A Rapid and Affordable Approach to Insert the Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) into Fielded Open System Architecture (OSA) Systems

In an environment of limited and dynamic defense funding, affordable approaches are needed to maximize deployment of innovative capabilities across entire fleets of military aircraft. The United States (US) Department of Defense (DoD) is supporting the use of new open system architecture solutions such as the Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE™) Technical Standard for use on their respective platforms. The goals of the FACE Standard include reducing lifecycle costs and enabling rapid integration of innovative capabilities in the form of software applications that are reusable across multiple aircraft platforms, both current and new; regardless of the manufacturer or supplier. This paper describes technical methodologies to incorporate FACE technologies into existing platforms using a software-only upgrade approach. The US DoD currently has a large inventory of fielded platforms with avionics solutions based on Rockwell Collins Flight2™ Open Systems Architecture (OSA) - an architecture reused on over 50 platforms including Army Rotary Wing platforms along with Navy/Marine, Coast Guard, Air Force and International rotary and fixed wing aircraft. A subset of these Flight2 OSA platforms is better known as Common Avionics Architecture System (CAAS). A comparison of the FACE architecture with the Flight2/CAAS architecture is provided along with an example of integrating a FACE application providing RNP RNAV capabilities. This approach maximizes previous DoD system investments to enable rapid and affordable deployment of reusable applications that align to the FACE Standard.