The Ultra PCS Infantry Power and Data Unit installed in a vehicle. (Ultra PCS)
Ultra Precision Control Systems (PCS) has continued to develop its Infantry Power and Data Unit (IPDU), which provides bridges for dismounted soldiers to connect digitally to a vehicle when mounted, and has sold a limited number to the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) for assessment.
Speaking at SAE Media's Future Soldier Technology conference in London in March, Tony White, land strategy director for Ultra PCS, said that integrating the digitised dismounted soldier with a digitised vehicle could be a challenge.
Modern vehicles have an electronic architecture such as the UK's generic vehicle architecture (GVA), he said. The GVA provides a set of open standards for the integration of subsystems within a vehicle together with a common human-machine interface (HMI). They were developed by the UK and emerged from the vehicle system integration (VSI) power and data research programme.
Vehicle subsystems can include computer displays, radios, intercoms, navigation systems, cameras, and weapon stations.
The GVA is part of the UK's overall land open system architecture (LOSA) suite, which also includes the generic soldier architecture (GSA) and generic base architecture (GBA). This work has led to the development of the NATO GVA and the Australian equivalent. The US has the command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C5ISR)/electronic warfare (EW) Modular Open Suite of Standards (CMOSS), which does much the same thing.
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