The Department of Defense (DoD) no longer wants one-off systems, but rather adaptable test systems to tackle current and emerging threats that can also be used across different platforms. End game: A software-defined solution that is easily upgradable, low-cost, and open source.

Two international teams of security researchers have independently and concurrently discovered "Foreshadow," a new variant of the hardware vulnerability known as "Meltdown" that was announced earlier this year. Meltdown can be exploited to bypass Intel processors' secure regions to access memory and data.

More Virginia-class nuclear attack submarines enter "Silent Service" in 2018. While the subs are getting cool sonar and processing upgrades, any embedded systems need to be secured to protect against SATCOM vulnerabilities.

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) have become the backbone of tactical military communication because of their exceptional flexibility, security, and reliability. While MANETs have many unique capabilities, however, they have not yet realized their full potential. 

Future battles may be fought against so-called "near-peer" adversaries who may already be ahead of America's best technologies. It's time to adopt the latest consumer technologies in the command post by making the post more mobile or by making it virtual, like unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) pilots who operate far from the front lines.

Check out the latest videos from AUSA 2018. Our military vlogger covers the latest technology, including artificial intelligence, being integrated into ground systems for the Army. 

Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology has proven to be invaluable to embedded designers for many years. Often acting as an all-in-one solution, FPGAs negate the need for ASIC [Application-specific integrated circuit] technology and reduce the cost of custom IP algorithms in silicon.

Before the advent of OpenVPX, designers of embedded systems took advantage of the extreme connectivity offered by VPX (VITA 46), but were faced with a virtually unlimited number of possible implementations. Specific choices for the control and data channel assignments for each slot, the backplane connectivity, and serial fabrics were often made somewhat arbitrarily to suit the particular needs of the current system.

An A/D (Analog-to-Digital) converter, frequently abbreviated as ADC, accepts an analog voltage at the input and produces a digital representation of that voltage at the output that’s called a “sample”. The two primary characteristics of A/Ds are the rate of conversion or sampling rate, expressed in samples per second, and the accuracy of each digital sample expressed as the number of binary bits or decimal digits per sample.

On the modern battlefield, dominating the electromagnetic spectrum is increasingly important. In order to do so, radar, SIGINT and electronic warfare systems must be able to cover wider and wider bands of the spectrum. 

Investing in a unified test architecture based on a software-defined test platform is a best-in-class approach for teams designing and testing advanced electromechanical vehicle systems.

Electrical interfaces and connectors today face signal integrity challenges which weren’t a real concern 10 to 15 years ago. This is especially true for military systems such as radar, electronic warfare, and signals intelligence (SIGINT) that continue to grow in complexity.