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84-627: The company develops, markets, sells and supports engineering software, which provides a computer-based environment for the design of hardware for wireless and high speed digital products. AWR software is used for radio frequency (RF), microwave and high frequency analog circuit and system design. Typical applications include cellular and satellite communications systems and defense electronics including radar, electronic warfare and guidance systems. AWR's product portfolio includes Microwave Office, Visual System Simulator (VSS), Analog Office, APLAC, AXIEM and Analyst. AWR's customers include companies involved in

168-459: A Hughes lawyer claimed they had the right to set up an "executive committee" to take over the running of the HHMI and its Hughes Aircraft subsidiary. The Attorney General of Delaware Richard R. Wier challenged this and filed suit in 1978. Charles M. Oberly continued the action when he became attorney general in 1983. Oberly stated he wished to see an independent board of trustees to ensure both that

252-409: A constant rate of altitude change. The Kerrison Predictor is an example of a system that was built to solve laying in "real time", simply by pointing the director at the target and then aiming the gun at a pointer it directed. It was also deliberately designed to be small and light, in order to allow it to be easily moved along with the guns it served. The radar-based M-9/SCR-584 Anti-Aircraft System

336-471: A critical part of an integrated fire-control system. The incorporation of radar into the fire-control system early in World War II provided ships the ability to conduct effective gunfire operations at long range in poor weather and at night. For U.S. Navy gun fire control systems, see ship gun fire-control systems . The use of director-controlled firing, together with the fire control computer, removed

420-563: A group led by Dreyer designed a similar system. Although both systems were ordered for new and existing ships of the Royal Navy, the Dreyer system eventually found most favour with the Navy in its definitive Mark IV* form. The addition of director control facilitated a full, practicable fire control system for World War I ships, and most RN capital ships were so fitted by mid 1916. The director

504-494: A list in April 1984. In January 1985 the new board of trustees of the HHMI announced they would sell Hughes Aircraft either by private sale or public stock offering. On June 5, 1985, General Motors was announced as the winner of a secretive five-month sealed-bid auction. Other bidders included Ford Motor Company and Boeing . The purchase was completed on December 20, 1985, for an estimated $ 5.2 billion, $ 2.7 billion in cash and

588-484: A new computerized bombing predictor, called the Low Altitude Bombing System (LABS), began to be integrated into the systems of aircraft equipped to carry nuclear armaments. This new bomb computer was revolutionary in that the release command for the bomb was given by the computer, not the pilot; the pilot designated the target using the radar or other targeting system , then "consented" to release

672-477: A subcontractor. Hughes attempted to mold it into a major military aircraft manufacturer during World War II . However, its early military projects ended in failure, with millions of dollars in U.S. government funds expended but only three aircraft actually built, resulting in a highly publicized U.S. Senate investigation into alleged mismanagement. The U.S. military consequently hesitated to award new aircraft contracts to Hughes Aircraft, prompting new management in

756-524: A variety of armament, ranging from 12-inch coast defense mortars, through 3-inch and 6-inch mid-range artillery, to the larger guns, which included 10-inch and 12-inch barbette and disappearing carriage guns, 14-inch railroad artillery, and 16-inch cannon installed just prior to and up through World War II. Fire control in the Coast Artillery became more and more sophisticated in terms of correcting firing data for such factors as weather conditions,

840-406: Is a number of components working together, usually a gun data computer , a director and radar , which is designed to assist a ranged weapon system to target, track, and hit a target. It performs the same task as a human gunner firing a weapon, but attempts to do so faster and more accurately. The original fire-control systems were developed for ships. The early history of naval fire control

924-401: Is being tracked. Typically, weapons fired over long ranges need environmental information—the farther a munition travels, the more the wind, temperature, air density, etc. will affect its trajectory, so having accurate information is essential for a good solution. Sometimes, for very long-range rockets, environmental data has to be obtained at high altitudes or in between the launching point and

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1008-559: The H-1 racer, D-2 , and the XF-11 . However the plant's hangars at Hughes Airport, location of present-day Playa Vista in the Westside of Los Angeles, California , were primarily used as a branch plant for the construction of other companies' designs. At the start of the war Hughes Aircraft had only four full-time employees—by the end the number was 80,000. During the war, the company

1092-630: The Hughes H-4 Hercules aircraft, the atmospheric entry probe carried by the Galileo spacecraft , and the AIM-4 Falcon guided missile . Hughes Aircraft was founded to build Hughes' H-1 Racer world speed record aircraft, and it later modified other aircraft for his transcontinental and global circumnavigation speed record flights. The company relocated to Culver City, California , in 1940 and began manufacturing aircraft parts as

1176-832: The Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation , later to join Thompson Products to form the Thompson-Ramo-Wooldridge based in Canoga Park , with Hughes leasing space for nuclear research programs (present day West Hills (Canoga Park)). The company became TRW in 1965, another aerospace company and a major competitor to Hughes Aircraft. In 1951 Hughes Aircraft Co. built a missile plant in Tucson, Arizona due to Howard Hughes' fear that his Culver City, California plant could be attacked. By

1260-499: The Tomahawk Cruise Missile , Advanced Cruise Missile , Standard missile , Stinger missile , Phalanx Close-in weapon system , and Rolling Airframe Missile into Hughes' portfolio. In 1994 Hughes Electronics introduced DirecTV , the world's first high-powered DBS service. In 1995 Hughes Electronic's Hughes Space and Communications division became the largest supplier of commercial satellites. Also in 1995

1344-623: The grenade launcher developed for use on the Fabrique Nationale F2000 bullpup assault rifle. Fire-control computers have gone through all the stages of technology that computers have, with some designs based upon analogue technology and later vacuum tubes which were later replaced with transistors . Fire-control systems are often interfaced with sensors (such as sonar , radar , infra-red search and track , laser range-finders , anemometers , wind vanes , thermometers , barometers , etc.) in order to cut down or eliminate

1428-423: The heads-up display (HUD). The pipper shows the pilot where the target must be relative to the aircraft in order to hit it. Once the pilot maneuvers the aircraft so that the target and pipper are superimposed, he or she fires the weapon, or on some aircraft the weapon will fire automatically at this point, in order to overcome the delay of the pilot. In the case of a missile launch, the fire-control computer may give

1512-680: The interceptor aircraft into the proper position for firing missiles. At the same time other teams were working with the newly formed US Air Force on air-to-air missiles, delivering the AIM-4 Falcon , then known as the F-98. The MA-1/Falcon package, with several upgrades, was the primary interceptor weapon system of the USAF for many years, lasting into the 1980s. Ramo and Wooldridge, having failed to reach an agreement with Howard Hughes regarding management problems, resigned in September 1953 and founded

1596-444: The 1890s. These guns were capable of such great range that the primary limitation was seeing the target, leading to the use of high masts on ships. Another technical improvement was the introduction of the steam turbine which greatly increased the performance of the ships. Earlier reciprocating engine powered capital ships were capable of perhaps 16 knots, but the first large turbine ships were capable of over 20 knots. Combined with

1680-539: The Aerospace Group continued to diversify and become massively profitable, and became a primary focus of the company. The company developed radar systems, electro-optical systems, the first working laser , aircraft computer systems, missile systems, ion-propulsion engines (for space travel), and many other advanced technologies. The 'Electronic Properties Information Center' (EPIC) of the United States

1764-695: The Boeing Company purchased three units within Hughes Electronics Corp.: Hughes Space and Communications Co., Hughes Electron Dynamics , and Spectrolab Inc. , in addition to Hughes Electronics' interest in HRL, the company's primary research laboratory. The four joined Boeing Satellite Systems, a company subsidiary, later becoming the Satellite Development Center, part of Boeing Integrated Defense Systems. In 2003

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1848-400: The Dreyer table) for HMS Hood ' s main guns housed 27 crew. Directors were largely unprotected from enemy fire. It was difficult to put much weight of armour so high up on the ship, and even if the armour did stop a shot, the impact alone would likely knock the instruments out of alignment. Sufficient armour to protect from smaller shells and fragments from hits to other parts of the ship

1932-666: The International Microwave Symposium in Baltimore, Maryland. Inf 2010, AWR Corporation's major competitors included the EEsof EDA division of Agilent Technologies , Ansoft Corporation , and Cadence Design Systems . In 1999 AWR acquired ICUCOM Corporation, Troy, New York. Through this acquisition AWR acquired the communication systems simulation software called ACOLADE, for Advanced Communication Link Analysis and Design Environment. AWR re-engineered

2016-755: The Moon landings in Project Apollo . Hughes also built Pioneer Venus in 1978, which performed the first extensive radar mapping of Venus , and the Galileo probe that flew to Jupiter in the 1990s. The company built nearly 40 percent of commercial satellites in service worldwide in 2000. In 1947, Howard Hughes redirected Hughes Aircraft's efforts from airplanes to helicopters . The effort began in earnest in 1948, when helicopter manufacturer Kellett Aircraft Co. sold its latest design to Hughes for production. The XH-17 "Sky Crane" first flew in October 1952, but

2100-527: The Spruce Goose and the XF-11 photo reconnaissance plane project. They formed a special committee to investigate Hughes which culminated in a much-followed Senate investigation, one of the first to be televised to the public. Despite a highly critical committee report, Hughes was cleared. The company then expanded into the booming electronics field, eventually employing 3,300 Ph.D.s. Hughes hired Ira Eaker , Harold L. George , and Tex Thornton to run

2184-477: The United States with the Joint Surveillance System (JSS) AN/FYQ-93 including NORAD with Joint Tactical Information Distribution System (JTIDS) and provided defense systems and air traffic control systems around the world. These systems are massive and at its peak Ground Systems Group employed 15,000 people and generated revenue in excess of $ 1 billion per year. These systems included

2268-561: The air, and other adjustments. Around 1905, mechanical fire control aids began to become available, such as the Dreyer Table , Dumaresq (which was also part of the Dreyer Table), and Argo Clock , but these devices took a number of years to become widely deployed. These devices were early forms of rangekeepers . Arthur Pollen and Frederic Charles Dreyer independently developed the first such systems. Pollen began working on

2352-418: The amount of information that must be manually entered in order to calculate an effective solution. Sonar, radar, IRST and range-finders can give the system the direction to and/or distance of the target. Alternatively, an optical sight can be provided that an operator can simply point at the target, which is easier than having someone input the range using other methods and gives the target less warning that it

2436-548: The analog rangekeepers, at least for the US Navy, was in the 1991 Persian Gulf War when the rangekeepers on the Iowa -class battleships directed their last rounds in combat. An early use of fire-control systems was in bomber aircraft , with the use of computing bombsights that accepted altitude and airspeed information to predict and display the impact point of a bomb released at that time. The best known United States device

2520-417: The appearance of a conflict of interest . The money provided to HHMI by Hughes Aircraft led to major improvements in genetics and cancer research. The city of Fullerton, California , named Hughes Drive after the site that the company formerly occupied before 1997. After Hughes closed, the city developed Amerige Heights, a residential community. Fire-control system A fire-control system ( FCS )

2604-680: The astonishing feat of shooting down V-1 cruise missiles with less than 100 shells per plane (thousands were typical in earlier AA systems). This system was instrumental in the defense of London and Antwerp against the V-1. Although listed in Land based fire control section anti-aircraft fire control systems can also be found on naval and aircraft systems. In the United States Army Coast Artillery Corps , Coast Artillery fire control systems began to be developed at

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2688-725: The astronauts on the last flight of the Space Shuttle Challenger , were Hughes alumni. Hughes Aircraft Ground Systems Group was located in Fullerton, California . The facility was 3 million square feet and included manufacturing, laboratories, offices, and a Munson road test course. It designed developed and produced the Air Defense Systems that replaced the Semi Automatic Defense Ground Environment (SAGE) in

2772-668: The barrels and distortion due to heating. These sorts of effects are noticeable for any sort of gun, and fire-control computers have started appearing on smaller and smaller platforms. Tanks were one early use that automated gun laying had, using a laser rangefinder and a barrel-distortion meter. Fire-control computers are useful not just for aiming large cannons , but also for aiming machine guns , small cannons, guided missiles , rifles , grenades , and rockets —any kind of weapon that can have its launch or firing parameters varied. They are typically installed on ships , submarines , aircraft , tanks and even on some small arms —for example,

2856-570: The bearings and elevations for the guns to fire upon. In the turrets, the gunlayers adjusted the elevation of their guns to match an indicator for the elevation transmitted from the Fire Control table—a turret layer did the same for bearing. When the guns were on target they were centrally fired. Even with as much mechanization of the process, it still required a large human element; the Transmitting Station (the room that housed

2940-518: The company directly. Hughes retained a small cadre of engineers under his personal control as the Hughes Tool Company Aircraft Division , which initially operated from the same Culver City complex as Hughes Aircraft, despite being separately owned and managed. This entity subsequently became fully independent from Hughes Aircraft and changed its name to Hughes Helicopters . After Hughes' 1976 death, Hughes Aircraft

3024-595: The company was to provide a modern object-oriented electronic design automation environment that could streamline high frequency electronic design by integrating schematic entry and layout; electromagnetic (EM) and circuit theory; and frequency and time-domain methods. Investors in AWR included CMEA Ventures, Intel Capital and Synopsys Inc. In 1998 the company demonstrated the Microwave Office software, which included EM, circuit simulation and schematic capture, at

3108-500: The company. By 1953, the company employed 17,000 and had $ 600,000,000 in government contracts. In 1948 Hughes created a new division of the company, the Aerospace Group . Two Hughes engineers, Simon Ramo and Dean Wooldridge , had new ideas on the packaging of electronics to make complete fire control systems . Their MA-1 system combined signals from the aircraft's radar with a digital computer to automatically guide

3192-668: The condition of powder used, or the Earth's rotation. Provisions were also made for adjusting firing data for the observed fall of shells. As shown in Figure 2, all of these data were fed back to the plotting rooms on a finely tuned schedule controlled by a system of time interval bells that rang throughout each harbor defense system. It was only later in World War II that electro-mechanical gun data computers , connected to coast defense radars, began to replace optical observation and manual plotting methods in controlling coast artillery. Even then,

3276-622: The control of the gun laying from the individual turrets to a central position; although individual gun mounts and multi-gun turrets would retain a local control option for use when battle damage limited director information transfer (these would be simpler versions called "turret tables" in the Royal Navy). Guns could then be fired in planned salvos, with each gun giving a slightly different trajectory. Dispersion of shot caused by differences in individual guns, individual projectiles, powder ignition sequences, and transient distortion of ship structure

3360-466: The design and development of analog and mixed signal semiconductors, wireless communications equipment, aerospace and defense systems. The company was founded in 1994 by Joseph E. Pekarek, Ted A. Miracco, Stephen A. Maas and Paul Cameron, from Hughes Aircraft , in Fullerton , California . First established as Applied Wave Research, AWR was founded to improve the design efficiency for radio frequency and microwave circuit and system design. The vision of

3444-403: The direction and elevation of the guns. Pollen aimed to produce a combined mechanical computer and automatic plot of ranges and rates for use in centralised fire control. To obtain accurate data of the target's position and relative motion, Pollen developed a plotting unit (or plotter) to capture this data. To this he added a gyroscope to allow for the yaw of the firing ship. Like the plotter,

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3528-527: The division as Palomar Technologies. In 2008, Citicorp sold the bonder division to the current management team at Palomar Technologies. In 1997 GM transferred Delco Electronics to its Delphi Automotive Systems business. Later that year the assets of Hughes Aircraft were sold to Raytheon for $ 9.5 billion. The remaining companies remained under the Hughes Electronics name and within GM. In 2000,

3612-561: The end of that year, the U.S. Air Force had purchased the property and contracted Hughes (and subsequently Raytheon ) to operate the site as Air Force Plant 44 . Howard Hughes donated Hughes Aircraft to the newly formed Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) in 1953 allegedly as a way of avoiding taxes on its huge income. The next year, Lawrence A. "Pat" Hyland was hired as vice president and general manager of Hughes Aircraft; he would ultimately become company president and CEO after Howard Hughes' death in 1976. Under Hyland's guidance,

3696-505: The end of the 19th century and progressed on through World War II. Early systems made use of multiple observation or base end stations (see Figure 1 ) to find and track targets attacking American harbors. Data from these stations were then passed to plotting rooms , where analog mechanical devices, such as the plotting board , were used to estimate targets' positions and derive firing data for batteries of coastal guns assigned to interdict them. U.S. Coast Artillery forts bristled with

3780-484: The fall of shot. Visual range measurement (of both target and shell splashes) was difficult prior to the availability of radar. The British favoured coincidence rangefinders while the Germans favoured the stereoscopic type . The former were less able to range on an indistinct target but easier on the operator over a long period of use, the latter the reverse. Submarines were also equipped with fire control computers for

3864-409: The fire control computer became integrated with ordnance systems, the computer can take the flight characteristics of the weapon to be launched into account. By the start of World War II , aircraft altitude performance had increased so much that anti-aircraft guns had similar predictive problems, and were increasingly equipped with fire-control computers. The main difference between these systems and

3948-425: The firing solution based upon the observation of preceding shots. The resulting directions, known as a firing solution , would then be fed back out to the turrets for laying. If the rounds missed, an observer could work out how far they missed by and in which direction, and this information could be fed back into the computer along with any changes in the rest of the information and another shot attempted. At first,

4032-509: The following Ground Systems Group subsystems: Computer H5118, Consoles HMD-22 and HMD-44, Liquid Crystal Large Screen Displays, and Software that set the standard for software development based on science and engineering starting with the Combat Grande System. Ground Systems Group was known to push technology envelopes in the computers, displays, local area networks, human interfaces, and software in their systems. They also blazed

4116-484: The group purchased Magnavox Electronic Systems from the Carlyle Group . In 1996 Hughes Electronics and PanAmSat agree to merge their fixed satellite services into a new publicly held company, also called PanAmSat with Hughes Electronics as majority shareholder. In 1995, Hughes Aircraft sold its Technology Products Division (automated wire and die bonder) to an investor group led by Citicorp and incorporated

4200-576: The guns were aimed using the technique of artillery spotting . It involved firing a gun at the target, observing the projectile's point of impact (fall of shot), and correcting the aim based on where the shell was observed to land, which became more and more difficult as the range of the gun increased. Between the American Civil War and 1905, numerous small improvements, such as telescopic sights and optical rangefinders , were made in fire control. There were also procedural improvements, like

4284-460: The individual gun crews. Director control aims all guns on the ship at a single target. Coordinated gunfire from a formation of ships at a single target was a focus of battleship fleet operations. Corrections are made for surface wind velocity, firing ship roll and pitch, powder magazine temperature, drift of rifled projectiles, individual gun bore diameter adjusted for shot-to-shot enlargement, and rate of change of range with additional modifications to

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4368-492: The individual gun turrets to the director tower (where the sighting instruments were located) and the analogue computer in the heart of the ship. In the director tower, operators trained their telescopes on the target; one telescope measured elevation and the other bearing. Rangefinder telescopes on a separate mounting measured the distance to the target. These measurements were converted by the Fire Control Table into

4452-467: The institute fulfilled its charitable mission and that it did not continue to operate as a tax shelter. In January 1984 Judge Grover C. Brown ruled that the Chancery Court should appoint the trustees because Hughes had not left a succession plan. Brown asked for both the executive committee and the attorney general's office to submit a list of recommendations that he could approve. Brown approved

4536-536: The late 1940s to instead pursue contracts for fire-control systems and guided missiles , which were new technologies. The company soon became a highly profitable industry leader in these fields. In a 1953 accounting maneuver designed to reduce his income tax liabilities, Howard Hughes donated most of Hughes Aircraft's stock and assets to a charity he created, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), and subsequently ceased managing

4620-548: The late 19th century greatly increased the range at which gunfire was possible. Rifled guns of much larger size firing explosive shells of lighter relative weight (compared to all-metal balls) so greatly increased the range of the guns that the main problem became aiming them while the ship was moving on the waves. This problem was solved with the introduction of the gyroscope , which corrected this motion and provided sub-degree accuracies. Guns were now free to grow to any size, and quickly surpassed 10 inches (250 mm) calibre by

4704-473: The long range of the guns, this meant that the target ship could move a considerable distance, several ship lengths, between the time the shells were fired and landed. One could no longer eyeball the aim with any hope of accuracy. Moreover, in naval engagements it is also necessary to control the firing of several guns at once. Naval gun fire control potentially involves three levels of complexity. Local control originated with primitive gun installations aimed by

4788-464: The manual methods were retained as a back-up through the end of the war. Land based fire control systems can be used to aid in both Direct fire and Indirect fire weapon engagement. These systems can be found on weapons ranging from small handguns to large artillery weapons. Modern fire-control computers, like all high-performance computers, are digital. The added performance allows basically any input to be added, from air density and wind, to wear on

4872-549: The ones on ships was size and speed. The early versions of the High Angle Control System , or HACS, of Britain 's Royal Navy were examples of a system that predicted based upon the assumption that target speed, direction, and altitude would remain constant during the prediction cycle, which consisted of the time to fuze the shell and the time of flight of the shell to the target. The USN Mk 37 system made similar assumptions except that it could predict assuming

4956-536: The path to very highly distributed human intensive systems. Hughes Space and Communications Group and the Hughes Space Systems Division built the world's first geosynchronous communications satellite , Syncom , in 1963 and followed by the first geosynchronous weather satellite, ATS-1, in 1966. Later that year their Surveyor 1 made the first soft landing on the Moon as part of the lead-up to

5040-471: The plane maintain a constant attitude (usually level), though dive-bombing sights were also common. The LABS system was originally designed to facilitate a tactic called toss bombing , to allow the aircraft to remain out of range of a weapon's blast radius . The principle of calculating the release point, however, was eventually integrated into the fire control computers of later bombers and strike aircraft, allowing level, dive and toss bombing. In addition, as

5124-543: The primitive gyroscope of the time required substantial development to provide continuous and reliable guidance. Although the trials in 1905 and 1906 were unsuccessful, they showed promise. Pollen was encouraged in his efforts by the rapidly rising figure of Admiral Jackie Fisher , Admiral Arthur Knyvet Wilson and the Director of Naval Ordnance and Torpedoes (DNO), John Jellicoe . Pollen continued his work, with occasional tests carried out on Royal Navy warships. Meanwhile,

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5208-402: The problem after noting the poor accuracy of naval artillery at a gunnery practice near Malta in 1900. Lord Kelvin , widely regarded as Britain's leading scientist first proposed using an analogue computer to solve the equations which arise from the relative motion of the ships engaged in the battle and the time delay in the flight of the shell to calculate the required trajectory and therefore

5292-696: The rangekeeper. The effectiveness of this combination was demonstrated in November 1942 at the Third Battle of Savo Island when the USS ; Washington engaged the Japanese battleship Kirishima at a range of 8,400 yards (7.7 km) at night. Kirishima was set aflame, suffered a number of explosions, and was scuttled by her crew. She had been hit by at least nine 16-inch (410 mm) rounds out of 75 fired (12% hit rate). The wreck of Kirishima

5376-472: The remaining parts of Hughes Electronics (DirecTV, DirecTV Latin America, PanAmSat, Hughes Network Systems) were purchased by News Corporation from GM and renamed The DirecTV Group . The wide range of science and technology developed by Hughes Aircraft never included medical applications because the company was owned by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). This restriction was imposed to avoid even

5460-434: The rest in 50 million shares of GM Class H stock. On December 31, 1985, General Motors merged Hughes Aircraft with its Delco Electronics unit to form Hughes Electronics Corporation, an independent subsidiary. The group then consisted of: Delco Electronics Corporation and Hughes Aircraft Company. In August 1992 Hughes Aircraft completed its purchase of General Dynamics ' missile businesses for $ 450 million. This brought

5544-414: The same reasons, but their problem was even more pronounced; in a typical "shot", the torpedo would take one to two minutes to reach its target. Calculating the proper "lead" given the relative motion of the two vessels was very difficult, and torpedo data computers were added to dramatically improve the speed of these calculations. In a typical World War II British ship the fire control system connected

5628-674: The software and evolved the technology and libraries into a new tool: Visual System Simulator (VSS), which was introduced in 2002. In September, 2005 AWR acquired APLAC Solutions, Oy, of Espoo, Finland . AWR acquired APLAC, which developed simulation and analysis software for analog and radio-frequency (RF) design. APLAC's RF design technology was used in mobile phone RF integrated circuits . In 2008 AWR acquired Simulation Technology and Applied Research (STAAR), in Mequon, Wisconsin . STAAR developed proprietary parallelized 3D FEM EM simulation and analysis capability, marketed as Analyst software. AWR

5712-401: The target or flying the aircraft. Even if the system is unable to aim the weapon itself, for example the fixed cannon on an aircraft, it is able to give the operator cues on how to aim. Typically, the cannon points straight ahead and the pilot must maneuver the aircraft so that it oriented correctly before firing. In most aircraft the aiming cue takes the form of a " pipper " which is projected on

5796-410: The target. Often, satellites or balloons are used to gather this information. Once the firing solution is calculated, many modern fire-control systems are also able to aim and fire the weapon(s). Once again, this is in the interest of speed and accuracy, and in the case of a vehicle like an aircraft or tank, in order to allow the pilot/gunner/etc. to perform other actions simultaneously, such as tracking

5880-482: The use of plotting boards to manually predict the position of a ship during an engagement. Then increasingly sophisticated mechanical calculators were employed for proper gun laying , typically with various spotters and distance measures being sent to a central plotting station deep within the ship. There the fire direction teams fed in the location, speed and direction of the ship and its target, as well as various adjustments for Coriolis effect , weather effects on

5964-444: The weapon, and the computer then did so at a calculated "release point" some seconds later. This is very different from previous systems, which, though they had also become computerized, still calculated an "impact point" showing where the bomb would fall if the bomb were released at that moment. The key advantage is that the weapon can be released accurately even when the plane is maneuvering. Most bombsights until this time required that

6048-459: Was acquired by General Motors from HHMI in 1985 and was put under the umbrella of Hughes Electronics which became DirecTV , until GM sold its assets to Raytheon in 1997. During World War II the company designed and built several prototype aircraft at Hughes Airport . These included the famous Hughes H-4 Hercules , better known by the public's nickname for it, the Spruce Goose ,

6132-493: Was acquired by National Instruments in 2011 for about $ 58 million. In January 2020 Cadence Design Systems, Inc completed acquisition of AWR Corporation from National Instruments. Hughes Aircraft The Hughes Aircraft Company was a major American aerospace and defense contractor founded on February 14, 1934 by Howard Hughes in Glendale, California , as a division of Hughes Tool Company . The company produced

6216-506: Was awarded contracts to build B-25 struts, centrifugal cannons, and machine gun feed chutes. Hughes Aircraft was one of many aerospace and defense companies which flourished in Southern California during and after World War II and was at one time the largest employer in the area. Yet, employment had dropped to 800 by 1947. By the summer of 1947 certain politicians had become concerned about Hughes' alleged mismanagement of

6300-673: Was commercially unsuccessful. In 1955, Howard Hughes split the helicopter production unit from the Hughes Aircraft Company, and reconstituted it with Hughes Tool Company, calling it Hughes Tool Company's Aircraft Division . The Aircraft Division had a focus on the production of light helicopters, mainly the Hughes 269 / 300 and the OH-6 Cayuse / Hughes 500 . Hughes left no will and following his death in 1976 there were numerous claims to his estate . A Hughes executive and

6384-435: Was discovered in 1992 and showed that the entire bow section of the ship was missing. The Japanese during World War II did not develop radar or automated fire control to the level of the US Navy and were at a significant disadvantage. By the 1950s gun turrets were increasingly unmanned, with gun laying controlled remotely from the ship's control centre using inputs from radar and other sources. The last combat action for

6468-420: Was dominated by the engagement of targets within visual range (also referred to as direct fire ). In fact, most naval engagements before 1800 were conducted at ranges of 20 to 50 yards (20 to 50 m). Even during the American Civil War , the famous engagement between USS  Monitor and CSS  Virginia was often conducted at less than 100 yards (90 m) range. Rapid technical improvements in

6552-555: Was high up over the ship where operators had a superior view over any gunlayer in the turrets . It was also able to co-ordinate the fire of the turrets so that their combined fire worked together. This improved aiming and larger optical rangefinders improved the estimate of the enemy's position at the time of firing. The system was eventually replaced by the improved " Admiralty Fire Control Table " for ships built after 1927. During their long service life, rangekeepers were updated often as technology advanced, and by World War II they were

6636-541: Was hosted at the Hughes Culver City library in the 1970s. EPIC published the multi-volume Handbook of Electronic Materials as public documents. Nobel Laureates Richard Feynman and Murray Gell-Mann had Hughes connections: Feynman would hold weekly seminars at Hughes Research Laboratories ; Gell-Mann shared an office with Malcolm Currie, later a chairman of the board and chief executive officer at Hughes Aircraft. Greg Jarvis and Ronald McNair , two of

6720-454: Was the Norden bombsight . Simple systems, known as lead computing sights also made their appearance inside aircraft late in the war as gyro gunsights . These devices used a gyroscope to measure turn rates, and moved the gunsight's aim-point to take this into account, with the aim point presented through a reflector sight . The only manual "input" to the sight was the target distance, which

6804-410: Was the limit. The performance of the analog computer was impressive. The battleship USS  North Carolina during a 1945 test was able to maintain an accurate firing solution on a target during a series of high-speed turns. It is a major advantage for a warship to be able to maneuver while engaging a target. Night naval engagements at long range became feasible when radar data could be input to

6888-523: Was typically handled by dialing in the size of the target's wing span at some known range. Small radar units were added in the post-war period to automate even this input, but it was some time before they were fast enough to make the pilots completely happy with them. The first implementation of a centralized fire control system in a production aircraft was on the B-29 . By the start of the Vietnam War,

6972-562: Was undesirably large at typical naval engagement ranges. Directors high on the superstructure had a better view of the enemy than a turret mounted sight, and the crew operating them were distant from the sound and shock of the guns. Gun directors were topmost, and the ends of their optical rangefinders protruded from their sides, giving them a distinctive appearance. Unmeasured and uncontrollable ballistic factors, like high-altitude temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, wind direction and velocity, required final adjustment through observation of

7056-521: Was used to direct air defense artillery since 1943. The MIT Radiation Lab's SCR-584 was the first radar system with automatic following, Bell Laboratory 's M-9 was an electronic analog fire-control computer that replaced complicated and difficult-to-manufacture mechanical computers (such as the Sperry M-7 or British Kerrison predictor). In combination with the VT proximity fuze , this system accomplished

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