid integration, modification, and upgrades to enable warfighter capabilities in the field. This paper presents the difference between open architecture and open systems, a short history of OAs in the DoD, discusses how the DoD has renewed its support of OA, and ideas to maintain the momentum.
The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) - Sensors Directorate Blue Guardian program researches, develops, and demonstrates rapid sensor integration technologies. This includes integration technologies for not only the physical sensors, but also the software, communication, and processing elements. Blue Guardian’s approach is to leverage existing baseline open architectures and develop new open architecture and adaptable interface technologies. The resulting integration technology is called the Blue Guardian Open Adaptable Architecture (OA2) and enables development and demonstration of new Command, Control, Communication, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) capabilities with reductions in cost, schedule, and integration time. Blue Guardian has grown from a flight test focused program to taking the lessons learned of the difficulties in sensor integration and developing OA2 software and hardware technologies to improve the efficiency and speed of sensor integration. Over the past year, Blue Guardian has teamed with the AFRL Manufacturing and Materials Directorate to integrate OA2 into the AFRL AgilePod. This paper discusses the background for these research efforts, development approach and technical details, highlights OA2, discusses recent test events, and future areas to improve OA2 to improve United States Air Force capabilities!
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.