• Showcasing at CANSEC 2019, RuggedCONNECT™ Networked Video Processing Unit is a fundamental building block for real-time sensor networks operating in harsh environments

 Pleora Technologies, the world’s leading supplier of high-performance video interfaces, today introduced a ruggedized sensor networking platform that helps manufacturers and system integrators reduce cognitive burden and increase mission-effectiveness for end-users while meeting interoperability and scalability demands in size, weight, power and cost (SWaP-C) sensitive real-time military imaging applications.

Pleora is showcasing the RuggedCONNECT™ Network Video Processing Unit (NVPU) and its real-time networking expertise with a live demo at CANSEC 2019, May 29-30, at the EY Centre in Ottawa, Canada (booths #1730 and #3044). The company’s networked sensor switching expertise has been designed into local situational awareness (LSA), C4ISR, remote controlled weapon stations (RCWS), driver vision enhancer (DVE), and panoramic surveillance applications, and is being evaluated for emergency service vehicle and railway systems.

“RuggedCONNECT leverages our low-latency networking expertise and user-focused design approach help increase intelligence, awareness, and safety while reducing cognitive burden for vehicle crew members,” says Harry Page, president, Pleora Technologies. “Manufacturers can design standards-compliant vehicle platforms that are rapidly deployable, mission configurable, and cost-effective. Our fully scalable platform allows easy implementation of future capabilities that increase mission effectiveness with minimum integration effort.”

Military imaging systems have traditionally used point-to-point interfaces to connect sensors, processors, and displays. This approach adds system and integration costs, redundancy and failure concerns, and challenges future scalability. More critically, it results in complex, difficult to operate vehicle electronics (vetronics) systems for an already overburdened crew.

In comparison, the RuggedCONNECT NVPU converts sensor data from multiple sources into a standardized feed that is transmitted over a low latency, multicast Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) network to endpoints. With the scalable, modular RuggedCONNECT platform, manufacturers can design straightforward camera-to-display systems and cost-effectively evolve to fully networked architectures integrating different sensor and display types, switching, processing, and recording units. The RuggedCONNECT platform meets video performance requirements outlined in Def Stan 00-082 (VIVOE), STANAG 4697 (PLEVID), and MISB ST 1608 to enable to design of vehicle electronics platforms that comply with STANAG 4754 (NGVA), Def Stan 23-009 (GVA), and VICTORY guidelines.   

Migrating to a unified sensor and display network, manufacturers can significantly reduce hardware and peripheral equipment within the vehicle and deploy simplified, less expensive cabling to help meet cost and weight objectives.  With all devices connected to a common infrastructure, sensor data can be transmitted to any combination of mission computers and displays. Vehicle crew can view information they need on a single display, and know immediately if something has changed in their environment. The dual Ethernet port and passive bypass design of RuggedCONNECT ensures reliable performance and protection against single-point-of-failure risks.

Combining the high-performance video networking capabilities of RuggedCONNECT with the powerful GPU resources of the NVIDIA Jetson TX2i, designers can easily add application-specific image processing and graphics overlay decision-support capabilities to reduce cognitive burden and increase mission effectiveness. Options range from image fusion, 360 degree stitching, map/terrain overlay, and image enhancement to more demanding capabilities such as convolutional-neural-network based threat detection and classification.