SBIR-STTR Award

Several initiatives are currently underway in the Navy community to reduce ship total ownership costs thru sailor workload/manning reductions. A common vision behind these initiatives is to instrument future ships with thousands of distributed sensors, actuators, and application processors to automate tasks traditionally carried out by personnel. An immediate payoff of such highly sensorized platforms is that they relieve personnel from having to manually collect equipment data (and eliminate human-errors in the process). In addition, these networked systems hold considerable promise in addressing the Achilles-heel of manning reduction efforts: alleviating the sailors damage control and maintenance responsibilities. We propose to develop a network-neutral processing and data acquisition platform that embraces open standards. The system will rely on a flexible modular design capable of processing signals from a wide variety of legacy sensors as well as state-of-the-art

Benefit:
There is a clear desire in both industry and military circles to build smart sensor networks. However the highly fragmented nature of the measurement and control industry has slowed their adoption. Device manufacturers have found it difficult and expensive to support the numerous incompatible networking protocols that have been promoted by various organizations. In fact, many smaller manufacturers have waited in the sidelines for a de-facto standard to emerge. But convergence upon a single standard is unlikely as market forces and technical considerations dictate otherwise-many protocols are explicitly designed to address industry-specific concerns and are unlikely to be displaced by a universal networking protocol. The emergence of transducer interface standards and the development of the network-neutral processing platform we propose holds considerable promise in side-stepping the network protocol

Keywords:
Data acquisition, Data acquisition, ICAS, Distributed Control, Networking, Open Architecture, wireless sensors, IEEE 1451, Smart sensors

Building upon the results of our Phase I effort, we propose to implement a cost-effective flexible processing platform for data acquisition and control, called a Network Capable Application Processor (NCAP). The NCAP platform will be designed for use in harsh shipboard environments. It will be capable of interacting with a large number of wired and wireless sensors and actuators, using existing legacy technologies as well as emerging transducer interface standards. It will also support a variety of open industrial networking protocols, operating over wired and wireless physical layers, to provide exceptional networking capability. The design will emphasize survivability at the mechanical, electrical, and logical levels through widespread requirement and support for redundancy. NCAPs are the building blocks of highly-configurable, scaleable, distributed sensing and control networks that operate in an automated fashion. Through their inherent capabilities and use of open standards, such networks will help the Navy achieve its goal of reducing workload/manning and Total Ownership Cost (TOC) of Naval vessels while enabling critical applications such as condition-based maintenance and advanced damage control. Complex systems operating in harsh environments in the commercial sector will be able to reap the same TOC and advanced diagnostic and control benefits by employing this technology.

Benefit:
Fairmount Automation has been delivering military-qualified control and data acquisition products to the U.S. Navy since 1997. Today, over 1 in 3 ships in the U.S. Navy Fleet rely on Fairmount Automation equipment for mission-critical machinery control and monitoring. The Company's equipment has been successfully deployed throughout the Fleet. Applications include automatic boiler control on CV-63, CV-67, LHA-1, LHD-1, LPD-7, LSD-36, AOE-1, AS-39, and LCC-19 class ships; secondary steam plant controls, catapult accumulator, and CHT systems on CVN-68 carriers, distilling plant control on CG-47 class cruisers, waste-heat boiler controls on DD-963 class cruisers, bleed-air valve regulation on DDG-51 class destroyers and FFG-7 class frigates, Ship Service Diesel Generator (SSDG) auxiliaries control on FFG-7 class frigates, Ship Service Turbine Generator (SSTG) auxiliaries control on LHD-1 and LHA-1 class amphibious assault ships. Many other applications based on Fairmount Automation equipment are currently being installed or designed. Fairmount Automation will continue working with the same organizations within the U.S. Navy community to ensure adoption of the products to be developed under this SBIR program. For example, we have established a key role in the development of automated damage control systems for the Navys new DD(X) platform. In January 2004, we successfully demonstrated our design of an autonomic fire suppression system (AFSS) and we are presently executing the AFSS Engineering Development Model (EDM) effort as a subcontractor to General Dynamics Bath Iron Works. We are confident that the NCAP technology to be developed under this SBIR program would be of benefit to DD(X) damage control applications. Our membership in the DD(X) design team will provide us with access to key decision makers to present the merits of this new technology. Outside of the military sector, we plan to target select industries in the commercial sector that may benefit from rugged data acquisition and distributed control products. We will target industries that require rugged automation equipment-digital control products capable of sustained operation in environments susceptible to shock, vibration, extreme temperature, humidity, oil, salt, water, dirt and grit, and other hazards. Some of the industries we have identified as having a need for rugged equipment include, power generation (particularly nuclear plants), chemical processing, oil exploration (particularly off-shore), and heavy workboats (tug boats, dredgers, etc). The products developed under this project will be ideally suited for industrial plants at high-risk of terrorist attacks and/or accidental fires and explosions (e.g., chemical processing plants, nuclear power plants, etc). The nuclear power industry in particular will soon begin to overhaul its outdated controls equipment and is facing increasing pressure to explore methods that reduce susceptibility to terrorist attacks. Another industry that we believe can benefit from this technology is the rail industry. The Company recently secured a contract to install a trial solution on regional rail cars operated by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA) in Philadelphia.

Keywords:
Networking, IEEE1451, Data acquisition, Control, TSCE, NCAP, Wireless