News

June 14th 2010 - General Dynamics UK’s Core Infrastructure Distribution System for Electronic Architectures delivers measurable performance improvement for combat vehicles

• 100% growth potential in data and power availability relative to the needs of a modern Armoured Fighting Vehicle
• 60% reduction in space taken up by conventional cabled system
• 21% reduction in weight compared to conventional cabled system
• Re-role and repair time reduced by an order of magnitude
• ASCOD SV to benefit from innovative system

Paris, France – General Dynamics UK has today quantified the real-life benefits to Armoured Fighting Vehicle (AFV) customers of its innovative Core Infrastructure Distribution System (CIDS) for Electronic Architecture (EA) systems. Compared with current conventional cabling in a modern AFV, General Dynamics UK’s CIDS system delivers 100% growth potential for power and data services; a 60% reduction in the space taken up inside the vehicle, making it more fightable and survivable; and a 21% reduction in the weight of the system. In addition, vehicle re-role and repair times are reduced by an order of magnitude.
General Dynamics UK’s CIDS provides a standardised, modular infrastructure which allows manufacturers and systems integrators to offer their customers vehicles that are easily tailored to their specifications, highly configurable when in service and capable of being enhanced in the future as new technology becomes available.

CIDS is a key part of the design of ASCOD SV which has been selected by the UK MoD as its preferred vehicle to fulfil the Scout SV role.

Plug-and-play

The General Dynamics UK’s CIDS infrastructure features an innovative bus configuration with nodes that enable the vehicle manufacturer, integrator or operator to easily install or replace systems using a “plug and play” approach. The new CIDS system provides improved power, data and video
distribution around the vehicle and is fully compliant to Vehicle Systems Integration (VSI) standards making it possible to connect vehicle and mission systems, with plug-and-play simplicity at any one of multiple nodes, while simplifying the end users’ task in adapting the vehicle to different roles or repairing damage.

The benefits of CIDs are felt early on in the life of a vehicle, when new designs are in the planning, specification and development phases. The designer can work with a standard, proven solution that’s compatible across all vehicles and the system is scalable and efficient.

Flexibility in design is also provided by CIDS’ compliance with multiple databus standards, all of which are supported at each take-off node, including: CAN, Serial Interfaces and 10G Ethernet.

Other features that CIDS brings, ready made, to the vehicle design include: high current distribution; high voltage capability; built-in redundancy; and increased EMC/EMI tolerance. CIDS also helps vehicle manufacturers and systems integrators get their solutions to market faster, with reduced risk, thereby benefiting the end user who receives the new equipment sooner. Similar advantages apply during the manufacturing phase, where the rapid installation of equipment provided by CIDS makes assembly simpler, leading to reduced costs.

Flexibility in service

In service, users can reconfigure or re-role a vehicle rapidly thanks to the modular “plug and play” nature of the architecture. Commanders are given much greater flexibility in terms of the resources they have available and the vehicles can be easily re-roled for the task ahead. The standardised, modular architecture also means damage repair is simple and fast as the damaged section of the architecture can simply be extracted and replaced.

Open future

The ability to plug-and-play using standard interfaces provides an easier, low-risk path to future growth, accommodating new technologies so that vehicles can deliver more capabilities and adapt to new roles. With such an open architecture vehicles are readily adaptable to the needs of customers worldwide, while those customers will have access to solutions that genuinely meet the challenges they face.

The origins of CIDS

The genesis of CIDS lies in General Dynamics UK’s work to upgrade more than 13,000 military vehicles of all types from analogue to digital C4I systems during the integration of Bowman for the
British Armed Forces – a programme that made General Dynamics UK a leading vehicle integrator with the most up-to-date skills and techniques in the industry. Based upon the experience gained on the Bowman programme during which the company stripped out hundreds of different vehicle types, each with their own unique EA, General Dynamics UK’s engineers became convinced that an EA could be radically simplified and also standardised. And so the germ of an idea that became CIDS was planted.

In addition, General Dynamics UK played a key role with various open standards bodies important to the future direction of EA including the MoD’s VSI working group, DefStan 00-82, the MilCAN working group and lead the Generic Vehicle Architecture industry team to set open standards for GVA.

Today, General Dynamics UK’s customers will be the first to benefit directly from the company’s work to innovate and deliver the best EA possible.