Smiths interfaces with Boeing

has awarded a $6 million contract to

to supply Remote Interface Units (RIU) for its V-22 Osprey aircraft. The contract has a potential sales value of $30 million over the next 20 years.

The system will be designed and developed at the Smiths facility in Cheltenham with production beginning in 2008. Delivery of engineering units will take place in December 2007.

The RIU product family is a range of units that capture measurements like voltage, current, frequency and temperature and communicate the information to the aircraft systems that require it. They allow rapid design modifications to be made and easily introduced with minimal disruption and cost to the aircraft programme. The flexibility is important to the upcoming avionics upgrades anticipated for the V-22 program.

The Interface Unit (IU) will be located in the engine nacelle, the wing and the avionics bay on the V-22 aircraft and will provide digitised sensor data over the MIL-STD-1553 bus. Smiths' participation in the programme with Boeing and the US Navy is part of the V-22 cost reduction initiative.