Weapon Open System Architecture (WOSA) Development

WINTEC is developing the Weapon Open System Architecture (WOSA) for Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Munitions Directorate – helping to evolve the WOSA-compliant suite of flexible air-launched weapon systems for next-generation mission capabilities.

The WOSA Development will enable “plug & play” capabilities for many of the modules comprising the general Open Architecture to support technology refresh, enhance mission capability, and enable cost competition for internal components.

In addition to developing the WOSA Interface Control Documents (ICDs), WINTEC is also supporting facilitation of quarterly Interface Control Working Group (ICWG) meetings – engaging Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) in evolving the ICDs and technical direction for the WOSA-compliant family-of- weapons concept. The SMEs comprise representatives of many of the Aerospace & Defense prime contractors and major suppliers within the air-launched precision-guided weapons community.

As the basic Open Systems Architecture continues to mature, more in-depth technical research and development will ensue for each of the technical domains comprising the architecture. Developing Common Interfaces for an abstracted Open Architecture represents a significant challenge in that the Common Interfaces must accommodate all possible technical implementations that may exist by all primes and their suites of technologies and designs – either existing or planned.

To support validation of the WOSA ICD, modeling of candidate weapon’s internal communications technologies continues. Various sectors of the Open Architecture will be modeled from a data communications standpoint, e.g., the aircraft platform interface to the carriage systems platform interface and the Mission Execution domain; the Navigation, Guidance and Autopilot domains; IMU, GPS and other navigation-aiding sensors, and integration by Navigation domain, etc. Ultimately, the full scope of the weapon architecture will be modeled for validating the ICD and alternative internal communications implementation approaches.

AFRL/RW’s support for the Weapon Open System Architecture, ICD/ICWG, and communications modeling efforts will continue under a SBIR Phase III contract to refine and add fidelity to WOSA-compliant weapon systems during the 2018 and 2019 timeframe.