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This is normal in the defense industry. You must be very careful when you upgrade hardware, because it should be proven that the upgrade provides at least the c
by engi_nerd 10y ago
This is normal in the defense industry. You must be very careful when you upgrade hardware, because it should be proven that the upgrade provides at least the capability of the previous system (regression testing) plus whatever new/improved functionality you plan. Changing hardware on the timescale of consumer electronics is simply not viable, or necessary.
In other words, my response to your statement that the avionics of a fighter jet are "computationally outclassed by a $100 smartphone today" is, "So what?" You buy and test the hardware that you believe is necessary to accomplish the given mission, not the latest-and-greatest for the sake of being the latest-and-greatest.
- rootbear 10y agoSimilar arguments apply to spacecraft. The processors and other IT tech are usually far behind consumer gear. This is party due to the radiation hardening required, but also the lack of a real requirement for the latest-and-greatest.
- dajohnson89 10y agoI have a hard time classifying the computational power of a smartphone as latest-and-greatest.
- engi_nerd 10y agoThat's almost irrelevant. The point is, the computational power on even a 5th generation fighter is much less than a flagship smartphone. Which is fine, because defense acquisition is on a completely different timescale than a typical consumer electronic product.
- nickpsecurity 10y agoI agree with your overall point but not smartphone part. The systems I'm seeing certified for DO178C, etc and defense are usually PowerPC boards with 1-2 cores. PPC always smashed ARM back in the day. So, some are probably better than most smartphones. Just not the highest-end. Which is fine because you're right: they don't need them. I'll add the older nodes were more reliable, too, as it was trivial to get chips to work vs deep sub-micron. I'll take old-school, fault-tolerant chip over modern ASIC any day if ny life is at stake.
- engi_nerd 10y agoMy point was that how much more or less powerful the avionics in a modern fighter are as compared to a modern smartphone is irrelevant. What matters is the ability to accomplish the mission in a robust and fault-tolerant matter.
- nickpsecurity 10y agoI recognized and agreed with that in my comment. Just correcting the misconception that they're all weak. Many are good and some have more than one.