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As the military-electronics industry continues to transition toward commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products, established standards, and modular designs, the need for tailored solutions remains – there is a middle ground. In this, Part 2 of a two-part blog series, several examples are discussed where customization of power supplies provides a discrete yet obvious advantage to the design engineer to meet performance specifications.

FLIR Systems, Inc. announced that the U.S. Marine Corps has ordered more than 140 of the company’s Centaur unmanned ground vehicles (UGV), plus spares. The $18.6 million contract is sourced through the Department of Defense Man Transportable Robotic System Increment II (MTRS Inc II) program.

Q-CTRL, a startup that applies the principles of control engineering to accelerate the development of quantum technology, announced a strategic investment by In-Q-Tel (IQT), the not-for-profit strategic investor that identifies innovative technology solutions, to support the national security communities of the United States and its allies.

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) and the Air National Guard (ANG) have signed a contract for GA-ASI to supply its Detect and Avoid System (DAAS) for one MQ-9 Block 1 and one MQ-9 Block 5 Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA).

Each issue of Military Embedded Systems, the editorial staff will highlight a different charitable organization that benefits the military, veterans, and their families.This issue we are highlighting Team RWB, a national nonprofit veterans’ service organization that works to solve the epidemic of isolation and loneliness through physical and social activity. Founder Mike Irwin, an Army combat veteran, instituted Team RWB in 2010 as a way to reach out to returning service personnel on a consistent basis in their own communities.

I've been heavily involved in a standards effort called the Sensor Open Systems Architecture, or SOSA. SOSA is interesting because it’s a government/industry consortium formed with the goal to create a hardware/software standard aimed at making it much easier to integrate and maintain defense sensor systems. As it is a huge undertaking with something like 70 organizations participating and usually upwards to 150 people at each semi-monthly face-to-face, there is a lot to say about SOSA. Today I'll discuss VPX and SOSA, but I’ll be touching on different aspects of SOSA over the coming months as there is far too much to tackle in a single blog post.

My report covers the state of the VITA technology industry in particular and of the board and system industry in general, in markets such as aerospace, defense, space, industrial, and more.

For integrators of deployed aerospace and military platforms, size, weight, and power (SWaP) is always at a premium. The use of smaller and lighter equipment enables more electronics payloads to be integrated, while the use of SWaP-optimized subsystems enables platforms to be more energy-efficient, to go farther and/or faster. One enabler for SWaP optimization is Power Over Ethernet (PoE), which simplifies cabling and power needs for networked cameras, phones, and other IP [Internet Protocol] devices.