
Introduction
The
most critical system for a battleship is
the combat system, which integrates all of
the essential information of a combat situation
to aid the commander in analyzing information
about the battle and making decisions about
tactics. All information related to the battle,
including astronomical and hydrological data,
as well as data from radar, sonar, sensors,
and weapons systems, will be sent to the
situation room for further analysis.
Generally speaking, combat systems can be
divided into two categories, depending on
whether the control system is centralized
or distributed
on the battleship. Centralized control systems
are easy to maintain and are less complicated,
but they are slow to process data from many
sources simultaneously, and can easily cause
the ship's communication system to fail
once the system is damaged. As far as
applying distributed
control systems to a combat system is concerned,
such systems are more sophisticated, and
must maintain
a faster computing speed. However, they will
not cause the entire ship's operations
to be suspended while other parts of the
system are damaged. For this reason, distributed
control systems are widely used in
new generation combat systems.
A complete combat system includes a combat information platform, computing system, and sub-systems, such as radar system, weapons system, sonar system, direction system, and communication system. Information from these systems is integrated in the situation room to form the well-known C4ISR system, which works with an Ethernet network. In the situation room, integrated information is compared and analyzed with the existing combat database to provide more accurate information to the commander.
On battleships, combat systems are required
to work under a severe strain in order to
defeat the ship's adversaries. Information
from various systems needs to be gathered
and
integrated
in real-time to improve reaction speed. In
short, a combat system cannot be allowed
to fail. For this reason, a reliable redundant
communication network is necessary.
Recommended Solution
Since a battleship's combat system
is so important, the network used to communicate
with all related systems needs to be more
robust. The network structure that applies
to a combat system is designed with a dual
Gigabit redundant Turbo ring to provide
redundancy for both the network and switch.
On the device level, each controller or
PLC is connected to two Ethernet switches
from different ring topologies. If one
of the networks or switches is damaged,
the other network or switch will act normally
to back up the damaged element. In addition,
a broad bandwidth with fiber Gigabit ring
can completely satisfy the long-haul and
high transmission demands of a combat system.
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Moxa's EDS
industrial Ethernet switch family is certified
by DNV type approval and prime industry
standards to ensure reliable operation
in rugged ship environments. |
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Moxa's Turbo
Ring supports fast media redundancy, with
a recovery time of less than 300 ms, providing
customers with a reliable and stable network. |
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Moxa's
managed Ethernet switch series provides
easy configuration
and real-time administration via a browser-based
management utility:
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Virtual LAN eases network planning |
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QoS increases determinism of data transmission |
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IGMP snooping and bandwidth control provide better traffic management |
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Manageable real time alerts when exceptions arise |
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Moxa's EDS
managed switches support e-mail and relay
warning by user-configured events. |
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EDS-508-MM-SC
and EDS-726 support fiber optic ports to
handle long distance transmission from
different decks to the ship's central control
room. |
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EDS-508 and EDS-726 series switches are rated to operate at temperatures from 0 to 60°C, which is reliable enough for the equipment to survive in a demanding ship environment (note that “-T” models are rated to operate reliably in a -40 to 75°C temperature range). |