Military Embedded Systems

ARLINGTON, Va. A new project from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is attempting to help government and industry more quickly and reliably harden space-based microelectronics against damage caused by single-event effects, such as solar flares. 

WARRENTON, Va. and SYDNEY, Australia. Artificial intelligence (AI)-based counter-uncrewed systems company DroneShield won a $33 million contract with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), consisting of DroneShield counter-uncrewed aerial system (C-UAS) equipment and multiyear support services.

PHOENIX, Ariz. Spirit Electronics announced its acquisition of Insight Analytical Labs (Colorado Springs, Colorado); Insight Analytical Labs' team, operations, and assets will become part of Spirit Electronics.

NEW YORK. The size of the unmanned maritime vehicle (UMV) market is forecast to reach over $3.1 billion by 2033, a projected increase of over $1.9 billion from the size of the 2023 market, driven by a growing number of applications for littoral warfare, according to a report from GlobalData, "Unmanned Maritime Vehicles – Thematic Intelligence." 

WASHINGTON. The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Space Wireless Energy Laser Link (SWELL) passed 100 days of successful on-orbit laser operations on June 29, 2023, with the NRL calling the experiment "the first successful instance of laser power beaming in space."

ALEXANDRIA, Va. Military contractor ADS Inc. won a $38 million delivery order from the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) Troop Support unit on behalf of the U.S. Army to produce a electronic warfare (EW) jammer system aimed at protecting troops against modern improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and electromagnetic threats.

ARLINGTON, Va. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) launced a program it calls the Intelligent Generation of Tools for Security (INGOTS) initiative, which intends to identify and fix high-severity, chainable computer vulnerabilities using new techniques driven by program analysis and artificial intelligence (AI) to measure vulnerabilities within complex systems like web browsers and mobile operating systems. 

SAN ANTONIO. Autonomous uncrewed systems developer Darkhive won a $5 million Phase III Small Business Innovation Research contract with the U.S. Air Force AFWERX Prime to integrate and test next-generation autonomy software on a variety of uncrewed aerial system (UAS) platforms.

MCKINNEY, Tex. RTX won a contract with the U.S. Army worth $117.5 million to start low-rate initial production of 3rd-generation forward looking infrared (3GEN FLIR) B-Kit sensors to be installed on combat platforms. 

SUNNYVALE, Calif. GSI Technology announced that it won an Other Transaction Agreement award with a total potential value of approximately $1.25 million with the Space Development Agency (SDA) for the development of a dual use Next-Generation Associative Processing Unit-2 (APU2) for Enhanced Space-Based Capabilities.

DUBLIN. Tthe global market for directed-energy weapons -- estimated at $21.4 billion in 2022 -- is projected to reach $111.4 billion by 2030, growing at a combined annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.9% over the study period, according to a new report from Research and Markets, "Directed Energy Weapons: Global Strategic Business Report." 

FALLS CHURCH, Va. General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT) announced that its Intelligence & Homeland Security Division won two contracts valued at $580 million.

ATLANTA. The MOSA Industry & Government Summit & Expo – scheduled for September 18-19, 2023, at the Georgia World Congress Center Atlanta in Atlanta – will feature conference sessions and exposition covering modular open system approach (MOSA) strategies, technology, and industry demonstrations.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico. Red Cat Holdings, Inc., a hardware-enabled software provider to the drone industry, announced that its subsidiary Teal Drones has signed a contract with the U.S. Army -- worth an additional $1.2 million -- to continue developing a new small uncrewed aerial system (sUAS) prototype for the Army’s Short Range Reconnaissance (SRR) program.  

PALO ALTO, Calif. Enterprise SaaS [software as a service] company SandboxAQ announced that the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) awarded it the Prototype Quantum Resistant Cryptography Public Key Infrastructure Other Transaction Authority (OTA) Agreement, under which SandboxAQ will implement its SecuritySuite, an end-to-end cryptographic management solution that is intended to provide the U.S. government with artificial intelligence (AI)-powered vulnerability detection and remediation, cryptographic agility, and support for the latest quantum-resistant algorithms scheduled to be standardized by NIST [National Institute of Standards and Technology].

ASHBURN, Va. Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions launched a new Fabric100 suite of 3U and 6U OpenVPX modules and systems intended to enable 100 Gbit Ethernet and high-performance PCIe Gen4 interconnect speeds to rugged deployable computing architectures. 

ARLINGTON, Va. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) chose nine companies to produce initial operational system and demonstration system conceptual designs for a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) uncrewed aerial system (UAS) -- nicknamed the AdvaNced airCraft Infrastructure-Less Launch And RecoverY program or "ANCILLARY -- that will be able to deploy and retreat without the large mechanical launchers and landing/recovery equipment currently used today. 

KONGSBERG, Norway. Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace won a contract valued at NOK 320 million ($29.55 million) for the first phase for development of tactical radio equipment -- which it calls Combat Net Radio -- for Norway's armed forces. 

LONDON. The DSEI 2023 exhibition and trade show -- now in its 24th year -- will tackle the theme of "Achieving an Integrated Force," as it highlights the pertinence of integrating across the five operational domains of air, cyber and electromagnetic activities (CEMA), land, sea, and space.

LE PLESSIS-ROBINSON, France. European defense consortium MBDA announced it will lead a pan-European consortium focused on countering hypersonic missile threats from other nations.