LIVE from the floor of the 2022 Army Aviation Mission Solution Summit, tune in and hear the latest from Greg Tiedemann, product manager for Mercury's mission division, as he discusses how Mercury is using MOSA principles to transform Army aviation and help develop the Aviation Mission Common Server, or AMCS.
LIVE from the floor of the 2022 Army Aviation Mission Solution Summit, tune in and hear the latest from Greg Tiedemann, product manager for Mercury's mission division, as he discusses how Mercury is using MOSA principles to transform Army aviation and help develop the Aviation Mission Common Server, or AMCS.
Ralph Guevarez:
Hello, and welcome to MercuryNOW, a podcast series brought to you by Mercury Systems. I am your host, Ralph Guevarez. Today, we are coming to you live from the Army Aviation Mission Solutions Summit in Nashville, Tennessee, where Mercury is showcasing solutions to make Modular Open Systems Architecture, or MOSA, a reality for Army Aviation. Let's discuss why this matters not only to Army Aviation, but to the Army as a whole. Joining me at this time as a return guest to the MercuryNOW platform, Mr. Greg Tiedemann, Product Manager for Mercury's Mission Division. Greg, great to finally meet you in person.
Greg Tiedemann:
It's nice to finally see you in person too, Ralph.
Ralph Guevarez:
Thank you for being here. So Greg, there's been a lot of discussion around MOSA as it pertains to AMCS. Could you please explain to our viewers why it is so important to army aviation?
Greg Tiedemann:
Sure. I'd be happy to. MOSA stands for Modular Open Systems Architecture. Simply put, it in enables the Army to integrate advanced capabilities and get them out to the battlefield quicker and more affordably than they are today. The Army's goal with MOSA is that their environment or multi-domain environment in the battlefield today is constantly evolving, and MOSA enables them to get these advanced capabilities out there to address some serious operational gaps in their capabilities.
Ralph Guevarez:
Thank you for that, Greg. Now, are Open Standards a requirement for MOSA and could you explain how long Mercury has been working with Open Standards?
Greg Tiedemann:
Absolutely. No, it's a great question, Ralph. Mercury's been involved in Open Standards for well over 30 years. I personally had been involved for the last 15 years, Open Standards like OpenVPX, to get it launched. I talked earlier about what MOSA and these Open Standards has enabled the Army to do by leveraging them. But what it's done for Mercury is it's literally transformed our business, it's enabled us to lower R&D expenses. It's enabled me as a product manager to be able to leverage products from other product groups within Mercury. We're also supporting these Open Standards and that's enabled us to get products out to our customers quicker with lower NRE and address those operational gaps that I just talked about, because really at the end of the day, our goal is to be these latest commercial technologies profoundly more accessible to our customers.
Ralph Guevarez:
Thank you for that, Greg. Now AMCS is getting a lot of attention here at Quad-A I must say, which is fantastic.
Greg Tiedemann:
It is.
Ralph Guevarez:
So two-part question. One, how is it going to transform Army Aviation? And two, how is mercury going to take MOSA and build AMCS?
Greg Tiedemann:
Wow, great question. Let's take a walk and I'll show you in the booth. (silence) Ralph, here we are at the AMCs station in the Quad-A booth. I'm going to take question number two first. How we are using MOSA in AMCS is literally, so I talked earlier about OpenVPX and OpenVPX enables me to use different modules from different. He says, well as from Mercury.
Greg Tiedemann:
I've got a wide range of modules that I'm using in this system from different manufacturers as well as some that we've developed within Mercury. That enables me to build a computer that literally has got 20 to 40 X more performance than what's out there today. The second part of the question is how is it... Or the first part of the question is how's it going to transform the army is literally what I'm showing up here on the screen. If I can deliver 20 to 40 times more performance in a small form factor like this, I can replace a lot of functionality. A lot of systems on the aircraft that are out there deployed today. Literally this is about 100 pounds of hardware that they have on these helicopters today that I can replace with about 30 pounds of hardware and AMCS. Again, it goes back to question number one is that we got to address these operational gaps with the army and give them some more capabilities so that's how AMCS is leveraging MOSA and what we hope to do with the army. I'm really excited about it.
Ralph Guevarez:
Greg, I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your time. It was great having you on the show. It's great to meet you.
Greg Tiedemann:
I really enjoyed it.
Ralph Guevarez:
Great to meet you.
Greg Tiedemann:
Take care.
Ralph Guevarez:
For more information on this and all of our products. Please visit mrcy.com. This is Ralph Guevarez from MercuryNOW, signing off.