VITA 90 is a new small-form-factor (SFF) standard that is a direct descendant of VITA 74, an inherently rugged module standard with a compelling space, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C) proposition, and aimed at use in many military and aerospace applications. Recently, this standard has been causing quite a ruckus within the MIL-rugged embedded systems community, as VITA 90 has been selected by a government-led consortium of manufacturers and integrators for inclusion in the new Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Technical Standard.

The objectives of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) – to improve system capabilities, compatibility, and cost – are predicated on a tight collaboration between government and industry. Although each service branch of the military has a model or view of what it needs in its standards to produce the systems it requires, a common goal of interoperability has reshaped the military-electronics landscape over these past few years.

Today, with the increasing use of unmanned platforms to host intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance [ISR] sensor applications, system integrators need to ensure that the sensor systems and the critical data they collect and store are protected from falling into the wrong hands. By their very nature, unmanned platforms – whether airborne, on land, or at sea – pose more complex problems for security.

Designers of systems aimed at countering unmanned aerial systems (UASs) or drones can now take advantage of open architecture designs and modular artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) to detect, identify, track, and mitigate potentially dangerous aircraft.

Each issue, the editorial staff of Military Embedded Systems will highlight a different charitable organization that benefits the military, veterans, and their families. We are honored to cover the technology that protects those who protect us every day.

In this podcast, Rajeev Gopal, Vice President, Advanced Systems for Hughes Defense Intelligence Systems Division, goes in depth on military 5G solutions as well as SATCOM trends from this month's Satellite 2022 show, jamming tech, and leveraging security tools that comply with the Commercial Solutions for Classified (CSFC) standard. He also details how artificial intelligence/machine learning is impacting SATCOM networks.

Last time, we looked at the Army’s IBCS (Integrated Battle Command System) program and Project Convergence exercises, through the eyes of their advanced AI (artificial intelligence) Kill Web algorithms (Rainmaker, Prometheus, FIRESTORM, and SHOT). Unfortunately, the Navy doesn’t talk much about AI algorithms, so that forces us to reluctantly abandon the trusted engineering principle of consistent analytical continuity and view their progress through what they do talk about: their platforms.