Communications technology for military equipment vendors
Military needs
Development of military systems is no longer about doing it all in-house. That philosophy has been replaced with finding the right commercial off the shelf (COTS) building blocks to piece together the solution required. This approach has a further benefit in that it enables a quicker time to market.
COTS products are characterised by:
- Reduced risk, because the equipment is available and has been proven commercially
- Faster time to market
- The latest technology, because vendors operate in a competitive environment
- Open architecture
- Support for international standards
Often, the core enabling technology available has to be adapted, an example being the addition of a new codec.So a flexible approach using non-recoverable engineering (NRE) development on the standard building block is required from the COTS vendor.
In terms of technology requirements, high channel densities, reliability and flexibility are all key for technology destined for military applications which can provide some of the harshest tests of equipment and can also require deployment in extremely space restricted environments.
Aculab technology for military communications equipment developers
Aculab's high density Prosody X media processing boards are well suited to the particular platform requirements and space restrictions placed upon military systems. The Prosody range offers a complete portfolio of call control signalling and media processing functions, including SIP, H.323, SS7 and MRCP protocol stacks, high density TDM/IP gateway, voice recording/playback, DTMF handling, echo cancellation, N-way matrix conferencing, transcoding with a wide choice of voice codecs, Group 3 and T.38 fax, and many other advanced functions.
Application areas where the Prosody portfolio have been used in both commercial and military applications include:
- IP-to-TDM gateways for interconnecting legacy TDM with next generation IP networks
- Fax servers and gateways
- Voice and data gateways for secure applications
- Speech recognition systems
- Call monitoring/recording
- VoIP systems
- Interactive voice response (IVR) systems
Aculab's partnership approach
When you decide to partner with Aculab, the leading-edge products are just the start of what we offer. Complementing the product range, we offer customers a solid vendor partnership in the field of professional services, ongoing development and support, based on our in-depth expertise and experience. The foundation of Aculab's approach is our industry-recognised agility and willingness to meet and exceed customer's demands.
A dilemma with using the COTS approach can sometimes be that the commercial systems available simply do not have the specific military features required. Aculab's open approach to product modification, where customers can request features or improvements and see that request result in a change based on business case evaluation, is a refreshing change from working with vendors with much more static product development paths. This is probably the key point that is brought out when our customers refer to Aculab as providing good support - the ability to modify a product, usually software or firmware, in order to address a commercial opportunity.
If the specific feature you require is not available then test the flexibility in Aculab's approach to business by talking to us. To discuss your requirements, contact your Account Manager or send an email to sales@aculab.com and one of our representatives will get right back to you.
To view for a list of companies who have already benefited from working with Aculab to develop the solution they required, visit our partners section.
Visit the case studies page to see how some of our customers have used Aculab products to develop military communications solutions.
The Aculab Prosody portfolio of hardware and software supports the media processing requirements of military communications platforms:
| Military system requirements | Prosody media processing functionality |
|---|---|
| High density | Scalable to 1200 channels per board (Prosody X cPCI). |
| Standards based | Aculab's products are designed to meet European (ETSI), US (ANSI) and international (ISO) standards to enable interoperability in complex system designs based on multiple sub-systems. |
| Reliability | Prosody X media processing boards and Prosody S HMP software can be operated in a distributed architecture to provide network resilience. |
| Full feature set | Key media processing resources include record and playback with a range of compressions, DTMF tone generation and detection, matrix conferencing, echo cancellation, fax processing and data transmission protocols. Each algorithm can be used separately or in combination to develop more sophisticated solutions, making Prosody X the clear choice for advanced speech processing development. Whether transported by IP or TDM, media is handled by the same DSPs, thus giving a truly flexible platform. Because Prosody X can perform all of these functions on a single board, stock holding and the maintenance cost of spares is greatly reduced. |
| Flexibility | The wide ranging feature set suits many applications - specific military features such as secure voice codecs have been added to meet project requirements. Aculab have a very flexible approach towards the addition of product features requested by customers. |
