Operational Considerations for High-Reliability Interconnects in Military and Aerospace Applications
- Magazine Article
- 19AERP09_02
- English
In the recent past, military acquisition has shifted from being locked into large long-term contracts to developing complex systems in discrete increments that can be further optimized in future design cycles. These shorter design cycles allow for equipment to be deployed more rapidly, thereby mitigating the risk of subsystems going obsolete as increasing proportions of budget dollars go towards operation and support (O&S). This transition to evolutionary acquisition (EA) leaves a major opportunity for vendors to develop commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components that are military-compliant.
Typically, commercial-grade devices have a wide range of quality across manufacturers as the standards (or lack thereof) vary from organization to organization. Since reliability is essential for mission-critical components, it is important for companies to apply standards that are relevant to their product. This remains true for the respective interconnect between components in military systems.