The goal of reducing the cost of equipping Army vehicles with new capabilities, while adding increasing interoperability and flexibility of operation, can be accomplished through the use of a Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA), a technical and business strategy for designing an affordable and adaptable system. MOSA, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) mandate for modular open system design, is the preferred method for implementation of open systems, and is required by U.S. law, which states all major defense acquisition programs (MDAP) are to be designed and developed using a MOSA.
The Sensor Open Systems Architecture TM (SOSA) Technical Standard is a MOSA that defines a common framework for transitioning sensor systems to an open systems architecture. The SOSA standard leverages the OpenVPX™ standard to define card profiles with specifications for features such as pinouts, Ethernet capabilities, and serial ports. SOSA establishes command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C5ISR) systems guidelines. The standard’s objective is to allow flexibility in the selection and acquisition of sensors and subsystems that provide sensor data collection, processing, exploitation, communication, and related functions over the entire life cycle of the C5ISR system. SOSA achieves this through hardware and interface interoperability, software portability, and technology reuse across platforms and form factors while facilitating the best commercially developed technology for its affordability, performance, and scalability.
