A new computer for satellites is more powerful than standard On Board Computers. RUAG Space‘s new Lynx computer is 250 times more powerful.
The development was achieved with the help of a contract from the European Space Agency’s program of Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems (ARTES) and has been developed at RUAG Space in Gothenburg, Sweden. “Our computer contains an extreme amount of power,” explains Anders Linder, Senior Vice President Electronics at RUAG Space. Lynx is 250 times more powerful than the normal On Board Computers, which RUAG currently delivers to ESA programs.
“We have been very early with this development. This year, we are seeing that Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning is starting to arrive in space development programs and now we have a computer ready that perfectly matches the requirements of these customers,” says Anders Linder. “Customers who want to do Machine Learning in space need a lot of computing power – which our computer can provide.” The Lynx On Board Computer will be qualified for space until end of 2021.
The Lynx Single Board Computer is designed for a long life in any satellite orbit (e.g. 15 years in geostationary Earth Orbit) or spacecraft trajectory. The computer offers a high-performance processor, which is provided by an ARM processor delivering 30000 DMIPS (short for Dhrystone MIPS, a computing benchmark). “That is a huge leap forward in processing performance for spaceborne computers,” adds Linder. A powerful FPGA (field-programmable gate array) offers flexibility in terms of communication, interface and processing capability. The computer can be used on the platform or in the payload. For its entire electronics portfolio RUAG Space offers a direct technical interface to U.S. clients in its office in Denver, Colorado.