The chief of Naval Air Systems Command, Vice Adm. David Dunaway, believes system integration designs of next-generation aircraft should be centered on an open architecture approach that allows for components and systems to be added or swapped under a service arrangement.
Dunaway, speaking Wednesday at the American Society of Naval Engineers symposium, said that in order to do so the government needs to take on the role of lead systems integrator to effectively implement open architecture practices. The role is less viable for defense companies because of their control of data rights, and because no single company is the sole leader in certain areas of warfare, such as air or surface, he said.
“There isn’t one,” Dunaway said. “You can’t do it because every corporation has intellectual property … in the pillars that they are in.”
Instead, Dunaway said, the government needs to become the lead integrator to provide a platform so individual companies can offer their solutions to the requirements. He also said that as the lead integrator, the government must get increased control of intellectual property to establish a competitive open architecture model.
The Pentagon has been moving to embrace open architecture solutions, seen as a way to drive down cost through program re-competitions, spur innovation among contractors, enable rapid technology upgrades and lower long-term sustainability costs. Part of doing that is capturing intellectual property rights from industry to open up competition and drive innovation.
“It is not a land grab against industry,” Dunaway said, adding that this is the direction the government has been heading in recent years “and open architectures are going to be the key to it.”
Regarding future aircraft, Dunaway said in an ideal scenario he would take a “green aircraft” with a “bottoms up” design to allow for open architecture systems to come in and operate as a service, citing radar as an example.
“I would be the lead systems integrator for a common computing environment in which everything would show up as a service,” Dunaway said.
Dunaway said one of his key goals is to increasingly steer NAVAIR to open architecture standards. He said he is planning to set up a lab so teams in his command can experiment with open architecture approaches. That could include buying a prop aircraft to serve as a flying test bed for open architecture solutions, he said.
Dunaway called it a “curriculum airplane” that could be used on a “day-to-day” basis with the overall goal of making NAVAIR more effective at embracing open architecture solutions.