Off-the-shelf development enables rapid platform integration and qualification of small-form-factor prototype systems.
Elma Electronic has released the rugged VersaPLUS Deployment Kit. This first application-ready VNX+ kit facilitates the integration, qualification, and deployment of systems based on the VITA 90 small-form-factor standard.
Available off the shelf, the Deployment Kit enables development-to-deployment within the same system, bringing compact, mission-ready applications to market in a fraction of the time typically needed to deliver an embedded computing system. Specific applications include drones, unmanned ground and maritime systems, wearables, dismounted systems, and C4ISR edge nodes.
Weighing less than six lbs, the kit comes pre-assembled and configured with a Raspberry Pi CM5-based VNX+ single-board computer, giving developers access to a mature Linux ecosystem. An additional payload slot supports different expansion modules, including GPU, FPGA, or high-speed I/O, depending on the intended application.
Mark Littlefield, Director, Embedded Technology, for Elma Electronic, stated, “Architecturally, VNX+ follows the same design principles as OpenVPX, giving developers a familiar baseline when working on small form factor systems. VersaPLUS builds on that familiarity by providing a streamlined path for VNX+ application development to move from integration to qualification to field deployment quickly.”
VersaPLUS features a chassis and backplane aligned to SOSA to support open, standards-based upgrades, facilitate rapid technology insertion, and ensure long-lifecycle support.
The VersaPLUS also includes a 320W power supply in a dedicated VITA 90.3 PSU slot and a VITA 46.11 Tier-3 Chassis Manager with an integrated maintenance port aggregator that provides out-of-band management through the front panel.
The included cabling kit breaks out each rugged front panel connector into a commercial I/O interface for use with standard lab equipment during system development.
The Kit’s architecture features a 40GBASE-KR4 Data Plane, a 10GBASE-KR Control Plane, and a PCIe Gen4 Expansion Plane. VersaPLUS is qualified to MIL-STD-810, MIL-STD-461, MIL-STD-704, MIL-STD-1257 and D0-160.
