Rearchitecting legacy LRUs to support distributed IMA a strategy to integrate HMD systems into legacy aircraft

Elbit Systems is the market leader in the design, sale and installation of helmet tracking systems in military cockpits for fixed and rotary wing aircraft around the world. These systems have historically been implemented in federated architectures. ESA is rearchitecting its helmet display and tracking systems into a Distributed Integrated Modular Architecture (D-IMA) to increase integration opportunities. This paper reports on IRAD activity underway at Elbit Systems of America (ESA) to rearchitect the software and hardware that comprise the Helmet Display and Tracker System (HDTS) to support a Distributed Integrated Modular Architecture. The advantages of this approach are extended to support new products created by combining a stand-alone sensor with external processing performed in a Mission Processor (MP) that is external to the LRU. The key thought of separating the sensor system into a sensor-specific set of hardware and software and supporting software that performs sensor calculations and control running in a mission processor is supported by an Integrated Modular Architecture (IMA). The total system is a Distributed IMA. This facilitates a product that can be integrated into more platforms. It also represents the next logical step beyond simply miniaturizing subsystem hardware/LRUs for improved performance. Future applications for this methodology applied to ESA products for Degraded Visual Environment (DVE) are discussed.