Rockwell Collins marked the first day of the ILA Berlin air show by launching its FMC-4000 series of flight and mission computers.
“The new FMC-4000 modular portfolio brings unique flexibility and easy upgradability for mission computing across a wide range of military and civil aircraft,” says Claude Alber, Rockwell Collins’ vice-president and managing director, Europe, Middle East and Africa.
Appropriately, given its launch location, the new product line was developed in the company’s Heidelberg facility, which serves as its European centre of excellence for fighter and trainer aircraft and mission computers.
As part of the launch, Rockwell Collins announced that Airbus Helicopters has selected the FMC-4212 mission computer, although it declined to reveal on which model the new system would be deployed.
The company cites high performance, open architecture and scalability as being among the benefits of the FMC-4000 series. It is available for fighter, trainer, tanker, transport and rotary-wing aircraft, plus unmanned air systems.
It uses the latest multi-core processor and hardware, along with accelerated video and signal processing and compression functions. The target market was moving away from specifically-designed processors for flight and mission computers, says sales manager Patrick Telcher. As a result, “We’re moving to commercial-off-the-shelf components.”
Source: Flight Daily News
