Northrop Grumman showcases its Smart Integrated Vehicle Area Network (SiVAN)

References: DefPro (1), GlobeNewsWire (2), Northrop Grumman (3)

News Report

As reported by some news sources, Northrop Grumman recently unveiled the new Smart Integrated Vehicle Area Network (SiVAN), which provides even greater capabilities and important reductions in size, weight and power over larger centralized hub style systems while still reducing warfighter workload and greatly enhancing situational awareness.

SiVAN builds on Northrop Grumman's innovative vehicle digital backbone technology. The company's open architecture, "plug-and-play" digital backbone is designed specifically for military vehicles and brings highly survivable network communications, sensor integration and cross-cueing to ground vehicle platforms. 

The System

SiVAN is a highly survivable information network that ties current disparate technologies together into one integrated infrastructure. An infrastructure that ultimately serves as the foundation for adding all future capabilities. SiVAN operates as an open systems architecture that integrates zero configuration standards to create true plug-and-play capability.

SiVAN provides a self-forming information link between devices, local area dismounts, UAVs, and any other platform allowing them all to seamlessly interoperate.

SiVAN consists of a Smart display, an Ethernet cable, and device interfaces.

Scalable and modular, SiVAN is compliant with the VICTORY architecture (Vehicular Integration for C4ISR/Electronic Warfare Interoperability), i.e. the US Army effort to develop, validate, demonstrate and maintain a set of open standards for the integration of C4ISR and related items of equipments on Army platforms.

The goals of VICTORY are to facilitate a decrease in Size, Weight, and Power requirements (SWaP) , improve technology transition and provide evolutionary growth in capabilities. VICTORY standards are developed in cooperation with industry and are open to support multi-vendor implementation. It is the intent for these standards to be used in a large number of future acquisition programs.

Comments

"Users at recent SiVAN field tests were extremely pleased with the system's overall superior performance, ranging from simplicity of design and ease of installation to exceptionally low video latency and minimal vehicle footprint," said Kay Burch, vice president of communications, intelligence and networking solutions for Northrop Grumman's Land and Self Protection Systems Division. "Invariably, we find vehicle crew members are immediately comfortable and confident using the intuitive and very user-friendly graphics user interface."

"We provide an inherently future-proofed architecture designed to integrate today's legacy stove-piped systems simply and efficiently while accommodating future capabilities and technologies as they come online," Burch added.
Additional Information

• SIVAM video (link)