Media Coverage
AUSA 2018: Systel Showcases New Mission Computer for Fighting Vehicles
Systel has introduced Raven-Strike, a fully rugged, fully sealed, high-performance embedded mission computing system for modern fighting vehicles.
“We are taking edge computing and bringing it into a rugged form factor deployed for many environments,” Aneesh Kothari, vice-president of marketing for Systel, told Jane’s on 10 October at the annual Association of the United States Army (AUSA) symposium in Washington, DC.
Raven-Strike features state-of-the-art Intel Xeon scalable processor CPU and NVIDIA GPU high-performance parallel processing, high-definition full-motion video capture and encode, and complete sensor integration and data fusion, Systel said.
The system is optimised for size, weight, and power and Kothari noted that, historically, the capability inside Raven Strike would take several different rack servers to manage.
Raven-Strike weighs 15.8 kg. Key features of the system include dual 10 GbE fibre high bandwidth networking, advanced thermal management cooling, MIL-STD-810G shock and vibration, MIL-STD 461 EMI, and MIL-STD 1275 vehicle power.
“This would act as your single point for all sensor ingest and all data fusion. It enables machine learning, artificial intelligence, and autonomous-type capability, which is a big mandate right now in this space,” Kothari said.
Systel has also taken an aggressive approach towards thermal management of Raven-Strike. The system has a combination of things: internally, it is all conduction-cooled with the heat coming out through passive cooling methods right out to the fins to where it is cooled, Kothari said.
The system also has exhaust fans, but inside is another layer that is completely sealed so there is no air being blown on any electronics.
Systel has a US customer in place for Raven-Strike; however, Kothari noted he could not provide any additional information on that customer.
Kothari said the company is seeing a bigger push towards incorporating more commercial technology into defence systems. He added it makes perfect sense, especially with transition towards autonomy, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. “How are you going to do that without that sort of mindset? Taking what is out there and putting it into a militarised environment makes perfect sense.”
