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New C4N Suite for U.S. Navy LCACs Completes Critical Design Review

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Naval Forces News - USA
 
 
 
New C4N Suite for U.S. Navy LCACs Completes Critical Design Review
 
The U.S. Navy successfully completed the Critical Design Review (CDR) for a new command, control, communications, computers & navigation (C4N) suite for Landing Craft, Air Cushion (LCAC) NAVSEA announced Oct. 2. The LCAC C4N suite, also known as the command module electronics package, is the user interface the crew uses to operate the craft.

This new C4N suite, the System Baseline Configuration 4 (SBC4) design, employs a Modular Open Scalable Approach (MOSA). This approach will improve sustainability while helping the Navy reduce procurement costs.
     
The U.S. Navy successfully completed the Critical Design Review (CDR) for a new command, control, communications, computers & navigation (C4N) suite for Landing Craft, Air Cushion (LCAC) NAVSEA announced Oct. 2. The LCAC C4N suite, also known as the command module electronics package, is the user interface the crew uses to operate the craft.
PACIFIC OCEAN (Sept. 5, 2014) Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC) 29, assigned to Naval Beach Unit (NBU) 7, prepares to embark the well deck of the amphibious dock landing ship USS Germantown (LSD 42). (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Amanda R. Gray/Released)
     
"The critical design review is an important milestone," said Senior Software Engineer Lisa Nowalk, Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division (NSWC PCD). "This technical review assessed the system final design and established the initial product baseline for SBC4."

During the CDR, the NSWC PCD team demonstrated an operational prototype based on the MOSA, along with more than 90 percent of the Technical Data Package completed.

The LCAC C4N suite provides a glass cockpit display environment for the craft's three-person crew in the Command Module. The suite consists of a fly by wire craft control system with two fully redundant engineering control system processing units, along with four sensor interface units that provide the signal conditioning and conversion of 190 different sensors and alarms on the craft. It includes a fully integrated navigation system that integrates with a 25-kilowatt surface search radar system, a primary and secondary GPS system, and an inertial navigation system. Also included is a display system consisting of six sunlight readable, Night Vision Device compatible LCD displays and a common data recorder used to perform mission plan transfers, as well as recording of real-time navigation, audio, and engineering data/actions.

"SBC4 will incorporate MOSA best practices to reduce the complexity of maintenance efforts and increase supportability of components in the baseline," said Robert Holmes, Landing Craft C4N Manager within Program Executive Officer Ships Amphibious Warfare Program Office.

During the CDR demonstration, Craftmasters and Navigators from Assault Craft Units (ACU) 4 & 5 provided recommendations for improving maintainability and supportability. NSWC-PCD also simulated various failure modes to help LCAC crew members assess training impacts.

This next generation configuration, SBC4, will significantly reduce the footprint of the electronics in terms of volume, weight and power requirements. Also, the transition to front I/O connectors and a box level lowest replaceable unit should allow easier access and significantly reduce the actual time required to perform corrective and preventative maintenance.

In order to address software obsolescence in the C4N suite, the LCAC Software Support Activity is transitioning from embedded Windows XP to Windows 7 for the Windows-based nodes of the system. The C4N software re-host from SBC3 to SBC4 is also leveraging off of newer technology in order to reduce the required number of processing units to support the new modular, open-scalable architecture approach.