Military Embedded Systems

Each year since 2019 – when Army, Air Force, and Navy leaders issued their memo requiring the U.S. military use a Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) for new program designs and refreshes – momentum for the concept has only increased. The launch of the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Technical Standard 1.0 in September 2021 marked another huge milestone for MOSA proponents.

Complex radar and electronic warfare systems drive innovation from RF and microwave designers while supply chain shortages continue to give them headaches. In this podcast, Bryan Goldstein, VP, Aerospace and Defense, Analog Devices, tackles these trends while also exploring how the defense industry will begin adopting 5G technology and where it will likely deploy first. He also shares his passion for recruiting young engineering talent into the defense electronics industry through Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) programs and other unique internship and recruiting methods.  

SCOTTSDALE, AZ. Giorgio Bertoli, Assistant Director for the Spectrum Dominance and Intelligence portfolio, within the U.S. Army’s C5ISR Center, will keynote the MOSA Virtual Summit, being held Feb 23 at 11 am Est. Other sessions include MOSA for Military Aviation Platforms, Bringing MOSA to Electronic Warfare Applications, and Applying a MOSA Strategy Across Multiple Domains.

We’re on the eve of celebrating of OpenSystems Media’s 40th anniversary with the 40th birthday of our first publication, VMEbus Systems, which directly follows the 40th anniversary of the VMEbus standard this year. However, the celebrations are bittersweet as we also mourn the loss of one of our company’s founding partners and the father of our current President Pat Hopper: Mike Hopper. Mike passed away on October 24. He was 84.

We recently lost one of our company’s founding partners and the father of our current President Pat Hopper: Mike Hopper, who co-founded OpenSystems Media (OSM) nearly four decades ago, passed away on October 24. He was 84.

Supply chain bottlenecks, small satellites, complex adversarial threats in space and electromagnetic spectrum domains are all driving innovation at the microelectronics level. In this podcast, Dave Young, CTO of CAES, formerly Cobham, discusses how these challenges impact microelectronics solutions for military programs, how the defense industry is coping with the semiconductor supply chain headaches through investment and a plan for on-sho​re production, how commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) products factor into modern military space systems, and what CAES' acquisition of Colorado Engineering means for the company.  

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona. The Sensor Open System Architecture (SOSA) Consortium and its Tri-Service leadership (Air Force, Army, and Navy) and industry members are all involved in developing a Technical Standard that will be a requirement for future electronic warfare, radar, SIGINT, ISR, and other sensor systems. The joint effort will reduce overall development and deployment costs while enabling faster deployment of sensor technology to the warfighter. This webcast, whch took place Sept 30, 2021 when theEdtion 1.0 of the standard was released, featured industry experts discussing the challenges involved in deploying SOSA conformant hardware and software technology to the warfighter and detailed the benefits, such as faster delivery of new capabilities, shorter equipment downtimes, lower long-term life cycle costs, and more.

At 40 years old this fall, the VMEbus standard’s longevity can be traced to its inventors, VME product designers, VITA Standards Organization members, military systems users, and also to the creativity and marketing acumen of a rock and roll aficionado named Marty Simon. Marty – founder of The Simon Group, member of the VITA Hall of Fame, early proponent of VME, my friend, and the most positive person I’ve ever come across – passed away in September at the age of 77 from complications from ALS.

Welcome to the SOSA Special Edition, which marks the release of the The Open Group Technical Standard for Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Reference Architecture, Edition 1.0. This magazine is the first of what will be an annual issue, highlighting editorial content on SOSA from the pages and website of Military Embedded Systems Magazine, as well as the products aligned and conformant to the technical standard – all put together exclusively by our staff. Learn about it all in the 2021 SOSA Special Edition!

Welcome to our 2021 September Resource Guide, which is 100 pages or more for the ninth straight year. Print lives, my friends, especially in the defense electronics community. Thanks again to all our loyal readers and advertisers for your support. More importantly, thank you for supporting our warfighters who sacrifice for all of us every day, especially the 13 who gave their lives during the evacuation of Afghanistan, which is happening as I write this column. We can’t thank them enough.

Military suppliers, being essential businesses, weathered the pandemic and economic shutdowns admirably thanks to strong defense funding. Yet even this stalwart industry is feeling the ill effects of the global chip shortage and the consequences of its reliance on offshore semiconductor manufacturing. The U.S. government is committed to returning chip production to the States, but whether that move will be enough and in time to save the industry is yet to be determined.

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama. The U.S. Army - FACE and SOSA Technical Interchange Meeting (TIM) is still on for September 14, 2021 at the Von Braun Center in Huntsville, Alabama. This year's event will feature a Keynote Speaker and expert presentations on Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) and Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) related topics by a cross-section of the defense community, industry, and academia.

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona. The VMEbus technical standard has enjoyed a very long life supporting military systems. At almost 40 years old, it’s probably the longest lasting single standard in the history of computing; it has kept up with technology by supporting backwards compatibility while enabling technology upgrades and is still in use across a broad range of applications. This webcast of industry experts will provide a brief history of VMEbus as well as why and how it remains the reliable stalwart of critical systems used across multiple defense platforms. The speakers will discuss how legacy and EOL issues are dealt with, addressing security issues, support for existing and newer operating systems, and how having a healthy ecosystem with wide vendor support has enabled the standard to such enjoy long-lasting technology refreshes and migration. Use case will also be presented along with a sneak-peek at how some platforms are examining next-gen platform migration from VME to OpenVPX and SOSA.

Military-display designers continue to face stringent size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C) constraints while integrating commercial innovations like HD – and soon 4K – into systems that must work with legacy sensors and interfaces while also complying with a variety of open architectures and standards. Meanwhile, researchers plan for military augmented reality and immersive display solutions for warfighters.

Nearly three decades ago, then-U.S. Department of Defense Secretary William Perry issued a memo dictating the use of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technology wherever and whenever possible. In many ways, the edict revolutionized procurement and helped integrate new commercial technology more affordably into defense systems, but it also created supply-chain pain for suppliers that is still felt today.

This spring Mercury Systems acquired Pentek, a designer of FPGA single-board computers, data-acquisition boards, recording systems, and other products for radar, signals intelligence (SIGINT), and electronic warfare (EW) applications. In this podcast, Neal Austin, Vice President and General Manager of the Mixed Signal Business Unit within Mercury Systems and Rodger Hosking, co-founder and VP of Pentek Systems deep dive into the acquisition, where Pentek will fit within Mercury, and how the acquisition impacts the Mercury efforts within the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Consortium. They also cover design trends in the radar and electronic warfare markets,  commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) procurement, the impact AI and 5G will have on military electronics, and tackle the engineering recruitment challenges defense companies face.

VANCOUVER, Washington. CRU Data Security Group (CDSG) released the DIGISTOR Citadel family of secure self-encrypting SSDs aimed at military and government applications requiring NSA Data at Rest security protection up to the U.S. government’s secret classification level.

DULLES, Virginia. Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) expertise is a key characteristic of the team Raytheon Technologies is putting together to support development of the U.S. Army’s Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node (TITAN) program. TITAN is a tactical ground station that finds and tracks threats to support long-range precision targeting.

ANNAPOLIS, Maryland. Annapolis Micro Systems released a 100Gb Ethernet RFSoC board that is alignd to the Sensor Open Systems Architecture Technical Standard. It combines analog and digital capability in a single 3U OpenVPX slot, operations that previously needed two or more boards for the same functions.

Satellites, spacecraft, and communications systems are leveraging the performance benefits of gallium nitride (GaN) RF components as demonstrated by the successful landing of the Mars Perseverance Rover. GaN also fuels innovation in military electronic warfare and radar systems. Dean White, senior director of Defense and Aerospace for Qorvo, discussed these trends with me in the following Q&A. We also covered the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the U.S. semiconductor industry, military funding, and the engineering recruitment in the defense industry. Edited excerpts follow.