The Air Combat Electronics program office (PMA-209) recently participated in the Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) and Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) consortium exposition in Dayton, Ohio. The Avionics Architecture Team (AAT) for PMA-209 demonstrated several of its Open Architecture (OA) projects that are reducing software integration time and maintenance costs for the Fleet.  

The FACE and SOSA exposition, coordinated by The Open Group and NAVAIR, provides an opportunity for leading experts from multiple services, industry and academia to demonstrate the latest OA solutions that will encourage innovation, increase quality and speed the deployment of critical, advanced technologies to our warfighters. 

“This was an excellent showcase of cross-service integration, driven by the Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) standards and supporting technologies which have been coming of age in recent years, as this cross-service integration is becoming more important to keep pace with evolving threats across the globe,” said Nathan Flinn, PMA-209 AAT Platform, Integration and Maintenance Team acting lead engineer. 

The event featured demonstrations of more than 30 FACE conformant solutions from industry and government members encompassing all segments of the FACE solution stack, all of which operate by using some of the world’s most advanced multi-core computer hardware.  

PMA-209’s AAT delivered live demonstrations of its Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) projects. One of those demonstrations included the NAVAIR-developed Hardware Open Systems Technologies (HOST) standards framework working in alignment with the FACE technical standard shown on a UH-60V Helicopter Cockpit Trainer.  

The AAT also demonstrated how HOST and SOSA are key to reducing integration time and maintenance costs for systems and network management. During the whitepaper presentation portion of the exposition, members of AAT presented how the FACE technical standard and OMS standard could both use their sample toolkits using common interfaces.  

“These sample toolkits allow software developers to mature applications using either FACE or OMS without a third-party application. Modelers and developers can easily use the free applications currently available to create interoperable applications,” said Erin Colvin, PMA-209 AAT lead software engineer. 

The AAT also debuted their new FACE Data Modeling video series at the exposition. The video series is an instructional tool to help viewers understand the FACE data modeling approach and data architecture contents, including examples of how to develop FACE data architecture models. 

About PMA-209 

PMA-209 is a collaborative team of proactive acquisition professionals enabling current and future foundational aviation requirements led by CAPT Margaret Wilson, PMA-209 program manager. The program office is NAVAIR’s executive agent for the development and management of cutting-edge air combat electronics systems. Established in 1988, PMA-209 is responsible for providing critical capabilities to the warfighter in the form of common, fully developed, supportable, and reliable systems that align with the strategic and operational requirements of our platform PEO and PMA customers. For more information, email: [email protected].