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37 Embedded computing | Focus apply it to unmanned systems. The 6U ATCA (Advanced Telecoms Computing Architecture) standard is used for base station designs, and defines a smaller mezzanine card format called AMC (Advanced Mezzanine Card) that sits on the larger card. These AMC cards have become powerful enough to use in their own right as processing engines within autonomous vehicles. The advantage of using AMC cards is the ability to easily swap out the card for one with a more powerful processor to give better performance. The ATCA format is overseen by the PCI Industrial Computer Manufacturers Group (PICMG), a non-profit consortium of companies and organisations that develops open standards for high-performance telecoms, military, industrial and general-purpose embedded computing applications, so it is a vital part of the development of autonomous systems. The key standards families developed by PICMG include CompactPCI, ATCA, MicroTCA, Advanced and COM-E. For smaller systems, however, there are other card formats such as PC/104 and SMARC, which have their own standard- setting organisations. In the PICMG there are more than 250 member companies providing expertise on mechanical and thermal design, single-board computer design, very high speed signalling design and analysis, networking expertise, backplane and packaging design, power management, high-availability software and comprehensive systems management. The COM-E standard defined by the PICMG is a carrier board and a module that contains the processor. This allows different processors to be used on one carrier to match the power consumption and performance requirements of the design, and it also means the carrier can be quickly and cost-effectively developed to meet a specific design requirement. The pin-out from the COM module is defined, so signals can be brought out to different places on the carrier, depending on the overall system design This avoids having to redesign the high-speed signalling and power lines needed for the processor. COM-E carriers and modules have been ruggedised for UAV designs, particularly for handling sensors. These can bring COM-E together with XMC (Switched Mezzanine Card), which defines a PCI Express link under the VITA 42.3 specification. There is a wide range of XMC cards for functions such as DO-254, 1553 bus and frame grabbers that connect to the COM-E board and the COM module. Additional capabilities such as power hold-up to support 250 ms of power interruption through four supercapacitors can be added, as well as removable or fixed solid-state data storage or a gigabit Ethernet switch that connects directly to the carrier to route the internal signals out to ports on a front panel. There are several types of COM-E Unmanned Systems Technology | October/November 2016 Intel aero – 88 x 63 mm Congatec SMARC-sAMX6 – 50 x 82 mm Type Connector PCI Express lanes IDE SATA LAN Video Serial USB 1 AB 6 No 4 1 LVDS 2 AB 22 1 4 1 LVDS 3 AB+CD 22 No 4 3 LVDS 4 AB+CD 32 1 4 1 LVDS 5 AB+CD 32 No 4 3 LVDS 6 AB+CD 24 No 4 1 3 x DDI CAN USB 3.0 10 AB 4 No 2 1 LVDS CAN USB 3.0 COM-Express types