SES has become a familiar exhibitor at aerospace-oriented shows, and so to exhibit at a show focused specifically on Land Vehicles is new territory for us. The International Armoured Vehicles Conference and Exhibition at the ExCel Centre, 2-5th February 2010, was attended by over 1,200 people on the first day, it was reported. A very encouraging number of those took time to visit the SES stand, where the rugged and compact S3DP-V Vehicle Solid State Processor was the focal point.

Observant delegates noticed the very same SES-designed and manufactured S3DP-V installed in the IVECO Defence Vehicles LMV (PU), Light Multirole Vehicle (Protected Utility). This demonstration installation is one of several where the novel SES processor is being used to host the leading edge IBM Generic Platform Services Architecture (GPSA). IBM's GPSA was being used to demonstrate how the UK MoD's aspirations for a Generic Vehicle Architecture (GVA) and System Information Exploitation (SIE) could be implemented. The UK MoD will formally issue Defence Standard 23-09 - Generic Vehicle Architecture and Defence Standard 25-24 - System Information Exploitation during the summer of 2010.

S3DP-V features an Intel Atom processor chip running at 1.1 or 1.6 GHz, up to 1GB of RAM, and two each of Giga-Ethernet, USB2.0, CANBus and asynchronous serial interfaces. Power and all interface connections are made using screw fit military circular connectors, but for convenience in development of software applications, Ethernet and USB2 connections can also be made using familiar commercial RJ45 and USB push-in connectors. S3DP-V includes on board mass storage up to 32 GB, completing a powerful general-purpose processing capability.

Optionally, a three-axis on board accelerometer can be fitted internally to monitor the usage environment and generate motion-activated interrupts with user selectable levels. An optional on board GPS and Gallileo module offers exceptional 50-channel performance. The GPS aerial is connected through one of the circular military connectors. Neither option reduces the interfaces available to the user. The S3DP-V can be mounted in inaccessible locations, thanks to an option which allows the on-board solid state memory to be accessed as a simple USB device from a USB v2.0 host controller. In this mode, data can be downloaded from, or uploaded to the S3DP-V memory with the unit unpowered all necessary power being supplied though the USB v2.0 host controller. This makes for easier maintenance, and ensures that software update or data download is a simple in-situ operation. Additionally, on-board accelerometer and GPS options are valuable user-requested options in Usage Monitoring and DefStan 25-24 applications, for which the S3DP-V is an ideal solution.

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