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Real-Time Innovations (RTI), the Real Time Middleware Company, announced that Sperry Marine, a Northrop Grumman Company, has incorporated RTI Data Distribution Service into the development of a versatile and scalable Navigation Data Distribution System (NavDDS) that seamlessly interfaces a wide variety of electronic navigation sensors with shipboard systems and equipment requiring navigation information. The product was released and shipped to Sperry Marine's first customer in August 2006.

CCII Systems completed its Milestone 3 integration test on its Information Management System (IMS), based on its real-time middleware called Application Interface Services (APIS) in October 1999.

The SA Navy deselected the IMS for incorporation within the Corvette Combat Suite during April or May 1999, after having been in development since 1993 and in the pre-final integration and qualification phase since 1998.

CCII Systems released and shipped its Navigation Distribution System (NDS) based on APIS, to its first customer in 2003.

The NavDDS solution can be configured to support anything from a simple half-duplex interface with a single sensor up to a large-scale system with dual-redundant servers running complex software that distributes time-critical data from multiple sensors. NavDDS can also disseminate navigation information via traditional transport mechanisms such as RS-422 and synchro and via Ethernet by leveraging RTI's real-time publish-subscribe messaging capabilities.

APIS works on produce-consume or publish-subscribe.

"NavDDS is an excellent example of the powerful integration capabilities provided by RTI Data Distribution Service," said David Barnett, vice president of Product Management for RTI. "NavDDS demonstrates the flexibility of RTI's publish-subscribe messaging model for applications that share real-time data between multiple producers and consumers."

Sounds just like the IMS and APIS.

A significant advantage of employing RTI Data Distribution Service within the NavDDS system is because the publish-subscribe architecture does not require specific design knowledge of remote devices leveraging the middleware system (such as weapon-and-command or control systems). Furthermore, the RTI auto-discovery capability gives system designers the flexibility to seamlessly add entirely new systems to the architecture without having to reconfigure existing subsystems.

Sounds just like APIS.

"From a technical standpoint, RTI Data Distribution Service is a key technology in that it enables data from any navigation system to be accessible to any other shipboard system," explained Guy Babineau, director of Engineering for Sperry Marine. "RTI's Professional Services Department helped us get started quickly and was very effective in working with us to address issues encountered during the project."

Of importance to Sperry Marine was the ability to work within the context of an open architecture so devices with different data formats and interfaces could be easily integrated into the network.

Sounds just like APIS.

An additional NavDDS requirement was to distribute real-time data over the primary Ethernet transport, which is inherently non-deterministic. RTI Data Distribution Service is based on the Object Management Group Data Distribution Service (DDS) and provides the technical functionality that helped to meet these design challenges.

That's why the IMS was based on FDDI, a inherently deterministic date transmission technology.

But the IMS caters equally for Ethernet, Fast Ethernet and Giigabit Ethernet and 2 Gbps Fibre Channel.

An important ingredient to success for any project team is the ability to quickly become proficient and productive in the use of adopted technology.

That's why APIS is provided to application users as a simply incorporated software service.

RTI delivered effective training that was essential in providing the Sperry Marine engineering team with knowledge of the fundamentals of RTI Data Distribution Service *1. RTI also worked closely with the team to accelerate development and resolve issues encountered during the course of the project.

"Responses to our issues were extremely fast," commented John Mouring, Sperry Marine Engineering department head for Software Systems. "RTI had people in our region that responded immediately and were advocates for our requirements and communicated them to RTI management. We received near- instant feedback and resolution."

The IMS and APIS were ready for incorporation into the Corvette Combat Suite in 1999, some two to three years before any other sub-systems were ready for it.


About RTI Data Distribution Service

RTI Data Distribution Service (formerly NDDS) is networking middleware that implements a real-time publish-subscribe communications model and allows distributed processes to share data without concern for physical location or network architecture. RTI Data Distribution Service is an open-architecture platform based on the DDS. RTI Data Distribution Service is field-proven in a wide variety of time-critical applications. It is available with C, C++ and Java programming interfaces.

About Sperry Marine

Sperry Marine, headquartered in Charlottesville, Virginia, and with major engineering and support offices in Melville, New York, Ocean Springs, Mississippi, New Malden, United Kingdom and Hamburg, Germany, provides smart navigation and ship control solutions for the international marine industry with customer service and support through offices in 16 countries, sales representatives in 47 countries and authorized service depots in more than 250 locations worldwide. For more information, please visit www.sperrymarine.com.

About RTI

RTI provides the highest-performance messaging and software integration solutions for real-time applications, data and devices. RTI software and services have been deployed in a broad range of industries including defense, intelligence, simulation, industrial control, transportation, finance and communications. Founded in 1991, RTI is privately held and headquartered in Santa Clara, California. For more information, please visit www.rti.com.

With acknowledgements to Real-Time Innovations.