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In the ever-changing landscape of defense and aerospace, ensuring seamless interoperability and minimizing integration costs are mission-critical objectives. The Sensor Open Systems Architecture ™ (SOSA) was developed to address these needs by standardizing interfaces and architectures for sensor systems. Recently, I had the opportunity to gain further insights from Zack McGrath, Kontron’s Defense Product Portfolio Manager, who brings a wealth of knowledge on the future of SOSA™.
Q: For anyone new to SOSA can you please summarize what it is?
Zack: Certainly! SOSA is a framework designed to improve interoperability and lower integration expenses for technology in the defense and aerospace sectors. It aims to standardize the interfaces and architectures of sensor systems, making it easier to mix and match sensors from different manufacturers and integrate them into larger systems deployed across all military branches and physical domains.
Q: Can you explain what SOSA originally aimed to achieve?
Zack: SOSA set out to solve problems that were exposed after decades of using broader standards. The backplane-based VME standard dominated defense systems for many years but has since passed the torch to VPX and its high-speed I/O capabilities. VPX has served this space well for the past 10+ years. But in that time, it has expanded significantly with over 100 possible I/O profiles for 3U-sized processor cards alone. Most of these profiles also include vendor-defined pins, resulting in system architectures with unique, often vendor-locked, board-level requirements. This has made sourcing cards with the proper pinout difficult and costly.
Now with the MOSA (Modular Open Systems Approach) strategy and SOSA Technical Specification, the list of eligible I/O profiles is significantly narrowed, and vendor-defined pins are eliminated.
SOSA system integrators can now concentrate their efforts on choosing interoperable COTS cards with the best performance and features for their specific application.
Q: How has SOSA evolved over time?
Zack: The main goal of SOSA remains essentially the same since its conception, but it has indeed evolved over time. The SOSA Technical Standard has already been through several revisions, each time incorporating the requirements of the defense community and aligning with related industry standards like HOST, CMOSS, and FACE. This organic growth ensures that SOSA can be considered in nearly all C5ISR platforms regardless of the application, military branch, or physical domain.
As sensor technologies have advanced, SOSA has expanded to support new types of sensors and data formats, ensuring compatibility with modern sensor systems. Along with this, industry adoption of SOSA has grown as well. More and more organizations began to align with the standard, which has accelerated and further refined the evolution of it.
Q: Do you see technology trends from other industries making their way into SOSA-aligned solutions?
Zack: Kontron is a globally embraced computing solutions provider across many vertical markets, not just defense. Defense is a microcosm of the rest of the world and if there’s an innovation in the civilian sector, it will likely find its way into military platforms. If there is a problem to be solved in one of these other markets, it probably needs to be addressed in defense as well.
Q: Can you give an example?
Zack: Absolutely. If you look at the evolution of industrial systems to IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things), it's about managing numerous distributed machine and sensor assets, synchronizing time-sensitive activities (via TSN), monitoring health, and analyzing performance data. This data can be accessed through private cloud servers or smaller servers closer to edge devices, known as "the fog."
You can imagine how the same strategies may apply to intelligent military platforms spread across multiple theaters of operation, or even in smaller multi-domain autonomous groups when long-range communication isn’t feasible. SOSA-aligned plug-in cards with server-class processors, like Kontron’s VX307H, bring fog computing capabilities to the rugged, mobile edge.
Q: I bet AI is finding its way into SOSA-aligned systems as well…
Zack: Absolutely. AI is sprouting up everywhere, and SOSA-aligned defense systems are not immune. The same technology driving visual inspection systems, autonomous mining, and smart agriculture will undoubtedly integrate into SOSA-based situational awareness platforms. Additionally, in a sensor-centric SOSA system, AI will likely play a crucial role in sensor fusion, efficiently analyzing large sets of mixed data.
This capability enhances situational awareness and decision-making across defense applications, from battlefield operations to intelligence gathering. SOSA-aligned high-performance computing cards with GPGPU support or AI accelerators will enable this technology to thrive in demanding environments.
Q: How does SOSA support the effort to create new autonomous defense platforms?
Zack: SOSA provides a standardized framework for integrating sensors, processors, and communication interfaces within autonomous systems. This standardization enhances interoperability, allowing components from various vendors to work seamlessly together. It also supports modularity, making it easier to upgrade and replace sensor modules, which is crucial for maintaining and enhancing system capabilities.
This interoperability and modularity reduce the demands on system designers, enabling them to focus on the innovation necessary to deploy autonomous platforms in dynamic environments.
Q: Looking forward, how do you see SOSA influencing future defense technologies?
Zack: That’s an interesting question. While it's hard to pinpoint specific next-gen trends, SOSA will accelerate the integration of new technologies into defense platforms. I mentioned the engineering cost savings that SOSA provides to system designers, but it also trickles down to the plug-in card suppliers as well. Board designers can worry less about what signal goes to what pin and more about pushing the envelope of thermal performance, security, and novel functionality.
Again, I go back to Kontron’s new VX307H payload card; it offers up to 20 cores of Intel® Xeon processing capabilities in a single 3U slot. Now armed with a server-in-a-slot, SOSA system designers can create fully capable and truly mobile servers to act as the brains and backbone of any multi-service, multi-domain operation.
SOSA continues to enhance the defense industry by boosting interoperability and cutting integration costs. With experts like Zack McGrath at Kontron leading the way, the future of defense technology is secure. For more details on Kontron’s SOSA-aligned products, explore our products.
Meet us at the 2024 Annual AUSA Meeting and Exposition to discover our latest SOSA-aligned solutions firsthand.
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