The McHale Report Logo

September 2022

 
 
 
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The McHale Report, by militaryembedded.com Editorial Director John McHale, covers technology and procurement trends in the defense and aerospace electronics community.
View our archive of recent and past issues of the McHale Report e-mail newsletter.
 
 
VPT
 
 
 
SPECIAL REPORT
 
Vetronics systems today are increasingly focused on C4ISR [command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance], interoperability with other battlefield elements, and the capability to be optionally unmanned if necessary. They are also more likely to be built on open architectures as the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) continues the push toward a modular open systems approach (MOSA) in upgrades and new designs.
 
 
TOP STORY
 
The U.S. Department of Defense has announced a $1.1 billion package in additional security assistance for Ukraine that includes funding for UAS radars, comms and surveillance systems, and more.
 
 
 
 
MIL TECH TRENDS
 
Radar and electronic warfare (EW) are challenging applications for designers of test systems. The only constant seems to be change in technologies, tactics, and countermeasures. Industry players believe that artificial intelligence (AI) may hold the key to driving the effectiveness of radar and EW.
 
 
TOP STORY
 
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) used a company-owned Avenger MQ-20A unmanned aircraft system (UAS) to fly a military aircraft using an artificial intelligence (AI) pilot and an open architecture-based sensor system.
 
 
 
 
MARKET RESEARCH
 
A new report predicts that the global avionics market will surge from $46.7 billion in 2022 to $66.3 billion by 2027 for a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.3%.
 
LCR Embedded Systems
 
 
 
TOP STORY
 
Northrop Grumman and the U.S. Air Force will unveil the B-21 Raider -- a new long-range stealth strategic bomber -- later this year, and the aircraft could start flying next year, the company announced in a statement.
 
 
GUEST BLOG
 
Computer data exists in different states at different times: data in transit (information flowing through a network); data in use (active data that is being accessed and manipulated by a computer program); and data-at-rest, known as DAR, or data that is physically housed in a storage device like a solid-state drive. Many cybersecurity solutions focus on securing data in transit and data in use, but neglect securing DAR.
 
 
 
 
TOP STORY
 
BAE Systems won a $6.5 million contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to provide filter technology to improve Defense Department radio frequency (RF) and microwave systems such as digital Active Electronically Scanned Arrays (AESA), the company announced in a statement.
 
 
TOP STORY
 
Lockheed Martin Rotary and Mission Systems has won $54 million cost-plus-incentive-fee modification to a previously awarded contract to exercise options for engineering services and other direct costs in support of the U.S. Navy's Integrated Submarine Imaging System (ISIS).
 
 
 
 
TOP STORY
 
The U.S. Air Force has chosen Raytheon Missiles & Defense, in partnership with Northrop Grumman, to develop the hypersonic attack cruise missile (HACM) for the Air Force, a first-of-its-kind weapon developed in conjunction with the Southern Cross Integrated Flight Research Experiment (SCIFiRE), a U.S. and Australia project arrangement.
 
Annapolis Micro Systems
 
 
 
TOP STORY
 
Five companies have won bids to be an industry partner with the U.S. Air Force on the Advanced Battle Management Systems Digital Infrastructure Consortium, which will support the U.S. Department of Defense's Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) effort.
 
 
GUEST BLOG
 
ARTICLE IMAGE
The VITA 47 standard describes the boundary of the module as a maximum, with different values depending on the class. This is a convenient requirement as it is easy to apply a temperature boundary condition to interface surfaces in an FEA [finite element analysis] model and determine the thermal performance of the card.
 
 
 
 
 
 
The new Model 8258 6U development platform places the power of Versal® ACAP (advanced compute acceleration platform) technology in a ready-to-run, proven and tested platform streamlining the path for engineers to immediately start unlocking the tremendous performance needed for advanced defense system solutions. The Model 8258 enables application development right “out of the box,” saving valuable time and reducing project risk. The platform includes a dual AMD-Xilinx Versal® AI Core SCFE6931 board, 100 GigE interfaces and the Navigator design suite for system control and FPGA IP development.
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MARKET RESEARCH
 
A new report predicts that worldwide spending on unmanned aircraft for the military will increase from $12.1 billion in 2023 to $16.4 billion in 2032, for a total expenditure of approximately $162.2 billion over the next 10 years, and the U.S. military may have growing competition in the coming years.
 
 
INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT
 
The ongoing global chip shortage and difficult time sourcing components and raw materials has escalated a decades-long issue for the defense and aerospace industry. It has steadily been losing its purchasing leverage in the marketplace to other powerhouse industries, thus pushing the technological road maps of the component manufacturers. What events led up to this overarching issue and how can defense and aerospace more effectively source the parts they need in such a dynamic market?
 
 
 
 
GUEST BLOG
 
SEPT2022ALDERMAN.jpeg
If you have been a fervent reader of these Kill Web articles, you know that the Army has been connecting their sensors and weapons together into a tactical network under their IBCS initiative (Integrated Battle Command System). The Navy has been secretly connecting their ships and planes together with their CEC program (Cooperative Engagement Capability). The same goes for the Air Force’s planes under their ABMS initiative (Advanced Battle Management System) and the Space Force’s satellites (SF-ABMS).
 
 
MIL TECH INSIDER
 
For many years, military-system designers relied solely on direct attached storage (DAS) devices when they needed to deploy data storage on military platforms. These devices are embedded within or directly attached to the computers, such as single-board computers (SBC) on a platform.
 
 
 
 
TOP STORY
 
ARTICLE IMAGE
Blue Canyon Technologies (BCT) and SEAKR Engineering (wholly owned subsidiaries of Raytheon Technologies) announced that they have delivered one Saturn-class microsatellite bus and completed acceptance testing of the first two of twelve "Pit Boss" battle-management systems for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Blackjack satellite program.
 
 
TOP STORY
 
Lockheed Martin has won a $158 million contract from the U.S. Army to produce early operational capability (EOC) Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM), the second production contract received to date for the program, the company announced in a statement.
 
 
 
 
SPONSORED WHITE PAPER
 
DFI
With the development of artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), which can reduce casualties and mission burdens, have long become indispensable applications for military units worldwide.
 
 
SPONSORED WHITE PAPER
 
Analog Devices
This article details performance measurements vs. predictions of a 16-chan- nel S-band direct sampling receiver design. The design is based on recently released direct sampling analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) clocked at 4 GSPS and sampling in the second Nyquist zone of the converter.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Sponsored by: Annapolis Micro Systems, LCR Embedded Systems, Mercury Systems, nVent/Schroff
Date: On-Demand
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