Military Embedded Systems

Radiation-hardened microelectronics are in demand, from commercial small sats to NASA manned space missions to military satellite missions in contested space. Designing components for these various applications is a matter of balancing reliability and cost as demand for more commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components increases.

Supply cycles these days are slow whether you are buying lawn furniture, lumber, raw materials, or mission-critical microelectronics. Reasons range from the pandemic and the resulting economic slowdown to the Suez Canal blockage to tariffs. You name it, you order it, you likely have to wait months to get it.

ANDOVER, Mass.  Mercury Systems, Inc., continuing its run of acquisitions, purchased Pentek Technologies, LLC and Pentek Systems, Inc. (collectively, “Pentek”) in Upper Saddle River, N.J., for an all-cash purchase price of $65 million. Pentek, a competitor to Mercury's embedded signal-processing business, designs software-defined radio (SDR) solutions, FPGA single-board computers, data-acqusition boards, recording systems, and other products for radar, signals intelligence (SIGINT), electronic warfare (EW), and other high-performance defense applications.

It’s unmanned systems issue time again: That means it’s time for the annual xPonential event, which is being held virtually May 4 -6 this year due to the ongoing pandemic. This issue will appear virtually there as well; AUVSI has also announced that the event will be held in person in Atlanta August 16-19. That’s good news. Even more positive news: The continued growth of the unmanned systems market plus renewed commitment from U.S military leadership to leverage autonomous systems.

The ARINC 818 digital video interface and protocol standard is used throughout commercial and military cockpits for avionics display applications. As military video systems continue to increase in complexity in and out of the cockpit, for example in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) sensor systems, the demand for ARINC 818 solutions is growing. In this podcast, Tim Keller, Chief Operations Officer at Great River Technology discusses defines what ARINC 818 is, discusses common misconceptions about the standard, and describes its growing use in sensor applications and in training and simulation applications. Keller also details new ARINC 818 training for engineers and explores how the standard could potentially work within the Sensor Open Systems Architecture Technical Standard.

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona. One of the keys to the success of the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) is that it was developed by aligning with current open standards and open systems architectures, including FACE, HOST, REDHAWK, OpenVPX, and similar specifications. The SOSA Consortium also works closely with such standards organizations as VITA, FACE, PICMG, IEEE, SAE International, Wireless Innovation Forum, and others. This webcast, titled "How SOSA Aligns with Current Open Standards," held Tuesday, May 11, covers how the SOSA Technical Standard has adapted to and aligned with open architecture standards and how it has impacted the design of SOSA-conformant hardware and software.

Reduced size, weight, and power (SWaP) requirements are pervasive throughout defense electronics platforms. Electronic footprints continue to shrink so much that traditional small form factors like 3U VPX or 3U CompactPCI are considered too big. So, it's not surprising that the VITA Standards Organization (VSO) is looking at new form factors, such as Short VPX. In this podcast, Jay Grandin, Vice President of Product Development at Annapolis Micro Systems discusses demand for small form factors, how Short VPX can meet that demand and how it fits into the Open VPX ecosystem. Grandin also explores what military applications would be best suited for the new standard and how it could potentially work within the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Technical Standard, of which version 1.0 is expected to be completed this year.

BERWYN, Pennsylvania and HUNTSVILLE, Alabama. Officials from Ametek announced that the company has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Abaco Systems, Inc., a provider of mission-critical embedded computing systems for electronic warfare, radar, avionics, communications, and other military applications from Veritas Capital in an all-cash transaction valued at $1.35 billion.

The last 12 months have not been kind to commercial avionics suppliers, as the pandemic ended up grounding many flights and slowing aircraft purchases, consequently meaning fewer orders for avionics systems like displays and computers. Those commercial avionics suppliers – whether prime contractors or embedded computing suppliers – that are staying afloat are ones with a strong military business to offset the losses from the commercial market, as the military avionics market remains healthy.

Ultra-wide band radar systems are generating unprecedented amounts of data and require storage systems that can handle the high bandwidth and what can seem like information overload. In this podcast, Chris Tojeira, Recording Systems Director at Pentek discusses the Department of Defense's current ultrawideband radar requirements, how to capture signal data, PCI Express, FPGA advantages, and latency issues. He also takes a look at the future for signal recording and shares an old Commodore 64 story.  

SOLOMONS, Maryland. Officials from the Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) and the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Consortia will be leading the Open Group FACE and SOSA Consortia Expo & Technical Interchange Meeting (TIM) virtual event next month on March 23, 2021 from 11 am to 4 pm Est.

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona. The Sensor Open System Architecture (SOSA) Technical Standard applies open-architecture concepts to high-performance defense sensor systems such as radar, electronic warfare (EW), and signals intelligence (SIGINT) platforms. The goal of the standard is to design a non-propriety open systems architecture based on Department oif Defense (DoD)-relevant government or commercially available open standards to lower system development costs, and make system reconfigurability and future system upgrades easier and faster, thus improving overall C4ISR capabilities. A key part of the developing technical standard will be how to ensure conformance to the standard is met for hardware or SOSA modules claiming alignment with the Technical Standard. This webcast, titled "SOSA Conformance and What it Means to You," held Wednesday, February 24, featured SOSA Consortium experts discussing the current status of the Technical Standard, what the upcoming 1.0 release means for conforming to the standard, and how you should approach SOSA conformance for your products.

Shared perspectives from embedded COTS suppliers at the annual Embedded Tech Trends (ETT) conference and networking event typically flavor my January/February column each year. Back-to-back twenty-minute press briefings in three-hour periods not only provide column fodder but also help us plan editorial contributions for the coming year.  

SCOTTDALE, Arizona. A new requirement for adherence to function safety or security standards can be a rude awakening for the uninitiated. There can be no half measures when applications are critical.  Requirements traceability, static analysis, dynamic coverage analysis, and unit/integration testing are deemed essential, not just at the end of development but throughout the development lifecycle. Such activities can come at a considerable overhead.  Off the shelf and open source software promise to offset that, and are in abundant supply for common system components such as RTOS and UI. However, integrating them within the application domain in a safety- or security-critical context can be a logistical nightmare for the unwary.  This webcast of industry experts will help you to pick your way through the demands of the functional safety and cybersecurity standards to minimize the pain of compliance while maximising the benefit of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software component use.

In this episode of the Mil Tech Virtual Toolbox, we spoke with Duc Huy Tran, VP of Global Marketing with Aitech Systems about tools for enabling cybersecurity in military embedded systems and how artificial intelligence (AI) and open architecture initiatives such as the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) are changing the defense electronics landscape.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. Our five most popular McHale Report podcasts for 2020 hosted by editors John McHale and Emma Helfrich featured guests from National Instruments, Liteye Systems, Pentek, and two guests from Mercury Systems on topics such as artificial intelligence for electronic warfare, the end of Moore's Law, the defense industry's response to COVID-19, counter-UAV advancements, and the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Consortium. Check them out below.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. Our most popular blogs on MilitaryEmbedded.com from 2020 covered topics by guest bloggers from VITA, Crystal Group, Winmate, Curtiss-Wright, and Advantech on subjects such as 6G -stealth fighter planes, hardware security trust, UFOs, rugged tablets, tensors, unmanned fighter jets, small form factors, the kill web and more. Check them out below.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. The most popular stories on MilitaryEmbedded.com throughout 2020 covered subjects such as NASA's Artemis mission, radar for tracking hypersonics, certifying COTS software, big data challenges, and more. Check them out below.

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona. With the rapid advancement of defense systems technology, new interconnect standards are enabling new possibilities for high-density, high-speed connections in harsh environments. This webcast, "Evolving Standards: How VITA and SOSA are Leading the Change," to be held December 2, 2020 at 2pm Est., explores embedded computing industry trends, as well as new and upcoming standards for rugged interconnects from the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Consortium and VITA Standards Organization.

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona. Modernization efforts that require consolidating multiple proven software systems onto a single intelligent edge platform are difficult. Fortunately, there are strategies that allow you to maintain your software integrity and partitioning while taking advantage of cutting edge software development technology in modern avionics systems. In this webcast on December 1, 2020 at 11 am Est., subject matter experts from Wind River and AdaCore will demonstrate how you can map your existing architecture to guest operating systems on hypervisors, by using Wind River’s Helix Virtualization Platforms and software development tools from the compiler experts at AdaCore.