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| Rockwell Collins’ FACE-conformant MFMS-1000 software. Photo: Rockwell Collins. |
[Avionics Magazine 06-08-2016] Rockwell Collins’ flight management software (MFMS-1000) has passed verification authority tests and inspections and has been issued a Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) Verification Statement. FACE verification is the process of determining the conformance of a software implementation to specification requirements of the FACE Technical Standard, a standard of The Open Group. According to Rockwell Collins, this is the first such FACE verification that has occurred in the industry since the launch of the FACE consortium.
“The FACE version of our MFMS-1000 is designed to enable the Navy to affordably meet Required Navigation Performance Area Navigation (RNP RNAV) requirements on aircraft currently without this capability, such as the AV-8B, V-22 and MH-60R/S, as well as those used by the other services,” said Troy Brunk, vice president and general manager of airborne solutions for Rockwell Collins.
The MFMS-1000 is a reusable software product developed as hardware and architecture agnostic, meaning it can be ported across different avionics systems from both Rockwell Collins and other vendors.
The FACE Technical Standard was developed by the FACE Consortium, a government and industry partnership to define an open avionics environment for airborne platforms. The consortium’s primary objective includes creating reusable and interoperable software capabilities, while fostering innovation and competition to support the U.S. Department of Defense’s Better Buying Power (BBP) Modular Open Systems Architecture initiative. The FACE approach enhances technology insertion, as well as accelerates and simplifies the delivery of advanced capability into systems.