Posted by John Keller

MIDDLETON, Wis., 14 Aug. 2011. Extreme Engineering Solutions Inc. (X-ES) in Middleton, Wis., is introducing the XPand6000 rugged air transport rack (ATR) embedded computing chassis for avionics and vetronics -- especially small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The chassis measures 4.88 by 1.9 by 7.7 inches and weighs less than 4.5 pounds populated, company officials say.

The XPand6000 chassis uses three types of industry-standard commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components: rugged COM Express modules, PMC/XMC modules, and solid-state storage. Virtually any conduction-cooled PMC or XMC can be integrated into the chassis, which also supports an optional 1.8-inch or Slim SATA solid-state drive (SSD) for applications requiring ruggedized, non-volatile storage, X-ES officials say.

Initially, the XPand6000 will support COM Express modules based on the Intel Core i7 and Atom processors, with Freescale QorIQ microprocessor support to follow. The chassis comes in three configurations: a horizontal orientation with natural convection-cooling, a horizontal orientation with conduction-cooling, and a vertical orientation with natural convection-cooling.

The natural convection-cooled version measures 4.88 by 2.1 by 7.7 inches, while the conduction-cooled version measures 4.88 by 1.9 by 7.7 inches. For more information contact X-ES online at www.xes-inc.com.

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