has released what it describes as a “flying server” able to be carried by airborne platforms and pods, which will bring a “tactical cloud” to the military.
Mercury said its product, based on the OpenVPX standard, is the most powerful OpenVPX-based sensor processing subsystem ever developed for ISR applications.
“The subsystem can process and exploit huge amounts of sensor data in real-time, store it onboard for retrieval and forensic analysis, and send imagery to ground stations or hand-held devices,” said a Mercury press release.
According to Defense News the subsystem uses Intel Xeon-class servers, ruggedized storage disks and cooled 1-inch pitch OpenVPX modules.
“Onboard processing and actionable intelligence dissemination are the logical and critical next steps in airborne ISR development, but deployment is slowed by the processing power available and the exponential growth of the data being collected,” said Ian Dunn, vice president of Mercury’s Embedded Multicomputing Group.
“Our ability to deploy this subsystem — effectively a data center ‘server in the sky’ — onto airborne pods and platforms is another example of Mercury’s continued leadership in OpenVPX, and our ability to leverage open architecture to meet the right mix of performance, time-to-market and affordability constraints.” Stated Dunn.