Military Embedded Systems

ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. The U.S. Air Force's 52nd Combat Communications Squadron (CBCS), based at Robins Air Force base, is beta-testing two new deployable tactical-communications kits: the Agile Communications Package (ACP) and the Fly-Away Communications Terminal (FACT).

NATIONAL GUARD CAMP ATTERBURY-MUSCATATUCK, Ind. The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering and the Indiana National Guard hosted the second iteration of the Technology Readiness Experimentation 2023 event (T-REX) at Muscatatuck Training Center/Camp Atterbury, Indiana during mid-October, as part of the T-REX assessment of technologies that the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) deems critical to warfighting efforts.

BOZEMAN, Mont. Defense-technology company Reveal Technology won a U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant totaling $749,000 for research, development, testing, and evaluation of Reveal's Farsight platform.

MCLEAN, Va. Military shipbuiders HII announced that its Mission Technologies division won a $79 million contract to support the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) mission to develop, test, and field a missile defense system intended to protect the U.S. and its allies against enemy ballistic missile attacks.

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. U.S. Air Force personnel recently assembled at Eglin Air Force Base to take delivery of the ALIA electric aircraft from electric/aerospace company BETA Technologies, which partnered with the Air Force's AFWERX directorate to develop one of several zero-emission aircraft for the U.S. military. 

WASHINGTON. A different type of space antenna will be getting a ride to space on a 6U CubeSat as part of NASA's Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) 43 mission, slated for launch in March 2024. 

YUMA PROVING GROUND, Ariz. Raytheon reports successful demonstration of the capabilities of what it calls the Low, slow, small-unmanned aircraft Integrated Defense System (LIDS) during the U.S. Army's annual summer test period.

ARLINGTON, Va. Electronics provider CAES won a contract from the U.S. Navy for production of the AN/ALQ-99 low band consolidation (LBC) transmitter used in electronic-warfare (EW) systems.

AUSTIN, Texas. Artificial intelligence (AI) security provider HiddenLayer announced its selection by AFWERX (the innovation arm of the Department of the Air Force) for a small business innovation Direct-to-Phase II contract aimed at implementing HiddenLayer's Machine Learning Security (MLSec) Platform to address new challenges posed by the use of AI.

ARLINGTON, Va. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), as it looks into the near future in which military personnel widely rely on mixed-reality (MR) systems for their missions, recently launched the Intrinsic Cognitive Security (ICS) program to explore and validate mathematical approaches to ensure that MR system designs mitigate potential cognitive attacks.

WASHINGTON. Two companies -- Shield AI, a U.S. defense technology company and Sentient Vision Systems (Sentient), an Australia-based company that makes artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled real-time situational-awareness tools -- agreed to a long-term agreement to deliver Sentient’s ViDAR AI system for use on the Sentient V-BAT vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) uncrewed aerial system (UAS).

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. Military shipbuilding company HII won a $134 million contract to provide readiness and training software development support for the U.S. Navy. The Navy will use the live, virtual, and constructive (LVC) training systems to prepare troops for combat readiness.

MELBOURNE, Fla. L3Harris Technologies signed two contracts worth as much as $134 million to update portions of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) space domain awareness mission.

PORTLAND, Ore. The global market for directed-energy weapons, which stood at $4.9 billion in 2022, is anticipated to generate $22.2 billion by 2032, for a combined annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.4%, according to a new study from Allied Market Research, "Directed Energy Weapons Market by Technology (High Energy Laser, High Powered Microwave, Others), by Platform (Land, Airborne, Naval), by Product (Lethal, Non-lethal): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2023-2032."  

NEW YORK. The global market for airborne ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] reached $7.8 billion in 2022 and is projected to grow at a combined annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.2% during the period to 2028, according to a new sturdy from TechSci Research, "Global Airborne ISR Market -- Global Industry Size, Share, Trends, Opportunity, and Forecast, 2018-2028."

DUNEDIN, New Zealand. Physicists at the University of Otago in New Zealand demonstrated a new type of antenna for radio waves that they believe could enable simplified communications for soldiers on the battlefield as the sensors used in the radios could cover the full spectrum of radio frequencies, rather than needing multiple antennas to cover different frequency bands.

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Florida. The C-130H Hercules fleet used by the U.S. Air Force Reserve Command has begun transitioning from analog to digital, as the service embarks on the Avionics Modernization Program Increment 2 (AMP Inc 2), a move the Air Force calls a "significant improvement" to the almost 60-year-old aircraft’s avionics and navigation systems.

WASHINGTON. Cybersecurity firm SpiderOak signed an agreement with the U.S. Space Development Agency (SDA) to research SDA using SpiderOak's software to protect ground systems that control military satellites.

ROCKVILLE, Md. The U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) signed a task order contract with IT contractor DSFederal under which the IT firm will provide the USMC with technical program management support for its Logistics Integrated Information Solutions (LI2S-MC).

SAN DIEGO. Northrop Grumman and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) are working on a project to integrate commercial space internet into airborne platforms in a bid to advance connectivity for warfighters and support the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) vision for Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2).