Defense Articles

SMALL ARMS AND MACHINE GUNS

M16A2 5.56MM RIFLE

A 5.56mm magazine-fed, gas-operated weapon, the M16A2 is an upgraded M16A1 rifle that was originally fielded in the late 1960s during the Vietnam War. Improvements to the Al included a heavier barrel, improved sights, rifling twist and hand guards, and a three-round burst-fire selector. The weapon has a maximum effective range of more than 600 yards at point targets, and more than 860 yards at an area target.

The M16A2 has a magazine capacity of 30 rounds. The M16A2 began entering Marine Corps service in 1984 and is fielded to all active and reserve units.

M16A2 SQUAD ADVANCED MARKSMAN (SAM) 5.56MM RIFLE

The SAM is an enhanced M16 rifle with a match-grade barrel, free-floated hand guards and trigger assembly integrated to create a new precision weapon. The flat-top upper receiver allows for the attachment of high-quality optics. SAMs will give the infantry squad sniper rifle capability. SAMs were fielded in 2003 for ongoing evaluation.

M16A4 5.56MM RIFLE

The M16A4 rifle is an improved M16A2 and is part of the Modular Weapon System (MWS). The M16A4 incorporates a military standard M1913 rail adapter system (RAS) that allows for rapid mounting of various accessories such as day/night/thermal optics, infrared laser pointers, flashlights and the M203 grenade launcher. The MWS reduces the number of components required to attach accessories and allows for configuration management at the operator level.

The M16A4 has the same capabilities as the M16A2 except that the rear sight can only be elevated to a maximum sight range of 600 yards, instead of 860 yards, due to a shorter elevating screw required for the detachable rear carry handle. The Marine Corps began fielding the M16A4 in 2003 and expects to complete fielding during 2007.

M4 5.56MM CARBINE

The M4 carbine is a shortened version (16-inch as opposed to 20-inch) of the M16 series of weapons and is also part of the MWS. The M4 is a semi-automatic and select-fire three-round burst weapon. The M4 also incorporates the M1913 RAS and detachable carrying handle. The M4 carbine is being fielded to ground forces and augments the M16A4 as part of the MWS.

M4A1 5.56MM CLOSE-QUARTERS BATTLE WEAPON (CQBW)

The M4A1 is a 5.56mm, selective-fire carbine that accommodates a variety of detachable, mission-oriented accessories, including aiming devices and a sound suppressor. The M4A1 replaced the MP5N in 1998, alleviating the need for Marines assigned to closequarters battle (CQB) missions to carry both the M16A2 and the CQB submachine gun. It enables operators to engage targets at normal small-arms ranges during ingress to and egress from the objective area, and at ranges of 25 meters or less in confined spaces while minimizing the possibility of injury to noncombatants.

M9/M9A1 9MM PISTOL

The Beretta M9 is a 9mm, 15-round, semi-automatic, magazinefed pistol - first issued in 1985 - that has an effective range of 50 meters. The new M9A1 is an improved version that allows for attachment of PAQ-6 laser-aiming device. This new pistol is designed to increase security force, antiterrorism team, military police and force recon unit capability in close-quarter confrontations.

MEU(SOC) .45-CALIBER PISTOL

The MEU(SOC) .45-caliber pistol is a semi-automatic weapon based on the M1911 .45 of a generation past. The MEU(SOC) provides force-reconnaissance Marines involved in direct-action missions a reliable, secondary weapon. This pistol was first fielded in the 1980s. A newer version is under assessment for fielding. Maximum effective range is about 50 yards. This pistol has a capacity of eight rounds, with one round loaded in the chamber.

M14 DESIGNATED MARKSMAN RIFLE (DMR)

The DMR is a modified, precision-grade M14 7.62mm rifle. Each DMR is custom built at Precision Weapons sections, Weapons Training Battalion, Quantico, Va. Its accuracy and lethality provide units greater operational flexibility and survivability during day operations. It has an effective range of 770 meters. Marine Corps military police special reaction teams and fleet antiterrorism support teams use the DMR for antiterrorism and security missions. Explosive ordnance disposal teams also use the DMR for their standoff munitions disposal mission.

M4OA3 7.62MM SNIPER RIFLE

The M40A3 is a Marine Corps-designed, bolt-action, 7.62mm sniper rifle first fielded in 2001. Each M40A3 is custom built at Precision Weapons Section, Weapons Training Battalion, Quantico, Va. The mounting rail allows for attachment of day or night optics. The M40A3 has an effective range of 1,000 yards.

M82A3 .5O-CALIBER SPECIAL APPLICATION SCOPED RIFLE (SASR)

The SASR is a commercial-off-the-shelf .50-caliber sniper rifle built by Barren Industries. The weapon is effective against antimateriel targets at ranges up to 2,000 yards. The Marine Corps first fielded the M82A1 in 1989. The current A3 configuration incorporates safety and reliability improvements to extend the service life. The Army currently fields the M107 that is essentially the same rifle. The Marine Corps will convert the M82A3 to the M107 to achieve long-term maintenance support goals.

Paul: In videogames, terrorism is the new kidnapping. Used to be, when game developers needed to whip up an antagonist in a hurry, they just had a couple of beefy thugs sucker-punch the main character’s girlfriend and carry her away. These days, they have some militia-like organization try to blow stuff up. Syphon Filter doesn’t dress up the clich?—the game is full of bombs to disarm and villains with silly accents to shoot, and that’s just fine. Straightforward run-and-gun action gets the blood pumping.

…Until you have to stop to check the map, which is all the time. That’s a problem, because looking at the map doesn’t suspend the action. Bad guys will shoot you dead while you figure out whether your objective is on the second floor or the third. (Poor sportsmanship!) As irritating as that is, it’s manageable; just be sure you’ve killed all the enemies in the area before you plan a route to the next goal.

But what’s with all the busywork? Every level has at least one painfully repetitive tacked-on objective. Set five C4 charges. Collect six data samples. On one mission you’re asked to lock the four entrances of a terrorist-held building so that the local police don’t wander inside and get killed. Is that a job for a supersecret agent? The game would have been stronger without so much pointless padding. Thankfully, once you’ve accomplished any part of an objective, it stays done even if you die.

In fact, dying is hardly a setback in Omega Strain. Kicking the bucket hurts your score (which unlocks optional levels and better weaponry), but it doesn’t slow your progress through the story. It’s a pretty clever setup, actually. Casual gamers can blast through this adventure in a weekend, while more serious players will want to hone their skills and improve their score in order to see everything the game has to offer.

Shawn: Omega Strain displays all the initial symptoms of a smart shoot-em-up but degenerates into a low-fever game of good guy/bad guy. After lying dormant for years, the series should show visible signs of improvement, and in that respect, Strain doesn’t disappoint. Around the world in 17 scenic and exciting missions, you’ll visit (and violate) the palaces of tin-pot generalissimos, slip through dusty Middle Eastern marketplaces in disguise, and duel snipers in Russian snowfields. A few too many missions ask you to play errand boy—plant explosives here, and here, and, oh yeah, over here too—but you’ll have some say over your itinerary and can see the story through even after scrapping several of the less interesting objectives.

It’s the controls, however, that’ll get under your skin. Auto-lock is so useless that enemies will ask for seconds even when it looks like you’re force-feeding ’em whole magazines. The rest works, just not very well. For instance, Strain maps aiming and movement to the same analog stick, so you can’t shoot accurately without stopping to bring up your scope. Splitting up your duties with three other germ warriors in co-op quadruples the strategy and takes the sting out of backtracking, but sickly controls still contaminate the online experience.

Shoe: This game feels so piecemeal, and I mean that in the most unflattering way possible. I imagine part of the development process went something like this:

“Hey, how come some of the levels are full of extra paths and real estate that don’t necessarily make sense?”

“We had extra memory.”

“What about controls? We do have this archaic control scheme leftover from pre-dual-analog-stick days….”

“Done and done.”

“Oh crap, we ran out of buttons on the controller. How will the players change weapons? Ooh! Light-bulb moment! How about the weapon-select on…the Select button! But that would be very awkward for players. Plus, if they run out of ammo and have to switch weapons in the middle of a firefight, they’ll have to let go of the analog stick and become immobile—a total sitting duck.”

“Hey, then God shouldn’t have named that button ‘Select.’ Do it…do it.”

I abuse because I care. The Omega Strain had so much potential, with a great rewards system that gives you lots of stuff to unlock and four-player cooperative online play (which, by the way, gives us yet another button that creates a sitting-duck situation: Up on the D-pad to voice chat, so forget about talking to your human teammates while the action’s hot). But sloppy game design and cumbersome controls filter out almost all of the fun.

Like taking down targets with a shot to the head? Or is hosing the place down with hot lead while screaming “Get some!” more your style? Depending on your strategy, Syphon Filter rewards you with different gear and guns. Sharpshooting, for instance, will earn sniper rifles, whereas playing the wild man is more likely to get you submachine guns.

Lease don’t hate us—we recently got to play multiplayer Halo 2. If it helps any, we can tell you that the game is damn good and that your long wait until its November 9 release will be well worth suffering through. We played one mode (one-sided capture the flag) on one map (Zanzibar, an African beach) for hours, and we would’ve kept on going if we weren’t told to leave by the people working the demo. Jerkstores.

We learned a few interesting things along the way, which we’re passing along to you here. Bottom line: It’s really just “more and better Halo” rather than anything revolutionary, but heck, that’s fine by us.

If this li’l guy (6) can make it to the upstairs control panel, he can open up the main gate (7) to make it much easier for his invading teammates to get in and out of this base. These barrels (8) can be blown up, too. OK, so not everything’s so innovative….

Here’s what the outside looks like with that gate open (9). Other interactive bits include these shutters (10), which defenders can close but still poke through for a protective vantage point. (11) A crushed johnson is not an honorable way to die.

We know: Halo 2 will support at least 16 players (1), including combinations of four teams of four or even eight teams of two.

We wonder: How eight-team (not player, but team) capture the flag could work. Bungie is actually working on this—trying to make every mode work with every possible combination of players and teams, including capture the flag for eight groups at once.

We know: That’s a rocket launcher mounted on the back of this Warthog jeep (2), not a machine gun like in the last game. We also know it’s a lot more fun to blow stuff up than to put a bunch of bullets in said stuff.

We were told: Enemy players may be able to pull you off of this turret to use it for themselves. This should lead to some interesting road-rage moments when players work out who gets to use this ride. Remember, a Warthog has room for three: driver, passenger, and gunner.

We know: You can play as the alien Covenant or the human Spartans, the badass space marine unit of which tough-guy protagonist Master Chief is a member. You can also jump higher than in the first game (3). It feels too floaty at first, but we quickly got used to it.

We’re not sure: If Covenant players will have different physical characteristics (jumping height, speed, etc.) than Spartans. We asked three different people working on the game—and got three totally different responses. Guess we’ll have to wait and see. But we did get a hint that the Covenant may be playable in the single-player campaign mode! When we pushed for more details, one product manager would only smile and say, “Bungie has a lot of tricks up its sleeve for Halo 2.”

We know: Like in the Quake series, some of the more powerful power-ups will be just out of reach. Past the hub of this giant windmill (4) is an Energy Sword. To get to it, you’ll have to find and destroy a metal pin to lower a bridge to this spot, then climb through a small opening.

We also know: The sword is one helluva weapon. It’s worth the effort to get it, but it takes valuable seconds away during the timed capture the flag matches.

We know: You can hold two one-handed guns at the same time (5), which is called “dual-wielding.” You lose the ability to throw grenades, but you can always drop a gun if you have to. You can double up the firepower with two submachine guns (one of the new weapons in Halo 2) or try a smart combo, like a needler pistol for long-range tracking and an SMG for short-range business. By the way, the new assault rifle has a scope now.

“Dual-wielding”? Sure, it doesn’t roll off your tongue, but as associate editor Shawn Elliott says, “Better than calling it ‘double-fisting.’”

These Ghosts (12) can now boost for superspeed, but you sacrifice lasers and mobility when doing so. Vehicles also take location-specific damage (13), which can affect handling. If the driver’s going slow enough, try hopping on and kicking them off (14).

Bungie calls ’em “the ultimate son-of-a-bitch stick.” (15) OK, we’ll call them that, too. You can wield these Energy Swords for one-hit kills if you get close enough to lock on. Also, check out the logo on the personalized armor (16)

These networks would exploit the crossing of coplanar signal paths.

NASA’s jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California

Architectures that would exploit the distinct characteristics of quantum-dot cellular automata (QCA) have been proposed for digital communication networks that connect advanced digital computing circuits. In comparison with networks of wires in conventional very-large-scale integrated (VLSI) circuitry, the networks according to the proposed architectures would be more compact. The proposed architectures would make it possible to implement complex interconnection schemes that are required for some advanced parallel– computing algorithms and that are difficult (and in many cases impractical) to implement in VLSI circuitry.

The difficulty of implementation in VLSI and the major potential advantage afforded by QCA were described previously in “Implementing Permutation Matrices by Use of Quantum Dots” (NPO-20801), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 25, No. 10 (October 2001), page 42. To recapitulate: Wherever two wires in a conventional VLSI circuit cross each other and are required not to be in electrical contact with each other, there must be a layer of electrical insulation between them. This, in turn, makes it necessary to resort to a noncoplanar and possibly a multilayer design, which can be complex, expensive, and even impractical. As a result, much of the cost of designing VLSI circuits is associated with minimization of data routing and assignment of layers to minimize crossing of wires. Heretofore, these considerations have impeded the development of VLSI circuitry to implement complex, advanced interconnection schemes.

On the other hand, with suitable design and under suitable operating conditions, QCA-based signal paths can be allowed to cross each other in the same plane without adverse effect. In principle, this characteristic could be exploited to design compact, coplanar, simple (relative to VLSI) QCA-based networks to implement complex, advanced interconnection schemes.

The proposed architectures require two advances in QCA-based circuitry beyond basic QCA-based binary-signal wires described in the cited prior article. One of these advances would be the development of QCA-based wires capable of bidirectional transmission of signals. The other advance would be the development of QCA circuits capable of highimpedance state outputs. The high-impedance states would be utilized along with the 0- and 1-state outputs of QCA.

A QCA-based wire for bidirectional communication (see Figure 1) would be terminated in two branches at each end - one branch for input, the other for output. To enable binary signals to propagate both from the left input to the right output terminal and from the right input to the left output terminal, it would be necessary to apply suitably phased clock signals (bias voltages) to QCA subarrays at various positions along the main wire and the end branches. (For complex reasons that must be omitted from this article for lack of space, such clocking is needed in any event to prevent spurious outputs. Here, the clocking would be exploited for the additional purpose of bidirectional communication.)

One especially useful interconnection network is an N x N crossbar network. A QCA circuit capable of a high-impedance output state would be needed to implement a crosspoint switch in a crossbar network. This is because while all N input lines cross a given output line, only one input line is allowed to put a signal on that output line; in other words, the connections between the other input lines and the given output line are required to be of high impedance in order to block signals.

Figure 2 depicts a proposed QCA– based crosspoint switch and a 3 x 3 crossbar network. The crosspoint switch would contain several branched QCA subarrays excited by suitably phased clock signals, and one of the quantum cellular automatons would serve as a control switch. The input signal I^sub i^ would propagate toward the output line along one branch and, by suitable clocking and coupling, would be converted to another signal, I^sub f^ propagating toward the output line along another branch. The application of a “0″ signal to the control switch would cause l^sub i^ and I^sub f^ to be of the same state (both 0 or both 1), thereby causing the signal Ii to be coupled onto the output line; in effect, the crosspoint switch would be in a low-impedance state. On the other hand, the application of a “1″ signal to the control switch would cause I^sub f^ to be the opposite of I^sub i^, thereby preventing coupling of either I^sub i^ or I^sub f^ onto the output line; in effect, the crosspoint switch would be in a high-impedance state.

This work was done by Amir Fijany, Nikzad Toomarian, Katayoon Modarress, and Matthew Spotnitz of Caltech for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. For further information, access the Technical Support Package (TSP) free on-line at uwm corn/tsp under the Computers/Electronics category. NPO-20855

AUSTIN, Texas — Engineers now can use four new National Instruments (Nasdaq:NATI) 26.5 GHz PXI switch modules and the latest version of the company’s NI Switch Executive switch management software for PXI-based RF and microwave test applications. The switches, combined with the new per-path calibration capability of NI Switch Executive 2.1, offer modularity and programming flexibility for communication test systems.

The National Instruments PXI-2596, PXI-2597, PXI-2598 and PXI-2599 are multiplexers, SPDT relays and transfer switch modules designed for routing RF or microwave signals in automated test applications. The new modules offer 26.5 GHz switching in multiple PXI configurations for a complete switching solution on one platform. Using microwave relays from Radiall, each module is designed to operate with less than 1 dB insertion loss up to 26.5 GHz, minimizing impact on the test system and appearing almost invisible to signals at much lower frequencies. They are ideal for passing high-order harmonics from RF upconverters, such as the NI PXI-5671 2.7 GHz vector signal generator, or routing multiple sources to RF downconverters, such as the NI PXI-5660 2.7 GHz vector signal analyzer.

Engineers can use the NI PXI-2597 50-ohm terminated multiplexer to route signals while avoiding reflections in high-power applications. The PXI-2596 offers a higher-density, unterminated option with dual 6×1 multiplexer banks in the same module. The PXI-2598 and PXI-2599 operate as transfer switches or SPDT relays, respectively, for basic signal routing or inserting and removing components in a single path.

To configure and control these new RF/microwave switch modules, engineers can use NI Switch Executive 2.1, which introduces several new features for Excel integration, RF switching and switch system debugging. The updated software gives engineers programmatic access to settings on a per-switch route basis so they can store RF path calibration and parametric information, improving overall test system accuracy. With the new configuration programming interface, engineers can completely specify and configure their NI Switch Executive virtual device from any programming environment, including NI TestStand test management software, the NI LabVIEW graphical development environment, NI LabWindows/CVI ANSI C development software and Microsoft Excel. With this new functionality, engineers can import existing switch route documents created in Excel into the NI Switch Executive environment, making them easier to maintain and modify. The new release also features interactive switch control and debugging panels to further accelerate system development by visually specifying and viewing switch closures. NI Switch Executive delivers an intuitive programming interface, abstracting low-level switch programming and configuration from test applications greatly increasing test code reuse and switch system maintenance.

The PXI-2596, PXI-2597, PXI-2598 and PXI-2599 modules add to the more than 100 switch configurations available from National Instruments in the modular PXI and SCXI platforms. When combined with modular instruments and intuitive software such as NI Switch Executive, engineers can use these switches to form the building blocks of functional test systems, in-circuit testers or manufacturing defect analyzers in a variety of industries.

About NI Modular Instruments

NI offers essential technologies for test, which combine high-performance hardware, flexible software and innovative timing and synchronization technology for test and design applications. NI modular instruments offer accurate, high-throughput measurements from DC to 2.7 GHz. The product family includes:

–High-resolution digitizers (up to 24 bits, up to 250 MS/s)

–Signal generators (up to 16 bits, 200 MS/s)

–Digital waveform generator/analyzers (up to 400 Mb/s)

–Digital multimeters (up to 7 1/2 digits)

–RF vector signal generators and analyzers (up to 2.7 GHz)

–Dynamic signal analyzers (up to 24 bits, 500 kS/s)

–Switching (multiplexers, matrices and general purpose)

About PXI

PCI eXtensions for Instrumentation (PXI) is an open specification governed by the PXI Systems Alliance (www.pxisa.org) that defines a rugged, CompactPCI-based platform optimized for test, measurement and control. It is supported by more than 65 member companies and more than 1,150 products are available. PXI products are compatible with the CompactPCI industrial computer standard and offer additional features such as environmental specifications, standardized software and built-in timing and synchronization.

About National Instruments

National Instruments (www.ni.com) is a technology pioneer and leader in virtual instrumentation — a revolutionary concept that has changed the way engineers and scientists in industry, government and academia approach measurement and automation. Leveraging PCs and commercial technologies, virtual instrumentation increases productivity and lowers costs for test, control and design applications through easy-to-integrate software, such as NI LabVIEW, and modular measurement and control hardware for PXI, PCI, USB and Ethernet. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, NI has more than 3,600 employees and direct operations in nearly 40 countries. In 2004, the company sold products to more than 25,000 companies in 90 countries. For the past six years, FORTUNE magazine has named NI one of the 100 best companies to work for in America. Readers can obtain investment information from the company’s investor relations department by calling 512-683-5090, e-mailing nati@ni.com or visiting www.ni.com/nati.

San Jose, Calif.–Fujitsu Microelectronics Inc. (FMI) unveiled a second generation asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) backbone device–the first in a planned series of upgraded ATM products made using FMI’s 0.5-micron CMOS process technology. The MB86681 self-routing switch element (SRE-L), revealed last month in an exclusive preview (EN, March 4), is designed for 155-megabit-per-second ATM switching hubs, routers and network access controllers.

FMI’s announced ATM strategy remains focused on the 155M/ps standard for now, the company said. Reinforcing that goal, the company took its earlier 155M/ps SRE device, the MB86680 (EN, Aug. 30, 1993) and souped up the features, including increased output buffers, Early Packet Discard (EPD) capability and enhanced flow control.

Anticipating a June availability date, FMI last week debuted the MB86681 at the Networld +Interop trade exhibit in Las Vegas. The device will be packaged in a 208-pin LPFP, priced at $75 each in production volumes.

Designed for matrix interconnection, the MB86681 includes separate 8-bit z input and output ports operating at up to 25MHz. For larger capacity switches, the SRE-L matrices can be connected into Delta switch topologies.

Internal output buffers with a 146-cell capacity can be divided into a 121-cell low-priority queue and a 25-cell high-priority queue. A control bit in the routine tag determines cell priority and an enhanced flow control feature uses selective cell discard.

“With its large output buffers and sophisticated flow control capability, the SRE-L enables a significant improvement in high-end ATM systems by reducing queue delay and enhancing overall system efficiency,” said Barry Marsh, director of Enterprise Products for FMI.

FMI said it will continue to provide its first generation ATM products, even as the new devices are introduced. Other planned rollouts include a second generation SAR chip, a Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) framer, as well as a single-chip network interface card (NIC) combining the SAR and framer. Samples of the planned devices are expected within six months, the company said.

AIRLINE INDUSTRY INFORMATION-(C)1997-2007 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD

No traces have yet been found of Adam Air Flight KI-574, which disappeared on 1 January with 102 passengers and crew on board.

Patrick Smith, a United States-based airline pilot and aviation commentator, has said that “whatever happened to the plane, it was likely rapid and catastrophic”. He suggested massive structural failure or an on-board explosion as potential causes of the disappearance. According to Smith it is not unheard of for aircraft not to issue a mayday. This is because the cockpit crew is too busy dealing with the situation at hand to call for help.

The head of the search and rescue mission Eddy Suyanto has said that the aircraft left Indonesia’s main island of Java for Manado on Sulawesi Island. It lost contact with air traffic control about halfway through the two-hour flight after twice having altered its course over water and land due to severe weather.

Suyanto said today (5 January) that the search has been widened to sites further north and east, Reuters reported.

AIRLINE INDUSTRY INFORMATION-(C)1997-2007 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD

A new statement from Iksan Tatang, the director general of air transportation in Indonesia, appears to contradict earlier reports stating that the pilot of the missing Adam Air aircraft had sent distress calls before the aircraft disappeared.

The official reportedly said that the aircraft did not issue distress signals or report mechanical problems and although the crew reported winds as high as 74 knots before losing contact with the ground on 1 January, there were no complaints regarding navigation, the condition of the aircraft itself or other technical problems.

However two signals from the aircraft’s emergency beacon, a device that is activated on impact, were picked up by another aircraft nearby as well as by a satellite.

The aircraft was halfway through a flight from Java to Manado on Sulawesi Island when it disappeared.

Officials previously indicated that the pilot had sent out two distress signals, according to The Associated Press.

AIRLINE INDUSTRY INFORMATION-(C)1997-2007 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD

Beaches in Indonesia have been searched for debris from the missing Adam Air Boeing 737-400 that disappeared on 1 January.

Indonesian troops reportedly searched beaches over the weekend (13-14 January). According to Reuters, mostly small parts of the aircraft have been found at roughly the same location.

It has been suggested that the aircraft crashed into the sea off the west coast of Sulawesi island and broke up into small pieces.

First Air Marshal Eddy Suyanto, the head of the search mission, has said that the aim is to find the aircraft’s main body and the flight recorder.

A machine tool may be designed and built to maintain a particular tolerance, but wear and temperature changes will affect its capability to maintain factory specs.

Hamilton-Sundstrand, a manufacturer of aerospace fuel handling systems, auxiliary power units (APUs), and wing flap actuation systems, ensures its machines, both old and new, can handle tight-tolerance parts by using machine-tool calibration and inprocess probing technologies.

The company’s Grand Junction, CO plant specializes in machining complex housings, forgings, and other components. Most parts require four- and five-axis CNC equipment to produce, and typical aerospace tolerances of 0.001″ (0.03 mm) true position, 0.0005″ (0.013 mm) diameter, and surface profile of 0.002″ (0.06 mm) apply. Machining is done using many machines that transferred into the plant in 1985, along with new equipment purchased annually.

The company gets the most out of all its machines by monitoring its manufacturing processes, machine tool performance, and product quality. The program includes both consistent machine tool maintenance and in-process part probing using technology developed by Renishaw Inc. (Hoffman Estates, IL).

Parts made by the air-inlet cell provide a good example. The cell produces air inlets for APUs, and other components for aircraft environmental systems. The air-inlet part family is processed with multiple lathe, machining center, and grinding operations.

One specific horizontal machining center operation generates two machined bores to 0.001″ concentricity, regardless of feature size (RFS). These features are difficult because the two bores are dimensioned from a datum bore previously machined on a lathe. The datum bore is on the backside of the part, nearly 12″ (305 mm) away along the Z-axis.

One of the two bores, a liner bore, is more than 4″ (102 mm) long, with a total tolerance of 0.0007″ (0.018 mm). The second is a 5″ (127-mm) diam bore with 0.001″ total tolerance. It has six vertical slots that create a severe interrupted cut.

Chipmaking doesn’t begin on the cell’s Kearney & Trecker HMC until a Renishaw MP3 probe aligns the fixture and part to the machine’s axis system. The probing program automatically downloads fixture offsets to the machine CNC, aligning the workpiece in all three axes. All peripheral features are machined in a 20-minute sequence.

To compensate for expansion that occurs during machining, the machine probes the centerline of the part a second time before cutting the liner bore and the interrupted bore. This step recalibrates all machine axes to the operating temperature of the machine tool.

Probing routines are defined internal to the CNC program to ensure minimal probing cycle time. Each probe cycle takes less than two minutes and minimizes costly rework or even scrap.

Personnel also regularly monitor all the company’s CNC machines using Renishaw’s QC1O ballbar. At the first sign of nonconforming parts, the machinist sets up and conducts a ballbar diagnostic test. The test checks 14 different geometric parameters in less than 20 minutes. The ballbar tracks machine movement to +/-0.5 (mu)m, and has a resolution of 0.1 (mu)m. Servo mismatch, linear compensation, squareness, and backlash errors are easily identified and corrected by maintenance personnel.

The ballbar also helps maintenance personnel speed troubleshooting, and the periodic checks reduce unscheduled downtime by tracking trends in machine performance. Problems can be identified before a machine tool goes down, allowing for scheduled repairs rather than production crises.

But ballbar monitoring doesn’t provide all the information necessary for in-depth machine evaluation and calibration. Hamilton-Sundstrand also uses a Renishaw ML10 laser calibration system to precisely evaluate linear and angular movement along a machine axis, and to measure, adjust, and verify pitch and yaw errors.

The company has developed such a high level of confidence in the ballbar and laser systems that test requirements are written into machine buy-off cycles for every purchase order for new equipment. All new machining center purchases include spindle probing as a must-have option. Circle 224.