Synchro over Ethernet at the Edge

Synchros and resolvers remain foundational position sensors in military systems, particularly in fire control, radar pedestals, stabilized turrets, and guidance-related subsystems. They persist because they are mechanically simple, tolerant of harsh environments, and proven across decades of fielded service. While the sensors themselves continue to perform, the way they are traditionally integrated into modern platforms has become increasingly misaligned with how systems are now built.

In conventional architectures, synchro signals are transported as analog waveforms over long, shielded cable runs to centralized conversion electronics. That model was well suited to an era of centralized racks and comparatively simple platform wiring. Current systems look very different. Sensors and actuators are distributed, electronics are placed where space and cooling allow, and many subsystems span rotating or articulated structures. Under these conditions, long analog runs become a major driver of harness complexity, weight, installation labor, and troubleshooting risk.

The fundamental problem is not the synchro sensor. It is the assumption that the analog representation of position must be carried across the platform. When analog signals travel long distances, they must contend with electromagnetic interference, ground potential differences, connector aging, and temperature variation along the cable path. Even when such systems function, they often require significant effort to install cleanly and maintain over time. As platforms become more network-centric, these legacy wiring assumptions become harder to justify.

A more modern approach is to move the conversion electronics to the edge of the system, physically close to the sensor. In this architecture, the synchro is excited and measured locally, and its position is converted immediately into high-resolution digital form. Instead of transporting analog waveforms across the platform, the system transports digital position data over Ethernet. This is not simply a component substitution. It is a change in system architecture that aligns legacy sensors with modern network-based integration.

CommandNet Edge is designed to support this distributed model. Installed near clusters of sensors, it provides the excitation, acquisition, and conversion functions required to turn synchro and resolver signals into digital position data at the source. From the perspective of the platform network, the synchro becomes a published measurement rather than a wiring burden. The edge node becomes the boundary between the analog sensor domain and the digital network domain.

One immediate effect of edge conversion is a simplification of wiring. Long multi-conductor shielded cables are replaced by short local analog connections and a small number of network cables. In rotating structures and densely packed assemblies, reducing cable count and harness complexity can have significant mechanical and reliability benefits. It also reduces the opportunities for installation errors and makes system changes easier to manage during integration and upgrades.

There is also a meaningful improvement in signal integrity. When the analog path from sensor to converter is short, it is easier to control shielding, grounding, and environmental exposure. The measurement is less sensitive to platform-level EMI and less vulnerable to subtle ground offsets that can appear across long runs. In many real systems, accuracy and stability improve simply because the analog portion of the system is localized and better controlled.

Maintainability improves as well. In a distributed architecture, the edge converter is a defined module with consistent behavior and diagnostics. When issues arise, troubleshooting can focus on a specific node, sensor, or short local connection rather than an extended harness. This tends to reduce mean time to repair and makes field support more predictable, particularly when intermittent wiring faults are involved.

A common concern is whether Ethernet can meet real-time and deterministic requirements. Modern military networks already carry time-sensitive data, and deterministic Ethernet approaches are well understood in controlled environments. More importantly, edge conversion replaces a long analog path of uncertain behavior with a digital data stream that has consistent timing characteristics. If the system timestamps data at the source, downstream consumers can correlate measurements precisely even when data traverses a complex network.

Another advantage of this approach is that it enables modernization without forcing a change to the sensor itself. Existing synchros and resolvers can remain in place, preserving qualified mechanical designs and avoiding disruptive redesign. Modernization occurs in the conversion and transport layers rather than in the sensing hardware. This makes edge conversion particularly attractive for platform upgrades, capability insertions, and life extension programs where schedule and requalification risk must be tightly controlled.

Of course, placing electronics near sensors on a military platform imposes its own requirements. Equipment must tolerate shock, vibration, temperature extremes, and noisy power. Systems intended for this role must be designed for the realities of the platform environment rather than adapted from office or laboratory equipment. The intent is not simply to digitize signals, but to do so reliably over long service life in conditions where maintenance access may be limited.

At the system level, moving synchro conversion to the edge also enables more flexible use of position data. Once position exists as a network resource, it can be consumed by multiple subsystems without additional wiring or signal splitting. Control systems, displays, recorders, and health monitoring applications can access the same measurement stream as needed. Redundancy and reconfiguration can be implemented at the architectural level rather than through one-off wiring solutions.

Synchros are not disappearing from military platforms, nor should they. They remain a robust and trusted sensing technology. The integration model, however, must evolve. Synchro over Ethernet at the edge is not about replacing sensors. It is about replacing an outdated wiring architecture with a network-centric approach that reduces integration risk, improves maintainability, and better matches how modern systems are designed and supported.