Military Embedded Systems

Military-display designers continue to face stringent size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C) constraints while integrating commercial innovations like HD – and soon 4K – into systems that must work with legacy sensors and interfaces while also complying with a variety of open architectures and standards. Meanwhile, researchers plan for military augmented reality and immersive display solutions for warfighters.

Nearly three decades ago, then-U.S. Department of Defense Secretary William Perry issued a memo dictating the use of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technology wherever and whenever possible. In many ways, the edict revolutionized procurement and helped integrate new commercial technology more affordably into defense systems, but it also created supply-chain pain for suppliers that is still felt today.

This spring Mercury Systems acquired Pentek, a designer of FPGA single-board computers, data-acquisition boards, recording systems, and other products for radar, signals intelligence (SIGINT), and electronic warfare (EW) applications. In this podcast, Neal Austin, Vice President and General Manager of the Mixed Signal Business Unit within Mercury Systems and Rodger Hosking, co-founder and VP of Pentek Systems deep dive into the acquisition, where Pentek will fit within Mercury, and how the acquisition impacts the Mercury efforts within the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Consortium. They also cover design trends in the radar and electronic warfare markets,  commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) procurement, the impact AI and 5G will have on military electronics, and tackle the engineering recruitment challenges defense companies face.

VANCOUVER, Washington. CRU Data Security Group (CDSG) released the DIGISTOR Citadel family of secure self-encrypting SSDs aimed at military and government applications requiring NSA Data at Rest security protection up to the U.S. government’s secret classification level.

DULLES, Virginia. Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) expertise is a key characteristic of the team Raytheon Technologies is putting together to support development of the U.S. Army’s Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node (TITAN) program. TITAN is a tactical ground station that finds and tracks threats to support long-range precision targeting.

ANNAPOLIS, Maryland. Annapolis Micro Systems released a 100Gb Ethernet RFSoC board that is alignd to the Sensor Open Systems Architecture Technical Standard. It combines analog and digital capability in a single 3U OpenVPX slot, operations that previously needed two or more boards for the same functions.

Satellites, spacecraft, and communications systems are leveraging the performance benefits of gallium nitride (GaN) RF components as demonstrated by the successful landing of the Mars Perseverance Rover. GaN also fuels innovation in military electronic warfare and radar systems. Dean White, senior director of Defense and Aerospace for Qorvo, discussed these trends with me in the following Q&A. We also covered the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the U.S. semiconductor industry, military funding, and the engineering recruitment in the defense industry. Edited excerpts follow.

Radiation-hardened microelectronics are in demand, from commercial small sats to NASA manned space missions to military satellite missions in contested space. Designing components for these various applications is a matter of balancing reliability and cost as demand for more commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components increases.

Supply cycles these days are slow whether you are buying lawn furniture, lumber, raw materials, or mission-critical microelectronics. Reasons range from the pandemic and the resulting economic slowdown to the Suez Canal blockage to tariffs. You name it, you order it, you likely have to wait months to get it.

ANDOVER, Mass.  Mercury Systems, Inc., continuing its run of acquisitions, purchased Pentek Technologies, LLC and Pentek Systems, Inc. (collectively, “Pentek”) in Upper Saddle River, N.J., for an all-cash purchase price of $65 million. Pentek, a competitor to Mercury's embedded signal-processing business, designs software-defined radio (SDR) solutions, FPGA single-board computers, data-acqusition boards, recording systems, and other products for radar, signals intelligence (SIGINT), electronic warfare (EW), and other high-performance defense applications.

It’s unmanned systems issue time again: That means it’s time for the annual xPonential event, which is being held virtually May 4 -6 this year due to the ongoing pandemic. This issue will appear virtually there as well; AUVSI has also announced that the event will be held in person in Atlanta August 16-19. That’s good news. Even more positive news: The continued growth of the unmanned systems market plus renewed commitment from U.S military leadership to leverage autonomous systems.

The ARINC 818 digital video interface and protocol standard is used throughout commercial and military cockpits for avionics display applications. As military video systems continue to increase in complexity in and out of the cockpit, for example in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) sensor systems, the demand for ARINC 818 solutions is growing. In this podcast, Tim Keller, Chief Operations Officer at Great River Technology discusses defines what ARINC 818 is, discusses common misconceptions about the standard, and describes its growing use in sensor applications and in training and simulation applications. Keller also details new ARINC 818 training for engineers and explores how the standard could potentially work within the Sensor Open Systems Architecture Technical Standard.

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona. One of the keys to the success of the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) is that it was developed by aligning with current open standards and open systems architectures, including FACE, HOST, REDHAWK, OpenVPX, and similar specifications. The SOSA Consortium also works closely with such standards organizations as VITA, FACE, PICMG, IEEE, SAE International, Wireless Innovation Forum, and others. This webcast, titled "How SOSA Aligns with Current Open Standards," held Tuesday, May 11, covers how the SOSA Technical Standard has adapted to and aligned with open architecture standards and how it has impacted the design of SOSA-conformant hardware and software.

Reduced size, weight, and power (SWaP) requirements are pervasive throughout defense electronics platforms. Electronic footprints continue to shrink so much that traditional small form factors like 3U VPX or 3U CompactPCI are considered too big. So, it's not surprising that the VITA Standards Organization (VSO) is looking at new form factors, such as Short VPX. In this podcast, Jay Grandin, Vice President of Product Development at Annapolis Micro Systems discusses demand for small form factors, how Short VPX can meet that demand and how it fits into the Open VPX ecosystem. Grandin also explores what military applications would be best suited for the new standard and how it could potentially work within the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Technical Standard, of which version 1.0 is expected to be completed this year.

BERWYN, Pennsylvania and HUNTSVILLE, Alabama. Officials from Ametek announced that the company has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Abaco Systems, Inc., a provider of mission-critical embedded computing systems for electronic warfare, radar, avionics, communications, and other military applications from Veritas Capital in an all-cash transaction valued at $1.35 billion.

The last 12 months have not been kind to commercial avionics suppliers, as the pandemic ended up grounding many flights and slowing aircraft purchases, consequently meaning fewer orders for avionics systems like displays and computers. Those commercial avionics suppliers – whether prime contractors or embedded computing suppliers – that are staying afloat are ones with a strong military business to offset the losses from the commercial market, as the military avionics market remains healthy.

Ultra-wide band radar systems are generating unprecedented amounts of data and require storage systems that can handle the high bandwidth and what can seem like information overload. In this podcast, Chris Tojeira, Recording Systems Director at Pentek discusses the Department of Defense's current ultrawideband radar requirements, how to capture signal data, PCI Express, FPGA advantages, and latency issues. He also takes a look at the future for signal recording and shares an old Commodore 64 story.  

SOLOMONS, Maryland. Officials from the Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) and the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Consortia will be leading the Open Group FACE and SOSA Consortia Expo & Technical Interchange Meeting (TIM) virtual event next month on March 23, 2021 from 11 am to 4 pm Est.

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona. The Sensor Open System Architecture (SOSA) Technical Standard applies open-architecture concepts to high-performance defense sensor systems such as radar, electronic warfare (EW), and signals intelligence (SIGINT) platforms. The goal of the standard is to design a non-propriety open systems architecture based on Department oif Defense (DoD)-relevant government or commercially available open standards to lower system development costs, and make system reconfigurability and future system upgrades easier and faster, thus improving overall C4ISR capabilities. A key part of the developing technical standard will be how to ensure conformance to the standard is met for hardware or SOSA modules claiming alignment with the Technical Standard. This webcast, titled "SOSA Conformance and What it Means to You," held Wednesday, February 24, featured SOSA Consortium experts discussing the current status of the Technical Standard, what the upcoming 1.0 release means for conforming to the standard, and how you should approach SOSA conformance for your products.

Shared perspectives from embedded COTS suppliers at the annual Embedded Tech Trends (ETT) conference and networking event typically flavor my January/February column each year. Back-to-back twenty-minute press briefings in three-hour periods not only provide column fodder but also help us plan editorial contributions for the coming year.