DSEI Day 1: Open architectures, Poland defense investment

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September 12, 2023

I spent my first day touring the USA pavilion at DSEI 2023 in London. It’s my first time back to this massive show in four years; I saw many familiar faces and technologies from U.S. defense electronic suppliers, from connectors and signal-processing solutions to avionics boxes and rugged servers. Many companies are also showcasing and demonstrating their open-architecture designs.

While there is not a modular open systems approach (MOSA) mandate with European ministers of defense, there is still strong interest in open architectures. Many of the booths (or stands) I swung by had signs noting membership in the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) and Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) consortia.

Mark Littlefield of Elma Electronic told me that while European companies may not have the requirement, they still have the problems that MOSA strategies -- like SOSA -- can solve. Elma is running a MORA [Modular Open Radio Frequency Architecture] ready demo platform aligned to SOSA at its booth. For more on that, click here. 

In photo: Elma is running a MORA [Modular Open Radio Frequency Architecture] ready demo platform aligned to SOSA at its booth (H7-515) Image courtesy MES.

The interest in SOSA is also related to the growing interest in VPX, although many integrators in Europe still see it as too expensive, one embedded computing supplier told me.

Later this week I will share more of my conversation with Littlefield and other embedded suppliers on MOSA trends and VPX interest in European military systems.

Defense spending

One obvious trend is the increased spending by European countries, such as Poland, and the increase in U.S. technology being provided for Poland in wake of the Ukraine invasion. This issue holds especially true for Poland, as Putin has said Poland would be next after Ukraine.

Poland is scared, and rightly so, one defense systems integrator told me today.

An example of such investment is the announcement that U.S. Army will expand its WISŁA medium-range air and missile defense capabilities with the introduction of 12 Lower-Tier Air and Missile Defense Sensors (LTAMDS) plus 48 Patriot launchers in Poland. For more on this story, click here. 

For all our DSEI 2023 coverage, please continue to check out www.militaryembedded.com/dsei.