Innovation awards received for 'Building the Army of 2030'

Three new General Micro Systems (GMS) innovations won Best of Show from Military Embedded Systems magazine at the Association for the United States Army (AUSA) Annual Meeting & Exposition in Washington, D.C. All built on GMS’ new X9 Spider architecture, the X9 Host System earned a 4-star designation in the Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning category, while the VPX3XD-NET SOSA-Aligned single board computer (SBC) took the top 4-star award in the Embedded Computing category and the ATR-PLUS 3U OpenVPX chassis earned the top award in Rugged Computing.

“All three products are built on our new X9 Spider modular and super-dense X9 distributed architecture, the most innovative, rugged, and reliable computing technologies available for the next-generation Army,” said Chris Ciufo, Chief Technology Officer, General Micro Systems.

“Whether the applications require OpenVPX or more efficient implementations like our small form factor (SFF) X9 Spider Host AI system, there is nothing like any of them on the market today, and we’re proud that Military Embedded Systems and the hundreds of visitors who visited our booth at AUSA recognized how truly unique and groundbreaking they are. They are must-haves for ensuring our military can compete at any level.”

Built to support the Army’s needs to sense, protect, communicate, sustain, and win the battlefield of 2030, the award-winning trio of products are covered in the following subsections.

The X9 Host AI system

This AI system is one of the first products in the X9 Spider family of distributed, ruggedised computing modules to support the demanding needs of next-generation warfare. The X9 Host AI (artificial intelligence) system is for applications that require SFF AI battlefield Edge processing within a rugged enclosure with amazing performance per dollar per Watt.

Like all X9 products, the X9 Host AI system is modular, expandable and scalable, with Thunderbolt 4 technology, CoaXPress, and GMS’ patented LightBolt 40Gbps connections in copper or fiber, with optional 100W per port power for up-/down-stream sensors and system expansion.

VPX3XD-NET SOSA Aligned single board computer

This SBC has Intel XEON D Ice Lake network-centric ('NET') processor module, with 2-6 RDMA 100GbE and 2-4 Thunderbolt 4 ports. The VPX3XD-NET is part of GMS’ new family of X9 Venom 3U and 6U OpenVPX computer boards, peripherals and ATR-style chassis for use in U.S. Army ground, air, communications and weapons systems.

All products follow ANSI/VITA 65 standards, meet the Department of Defense (DoD) requirement for modular open standards approach (MOSA) electronic systems, and are IEEE 1101.2 conduction cooled. X9 Venom products are also SOSA (Sensor Open Standard Architecture) aligned and ready to meet C4ISR/Electronic Warfare Modular Open Suite of Standards (CMOSS), two standards that increasingly are requirements in U.S. Army programs and platform upgrades.

ATR-PLUS 3U OpenVPX chassis

This chassis also part of the X9 Venom family, is specifically designed for high performance applications that require massive power/heat dissipation, with provisions for extensive copper, fiber and RF I/O. It comes in aluminum alloy or carbon fiber to save up to 30% in weight. Per-slot heat pipe cooling improves reliability and extends operating range.

All chassis front panels are infinitely configurable and include high- and low-speed copper connectors plus fiber connectors for internal backplane and card front panel wiring. 3U chassis have six or eight slots, a removable 4-SSD canister for data storage, and two slots for dual 1,000W smart power supplies. 6U chassis include two canisters for removable storage and eight slots, with two reserved for power supplies. All Thunderbolt technology-equipped chassis offer 100W power delivery over fibre.

Image information: General Micro Systems' CEO and Chief Architect Ben Sharfi standing with the three Best of Show awards the company won at AUSA 2022. The new products were built on its new X9 Spider modular and super-dense X9 distributed architecture for the next-generation army.