pC-NOVA Nucleus™ is Aechelon Technology’s Compact (4U) 8-GPU state-of-the-art image and data generator node fully implemented on a commercial PC hardware with NVIDIA® Quadro® GPUs in a cyber-secured Information Assurance Windows 10 environment; that is delivered as a fully functional, turn-key system for rock-solid 8K e-shift True 120Hz frame rate, full-mission, multi-spectral geo-specific image generation for correlated per-pixel Out-Of-The-Window (OTW), Electro Optical (EO), Infra-Red (IR with SWIR, MWIR, LWIR and VLWIR) and Radar. The systems feature enhanced support for Degraded Visual Environments (DVE) and Aero-Turbulence & Brown-Out enhancements. pC-Nova based systems are currently RFT with several thousand channels in tactics and weapon training, mission rehearsal programs, ground stations and research laboratories.
Aechelon Technology has been delivering hundreds of fully-featured 4U Nucleus 8-GPU nodes per year since 2016 and supports use cases of multiple combined nodes for extreme channel count configurations as well as individual more compact (2U) XR/Mixed Reality XR Station configurations. Aechelon has delivered programs with VR and MR solutions for over 23 years, including support for Varjo VR-1, XR-1, and XR-3 as well as Oculus, HTC, HoloChip, and see-through devices from JVC and SA Photonics.
pC-Nova™ has taken advantage of vertex and pixel shaders since 2000 and has now implemented its seventh generation shader engine in the latest pC-Nova Nucleus™ using gaming industry technology, maintaining its technology lead on competitors who are only now adopting GPU and multi-GPU shader technology. Our units are supported with a cyber-secured Windows 10 diskless architecture proven in the most stringent DoD Information Assurance environments.
The pC-Nova Nucleus™ modular architecture allows multiple node combination (each with 8-GPUs in 4U) supporting extreme channel count configurations with advanced task scheduling enable deterministic real-time performance, low latency, and unprecedented scene complexity, as well as multi-channel and performance scalability. Real-time paging of texture, terrain, and cultural features enable maximum fidelity flight training. pC-Nova databases can contain an unlimited number of high-resolution insets down to inch per texel in a Peta-Byte Scale environment. Real-time load management ensures sustained update rates of True 120Hz at display formats up 8K e-shift to eye-limiting resolution. pC-Nova™’s high-performance rendering supports complex scenes for more effective mission training.
Support for thousands of simultaneous moving models supports realistic tactical scenarios. Controllable model lighting, articulations (landing gear, gear doors, control surfaces, speed brakes), afterburner plumes, propellers and helicopter rotors contribute to scene detail. A comprehensive model library with several thousand models delivered with each pC-Nova™ system contains friendly and hostile aircraft and weapons, ground vehicles, and ship models. Extensive mission functions support collision detection, radar altimetry, line of sight to emitters, laser ranging, and ground reactions.
pC-Nova™ includes an extensive library of highly realistic environment, weather, and special effects to make simulated missions as demanding as in real life. Environment effects include continuous time of day with ephemeris-controlled Sun, Moon, and stars, dawn and dusk horizon glow, real time shadows and high-dynamic range rendering to create veiling glare from the Sun (and from the Moon in NVGs).
Weather effects include visibility, haze, solid and patchy ground fog, three cloud layers, scud, storm fronts, lightning, rain, snow, and wet runways. Special effects launch flash, smoke trails, air, ground, and water explosions, and brown out and rotorwash over dirt, sand, and water. pC-Nova™ features enhanced support for Degraded Visual Environments (DVE).
Lights and their illumination effects are the primary contributor to scene realism for night operations, and pC-Nova™ includes extensive capabilities for their simulation. Model lighting includes navigation lights, anti-collision lights, and covert lighting, with host-controlled intensity. Lighting effects include light lobes from landing, taxi and multiple, simultaneous searchlights (including IR searchlights), glare from ownship lights in clouds, and terrain illumination from flares. All effects may be instanced simultaneously and are correlated and appropriate in the sensor channel scenes.
pC-Nova™ uses Aechelon Technology’s pC-Radiant™ plug-in module to support rendering of out-the-window and sensor scenes in a single runtime engine. This ensures full correlation across all sensors in every training scenario. Per-texel, physics-based with 32 bit floating point spectral responses, are rendered in real time for each sensor using a common material-coded, geospecific database. Accurate effects for FLIR SWIR, MWIR, LWIR, VLWIR, NVG, Day TV, and Low-Light TV and Radar and LiDAR are fully supported, and include automatic and manual gain control, noise, halos, bloom, and atmospherics. Our highly scalable radar data generators are proven and deployed with the largest Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) applications in the world in Very Big Synthetic Aperture Radars (SAR).
Airfield modeling is supported with every known airport light system, including beacons, obstruction lights, Aldis lamp, runway and taxiway edge and centerline lighting, VASI, PAPI, REILS, RAILS, and approach lighting systems with sequenced flashing lights, all with host-controlled intensity.
Operations on air-capable ships are supported with extensive simulation of optical landing systems, including FLOLS, IFLOLS, LRLS, SGSI, GAILS, HARS bar, and HPI. Ocean effects include a three dimensional physics-based 3D sea state, whitecaps, bow and stern wakes with bioluminescence, breaking waves along shorelines, and a raster coastline definition that creates a natural, smooth boundary. Floodlight illumination is supported for both airfields and ships.
Each pC-Nova™ IG is typically delivered with the appropriate stock databases enabling the prime to perform early integration at very low developmental risk pending the delivery of any program-specific additions. pC-Nova™ has full support for the Navy NASMP NPSI standard as well as other customer driven ingestion formats such as OGC CDB.
Aechelon Technology, pC-Nova and C-Radiant are trademarks of Aechelon Technology, Inc.
