Naval Tactical Data System
Naval Tactical Data System, abbreviated NTDS, refers to an electronic computer system which has been developed by Remington Rand ( Sperry Rand ) and the U.S. Navy from 1950 to 1960 and was used from 1960 in warships.
History
Warships have operations centers (English Combat Information Center, CIC). In these rooms, all information with respect to positions of aircraft, ships and submarines are merged. 1950-1960 vacuum tubes were replaced with transistors of the miniaturization of computer. In this course until then manually performed processes have been automated and implemented the NTDS systems. Using the data radio link 11 exchanged the individual ships in a federation information and allowed a faster evaluation of the information. The NTDS was the predecessor of today's used on U.S. cruisers and destroyers AEGIS.
The use of electronic systems in particular allow a faster analysis of the situation, as well as a reduction of errors in the evaluation of the information.
Hardware used
A plurality of embedded systems Univac computers, typically with a 30- bit RISC processor and drum 32K memory have been substituted therefor. Systems possessed 16 of I / O peripheral ports, via which the corresponding sensors could be connected, such as radar systems. The computers were cooled by water. The systems were also known as UNIVAC NTDS or UNIVAC 1206/8.
The last generation of computer technology is the NTDS AN/UYK-43, a water-cooled multi-processor computer core, which is produced by Lockheed Martin for the U.S. Navy. The computer is used, inter alia, to control the SPY -1 radar, in the German navy, it is used in the guidance system of the frigate F123.
NTDS interface
For NTDS a proprietary interface architecture of the same name has been developed which is described in U.S. MIL-STD- 1397. This is a - from today's perspective, relatively slow - parallel interface, with which the various components of an NTDS were connected. In order to link more modern civilian hardware, NTDS interface adapter are now offered as a PCI add-on cards for PC systems, eg by the company GET.
The NTDS interface is now considered out of date, because it is not networkable compared to newer technologies (eg, FDDI, MIL -Bus, ATM or Ethernet) and must be programmed relatively expensive to adapt to the particular application. Nevertheless, there are still many military devices such as radars or missile systems are available with this interface.
Seymour Cray and the NTDS
Seymour Cray designed the design of the first systems of AN/USQ-17. With the departure of Seymour Cray at Sperry Rand, the original design has been re-designed and delivered under the name AN/USQ-20. Cray's original design was never put into production.