Reducing the Cost of Ownership: AN/SPS-48E ADP Upgrades

When the US Navy needed to deploy the AN/SPS-48E Radar on at least eleven more ships, they couldn't get the parts for the ADP (Auxiliary Data Processor) cabinet. The VSB bus technology and touch screen used by the existing ADP are simply unavailable. As a subcontractor to Northrop Grumman, Dot21 replaced the old ADP processor with a COTS-based ADP chassis. We reduced the board count from 25 large VME cards to 3 VME cards and removed the old VSB bus. Dot21 also replaced the touch screen with a Java display and replaced a large, heavy chassis used for recording radar data with a single off-the-shelf disk drive plugged into the new ADP chassis.

The new ADP contains only COTS hardware, is much more reliable, and does not contain any "unable to procure" components. The custom hardware functions of the old ADP are now done in software and an off-the-shelf FPGA.

Decreasing the Footprint in the Data Center: AN/SPS-48E radar display replacement.

The US Navy faced a problem: evolving requirements and space constraints in the CIC (Combat Information Center) led to the removal of the AN/SPS-48E radar display from the CIC in the new San Antonio-class LPD ships. The Q70 used for the radar display simply would not fit. Dot21 developed a Java display which runs anywhere. We were able to transfer the software to a rugged Windows computer from the Naval Automation Group that can be mounted on a bulkhead.

Naval Automation Group Ruggedized Computer with Touchscreen as used in the Q70 replacement project.