SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. OpenSystems Media (OSM), the premier media company in the embedded electronics space, hired defense industry marketing operations expert Gina Peter as the company’s Director of Operations & Customer Success.

Augmented reality (AR) is not exactly new technology – the first functional AR systems stretch back to the early 1990s – but the situation in the defense industry has changed dramatically in recent years. Once more of a novelty than practical technology, now military contractors use AR for everything from training to manufacturing to battlefield operations, and that trend is likely to increase.

“Is it difficult covering standards, is it getting slow?” my dinner companion asked on the eve of the AUSA 2022 Annual Meeting in Washington. He noted how technical standards bodies can be plodding, taking months to deliberate on a specific point without creating much news.

Welcome to our 2022 September Resource Guide, which for the tenth year in a row is 100 pages or more. This feat follows on the heels of our July/August MES issue of 48 pages plus the 76-page SOSA Special Edition. We also added a new print brand this year, mailing with our April/May issue – the FACE Special Edition. Thanks as always to our loyal readers and advertisers for their support. And a special thanks to our editorial staff and contributing authors for providing content that keeps people turning our pages.

Following what has been a busy springtime returning to in-person military conferences and trade shows like the Sea-Air-Space Expo and SOFIC, launching our own virtual events, and keeping up with all the latest defense electronics news and trends like the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) modular open systems approach (MOSA) strategies, the summer slowdown has been sweet.

Enthusiastic crowds were a theme at each show I attended over the last six months, as folks were eager to be back among their defense industry colleagues, clients, and partners. None were more excited than attendees at the annual Special Operations Forces Industry Conference (SOFIC) in Tampa, Florida, a show put on by the National Defense Industries Association (NDIA). Navigating the exhibition aisles of that show was like trying to walk through a crowded bar, as this was SOFIC’s first in-person get-together since 2019.

In this issue, Military Embedded Systems hosts an online roundtable with avionics software experts, discussing military avionics technology, design trends, and challenges.The panelists discuss the complexities of multicore architectures, safety-certification challenges, securing of flight-control systems, and how modular open system approach (MOSA) initiatives like The Open Group’s Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) Technical Standard impact military manned and unmanned avionics.