Collins Aerospace to Provide USAF With Communication System Utilizing OpenVPX Standards Supporting SOAC Weapon System Program

Collins Aerospace has been selected by the U.S. Air Force to develop a modern Common VLF Receiver Increment 2 (CVRi2) for the future Survivable Airborne Operations Center (SAOC). This 30-month, $42 million Period of Performance (POP) contract for initial development will help modernize U.S. Air Force Nuclear Command, Control and Communications (NC3) capability.

“Collins has been providing its Very Low Frequency (VLF) terminals for decades, and this new equipment has been designed to meet rigorous SAOC requirements,” said John Sapp, vice president and general manager, Integrated Solutions for Collins Aerospace. “Our new modern OpenVPX architecture will provide the U.S. Air Force with expanded capability to ensure our warfighters are equipped to meet our nation’s greatest threats.”

The new product line features the CVRi2, which is a pre-, trans- and post-attack, survivable, beyond-line-of-sight communication system that will be used to disseminate command and control orders and provide presidential direction to nuclear forces. As a key component of the SAOC Weapon System, CVRi2 is Open Mission System (OMS) and Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) compliant, while incorporating modern OpenVPX architecture ruggedized specifically for SAOC’s nuclear hardened environment.

The CVRi2’s open architecture will enable the U.S. Air Force to own the technical baseline and support decades of future growth. CVRi2 is also architected to support other airborne and ground platforms that are part of the NC3 capability.

CVRi2 also provides a launch program to transition technologies developed on the Software Programmable OMS Compliant (SPOC) program to a fielded system. SPOC’s OMS infrastructure backbone is combined with VLF Radio Frequency subassemblies to create the core Line Replaceable Unit (LRU) within the CVRi2 system.