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MilCOTS, Aerospace & Government

CIS Secure Computing
"...Falcon Electric is one of the best suppliers we have worked with in some time. Their engineering support has been superb throughout the entire project..."

John Turner, VP and General Manager


Kirtland AFB
"...the Falcon ED Series™ UPS is lightweight and compact, compared with the UPS we were getting from our previous supplier."

Engineer


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GSA and other Govt Contracts:

Falcon Electric, Inc. is a registered contractor through the Department of Defense (DOD) Central Contractor Registration Program.  Our products are also available on GSA Schedule contract GS-07F-5344R, valid through September 2014 and NASA SEWP Contract.  To place an order, call Falcon at 800-842-6940 or email military@falconups.com.  You can also place an order for GSA products at GSA Advantage: https://www.gsaadvantage.gov/advgsa/advantage/main/start_page.do. To learn more about our reliable products and military applications, watch Falcon's Military Video.

Overview:

As military and government continues to be faced with the difficulties of protecting our country's  interests at home and abroad, in an ever changing threat environment, an important emphasis is placed on rapidly implementing newly developed technology-based military and Homeland Security solutions. New technology must be swiftly deployed, operate from any domestic, international or military power source and operate with unfailing reliability. Incorporating Falcon MCOTS frequency/phase converters and double-conversion on-line Uninterruptible Power products can deliver rapid solutions to these problems through our unique design topologies.

COTS grade products very often do not meet shock, vibration, temperature, interface and compliance to the specifications and quality demanded by the military. Falcon MCOTS products have been designed to meet these demands since we are able to deliver the products in 8 to 10 weeks instead of the 8 to10 months associated with newly designed solutions. The military customer will have the added assurance of Falcon Electric's theater proven technologies and reliability in every Falcon MCOTS product deployed. We are proud to have our MCOTS products currently deployed in mobile platforms in Afghanistan and in service to our country in other applications at home and throughout the world.

Falcon Electric has provided MCOTS and custom products directly to the government, military, as well as to prime and sub-contractors for over 15 years, and has earned an excellent reputation for delivering reliable, quality power conditioning products on time and under budget.

Please click here to access the Military COTS Selection Guide to determine the product that best meets your requirements. For access to other Falcon products, click on the On-line UPS and Frequency Converter product selection guides.

The following is a brief list of Falcon Government and Military customers:
The U.S. Army Sierra Nevada Corporation
The U.S. Navy Edwards AFB
Joint Special Operations Command, JSOC General Dynamics
Lockheed Martin General Atomics
Sechan Corporation L-3 Communications
Lawrence Livermore National Labs JPL
Kirtland AFB Los Alamos National Labs
Meggitt Defense Systems NASA
Northrop Grumman NATO
Pall Corporation FAA
The Aerospace Corporation U.S. Naval Undersea Warfare Ctr.

ED-M Series MCOTS & COTS Product Solutions:

Maintaining Balanced Current Draw from Three-phase and Split-phase Military Power Sources
Single-phase Frequency Conversion
High Temperature Applications
Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Product Solutions
Falcon Ultra-Secure SNMP/HTTP Remote UPS Management
The Falcon USHA SNMP/HTTP Agent Solution


Maintaining Balanced Current Draw from Three-phase and Split-phase Military Power Sources

Phase current imbalance on Military three-phase or split-phase, 400Hz power sources can be a serious and difficult problem to resolve. The problem is created when single-phase equipment having differing current demands are connected across differing phase legs. This can create excessive third order harmonics on the entire power system that can affect other three-phase equipment connected to the same power system. The level of the harmonics can increase to a level that results in the nuisance tripping of circuit breakers or the destructive over-heating of single phasing of three-phase motors connected to the power system.

The Falcon Electric ED-M Series Rackmount Frequency and Phase Converters provide the ideal solution for powering single-phase loads from three-phase or split-phase power sources, while maintaining phase current balance. These products have been designed to accept a 115/200Vac and 120/208Vac three-phase, or 208/120 and 240/120 split-phase inputs. Isolated and non-isolated models are available. The incoming power is converted to DC, regulated, and fed into a continuous duty, low distortions sinewave PWM DC-AC inverter. The PWM DC-AC inverter creates low impedance, 120Vac single-phase output power having a ±3% voltage regulation and <3% THD.  ED-M models have been designed to accept a wide range 45Hz to 450Hz input frequency.  They can be configured for a 50Hz, 60Hz or 400Hz output. The models may be ordered with or without internal battery backup functionality. Without the optional battery support, the units will provide more than 100 milliseconds of ride-through. A wide temperature range battery option is available having a -60⁰C to +80⁰C operational temperature specification. The ED-M Series models have an operational temperature specification of -30⁰C to +65⁰C.


Single-phase Frequency Conversion

Falcon Electric offers several additional families of single-phase frequency conversion products in differing form factors. Many accept a 120Vac input, with a frequency of 47-450Hz, and have a 120Vac output that can be configured for a fixed frequency of 50Hz, 60Hz or 400Hz.  Models configured as frequency converters will have any existing line or emergency bypass functions disabled.

In addition to frequency conversion, the on-line technology provides the highest level of protection against a widest spectrum of power problems, including brownouts, low and high line voltages, transients, spikes and line noise. Most models can be supplied with extended battery packs for long term backup applications. A DC start option is available, allowing the units to operate solely from a suitable DC source.

Board-level products are available and ready for integration into OEM products. We offer an input power factor correction board used in conjunction with our ED Series. It has a .97-.99 pf with an input current distortion of less than 3%, any single harmonic (CE101 compliant). Falcon Electric has been an OEM supplier of our board level technologies for third-party integration for over fifteen years.

Falcon products have field-proven reliability in harsh environments. The applications include 400Hz to 60Hz aircraft frequency conversion, mobile generator powered applications providing voltage and frequency stabilization, 60Hz AC power sources on DC powered rail cars, shipboard voltage and frequency regulation, portable and fixed base communications power sources and international frequency converters operating from wildly unstable third world power sources.

High Temperature Applications

Of prime concern is the temperature extremes the UPS and connected instruments will be subjected to through their operational lives. The Uptime Institute, a leading computer center authority, states that for every 18 degrees Fahrenheit increase in temperature above 70 degrees Fahrenheit, the long–term reliability of a data center is reduced by 50%. The same is true for microprocessor-based equipment and UPS units. Unless the UPS and the connected equipment have been specifically designed to operate in high temperature environments, temperatures above 88°F start to reduce reliability, and above 110°F, drastically reduce reliability. For instance, a typical UPS battery when maintained in a 77°F (25°C) environment may have a service life of five years prior to replacement, but that life is reduced to one year or less when maintained at 122°F (50°C).

Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Product Solutions

Falcon also offers COTS SSG and SSG-RP Series rackmount and tower models of ultra-reliable on-line UPSs for use in wide temperature applications of -20⁰C to +55⁰C and -30⁰C to +65⁰C, respectively. Their electronics have been specifically designed to operate reliably through this extreme temperature range. This includes their batteries, which have been designed to operate beyond 65 ⁰C. However, battery life will be reduced.

The SSG® Series Industrial-Grade UPS has UL listing for operation from -20°C to 55°C.  The SSG-RP Series Ultra-Wide Temperature UPS is UL listed for operation from -30°C to 65°C. The SSG-RP is designed for extreme temperature environments where other UPS products cannot be used.  All SSG products feature hot-swappable batteries having a 10-year rated service life when properly maintained in a 25⁰C environment.

Should battery backup not be required, Falcon offers the SVR Pro and SVR-PL line of double-conversion, precision ac regulators have the same -30⁰C to +65⁰C wide operational temperature range. Weighing only 31 lbs., they provide excellent ±2% output voltage regulation over their entire wide input voltage range. They have a low distortion, true sinewave output having less than 3% THD.  The SVR can also be used as a 50Hz/60Hz or 60Hz/50Hz frequency converter. Both 120Vac (nominal) and 208 to 240Vac (nominal) models are available.

Falcon Ultra-Secure SNMP/HTTP Remote UPS Management

The recent number of cyber-attacks and their level of sophistication have demonstrated the inadequate network security measures employed by many government and military agencies. Time is on the hackers' side.  They only have to find one unsecured computer or device on a segment of a governmental or military network and they can use any number of methods to eventually gain access to critical data or equipment functionality. Should they not be able to find an unsecured computer, they simply have to send a clever email containing a one-off designer backdoor virus that will evade many antivirus software and firewalls--and again they are in. In the ever-evolving security wars, many government and military computers and networks are not protected to a high enough level, leaving access to their most sensitive data and devices.

The world is running out of IP addresses under the old 32 bit IPv4 format which has prompted the development of a new world standard IPv6 which supports 128 bit IP addresses. IPv6 has added a virtually unlimited number of IP addresses and has Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) built-in unlike IPv4 which required additional software. When used, IPsec and proprietary packet level security software secure communications across the network at the packet level is assured. Essential to any military implementation is the combination of IPsec using a shared key to accomplish authentication and a large amount of space allocated in IPv6 packet header that can be used to input proprietary code supporting on-the fly encryption code.

The SNMP/HTTP agent selected must allow for the turn off of unused communications ports in addition to giving the ability to reassign required port addresses. A typical agent may support BootP/DHCP, Ping Echo, Telnet, SSH connection, HTTP, HTTPs, UDP, three SNMP versions, UPnP and SMTP protocols. Having the ability to reassign differing port addresses is imperative. Unsecured ports can provide backdoor access to the agent and the associated UPS unit. It is imperative to turn off access to all unused communication protocol ports and to only use communications protocols that have adequate security.

Telnet has been used for decades by the military to manage remote devices, but its security is very weak and, in the case of a hacker, non-existent. SSHv1 protocol offers a much more secure option, as it has strong authentication protections, in addition to encrypting the communications across the network. SSHv2 was developed as it was determined that hackers could bypass security and execute code at the root level on UNIX based systems. SSHv2 also supports the Triple Data Encryption Standard (3DES) in addition to AES, making it essential for a secure network.

There are presently three versions of the SNMP protocol: SNMPv1, SNMPv2, and the latest and most secure SNMPv3. It is strongly advised to turn off SNMP protocol all together if it is not going to be used to manage a UPS. The default setting for most UPS manufacturers' SNMP/HTTP agents has SNMPv1. When selected, SNMPv1 supports a single level password. Typically agents are shipped from the manufacturer with a simple default password making unauthorized access through SNMP child's play. When required, SNMPv3 is the best choice as security is excellent. SNMPv3 supports hashing algorithms for secure multi-level password protection in addition to full data encryption using differing shared keys. SNMPv3 should also be configured to limit access to one or two management workstation IP addresses and exclude all other addresses. This is usually the same IP address as the assigned SNMP trap receivers.

The Falcon USHA SNMP/HTTP Agent Solution

Our USHA SNMP/HTTP Agent offers government and military customers all of the discussed network security protocols and features in addition to offering models having internal and external interface connectivity.  The ED-M Series UPS models support due concurrent RS-232 connectivity allowing one RS-232 port to be connected to a USHA Agent while the second port may be used for remote ED monitoring using proprietary software. Please refer to the SNMP/HTTP BROCHURE for more information.

Read about what satisfied U.S. military customers have to say about Falcon Electric's products.


 

 

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