Military Embedded Systems

Pacific Defense, Perceptronics win USAF contract to advance SOSA for airborne EW and SIGINT

News

December 11, 2023

Lisa Daigle

Assistant Managing Editor

Military Embedded Systems

Pacific Defense, Perceptronics win USAF contract to advance SOSA for airborne EW and SIGINT
Image courtesy Pacific Defense

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. Pacific Defense and affiliate business Perceptronics (Farifax, Virginia) report winning $9.94 million in new contracts from the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) to advance and mature modular system capabilities aligned to The Open Group’s Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Technical Standard for airborne electronic warfare (EW) and signals intelligence (SIGINT) missions. 

The latest award builds on a series of prior Air Force, Navy, and Army awards to deliver a prototype system based on the proposed SOSA small-form-factor (VNX+) standard, advance SOSA security architectures, and apply artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) algorithms and techniques to EW/SIGINT functions.

According to the Pacific Defense announcement of the AFLCMC award, Perceptronics specializes in AI/ML techniques as applied to various military applications and is leading the development of VNX+ software-defined radios (SDRs) that enable lower-SWaP [size, weight, and power] intelligent-sensor payloads.

The AFLCMC contracts as awarded have an 18-month period of performance through December 2024, with most of the work to be conducted in Nashua, New Hampshire; El Segundo, California; and Fairfax, Virginia.