NAVSEA Office Seeks to More Rapidly Modernize Ship Technology Through Common Hardware: Official

Damage Controlman Fireman Abigail Alejo performs a maintenance check aboard amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli (LHA 7), April 1. *U.S. NAVY / Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Sebastian Minshall*

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — A Naval Sea Systems Command office is seeking to more rapidly modernize ships through a common hardware effort that would make software upgrades easier, an official told attendees at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space symposium April 6.

Ryan Moore, deputy major program manager, said in a briefing on integrated combat systems that his team has focused on the issue of ship hardware and how to ensure commonality across ship classes to better speed technology upgrades to the fleet.

“We’re trying to field hardware on the ships that is common rather than different for each variant,” Moore said. “We want to deliver a common hardware suite that’s a system that can be rapidly updated. We’re doing so by creating a common cabinet and leveraging common software licenses.”

Moore said the Navy is trying to get away from the practice of using major ship availabilities to make hardware upgrades and “cutting holes in the ships.” Instead, his office is working toward a different approach in which the hardware has modules that can be changed.

“We’re able to shorten up installation timelines,” he said. “We can rapidly go and update these components. … It allows us to go off and address any issues that come up from a hardware perspective.”

So, for example, if a ship has an outdated server that became obsolete, and a newer, more advanced server is now available, the team can install the new server because the hardware has been decoupled from the software.

“You don’t have to do a form-fit-function redesign,” Moore said. “That’s the goal here: being able to rapidly modernize respective platforms.”