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October 2020

 
 
 
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The McHale Report, by militaryembedded.com Editorial Director John McHale, covers technology and procurement trends in the defense and aerospace electronics community.
View our archive of recent and past issues of the McHale Report e-mail newsletter.
 
 
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PODCAST
 
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Modern battlefields present many complex challenges for Army soldiers, one of which is how to operate in GPS-denied environment. In this podcast, George Hsu, CTO, founder, and board member of PNI Sensor Corp., discusses the challenges in designing sensor solutions for warfighters in these environments like sensor stabilization for moving soldiers and power efficiencies as well as how PNI leverages artificial intelligence (AI) for their sensor designs. He also describes the perfect magnetic sensor — that will provide longitude and latitude in any environment.
 
 
TOP STORY
 
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Xilinx, a provider of FPGAs for military applications such as electronic warfare (EW), radar, communications, software defined radio (SDR), etc., has entered into a definitive agreement with AMD for AMD to acquire Xilinx in an all-stock transaction valued at $35 billion.
 
 
 
 
TOP STORY
 
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General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) and Boeing announced they are partnering to jointly pursue opportunities for a 100 kW-class scalable to 250 kW-class High Energy Laser (HEL) weapon system to support a variety of air and missile defense applications.
 
 
GUEST BLOG
 
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Because customers need to simplify and economize on space, many networking companies are being asked to move beyond traditional networks and look at ways to combine networking and power management. You’ve got devices that need to share data, but they also need to be powered. If you are looking at a mobile military platform, Power over Ethernet (PoE) simplifies cabling and reduces the number of devices needed on a platform.
 
 
 
 
 
 
The Model 5903 is a 3U VPX high-speed synchronizer and distribution board optimized for Pentek products using the Xilinx Zynq® UltraScale+ RFSoC. The Model 5903 synchronizes up to eight 8-channel Pentek Quartz family boards within a system, enabling synchronous sampling and timing for a wide range of multichannel high-speed data acquisition, DSP, radar, beamforming, 5G, electronic warfare and software radio applications.
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TOP STORY
 
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The U.S. Air Force awarded Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) a $12 million contract to redesign a B-1B Lancer system with the intent to extend the aircraft’s service life. The B-1B is a long-range, supersonic bomber, which has served the Air Force since 1986.
 
 
INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE
 
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The U.S. Army CCDC C5ISR Center’s C5ISR/EW Modular Open Suite of Standards (CMOSS) defines an open architecture that reduces the size, weight, power, and cost of systems deployed on ground vehicles by enabling in-vehicle hardware and software resources to be shared. A panel on CMOSS at a U.S. Army Technical Exchange Meeting held earlier this year provided details on new developments underway and areas in which the Army is looking to industry for help in taking the suite of standards from prototype to deployment.
 
 
 
 
PODCAST
 
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Counter-Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) systems are pivotal players on the electromagnetic spectrum. In this podcast, Emma Helfrich, guest host and associate editor with Military Embedded Systems, talks with Ryan Hurt, vice president of business development at Liteye Systems, to discuss the C-UAV systems that equip the U.S. Army. Helfrich and Hurt cover the Electronic Warfare (EW) capabilities, like radar and sensors, that power C-UAV systems and further the idea that innovation is dependent on data processing and intelligent algorithms to reduce the sensor-to-shooter timeline and protect the Army from aerial threats.
 
 
TOP STORY
 
BAE Systems has unveiled a next-generation cyber-threat detection and mitigation solution for U.S. military platforms called Fox Shield to help platforms detect and respond to cyber attacks in real time. According to the company, the Fox Shield suite's cyber resilience capabilities can be integrated into ground, air, and space vehicles to protect warfighters and platforms from cyber attacks designed to access and degrade mission capabilities.
 
 
 
 
TOP STORY
 
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L3Harris Technologies will develop and integrate an end-to-end satellite system under a $193 million firm fixed-price contract for the Space Development Agency. L3Harris will support the agency with technology that will protect against advanced missiles, such as hypersonic.
 
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TOP STORY
 
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Raytheon Missiles & Defense, a Raytheon Technologies business, has announced the StormBreaker smart weapon has been approved for use on the F-15E by the U.S. Air Force's Air Combat Command. The fielding decision means that F-15E squadrons can now be equipped with StormBreaker and deployed for missions, according to Raytheon.
 
 
TOP STORY
 
Perspecta Inc. announced today that its applied research arm, Perspecta Labs, has received a contract option and modification for work on phase 3 of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA's) Converged Collaborative Elements for radio frequency (RF) Task Operations (CONCERTO) program. These awards build upon phase 2 implementation and demonstration and have a combined value of $5.1 million.
 
 
 
 
INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT
 
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Updating and patching security vulner­abilities to limit the attack surface for the military’s embedded systems – especially legacy ones – can be a daunting task. Embedded systems used by the military, many of which were once considered to be standalone and secure thanks to air gaps – network security measures used on one or more computers to ensure that a secure computer network is physically isolated from unsecured networks – now require security.
 
 
TOP STORY
 
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Engineering firm Draper will design, develop, and deliver a guidance, navigation, and control system for the next-generation Stratolaunch reusable hypersonic flight-test vehicle. According to company officials, Draper's flight software will be used on the Stratolaunch Talon-A, a fully reusable, autonomous, liquid rocket-powered Mach 6-class (capable of speeds of as much as 4,567 mph) hypersonic vehicle.
 
 
 
 
 
 
With its line of HPEC systems, Eurotech brings the computational capabilities of a data center to field-deployable applications, incorporating a rugged and fanless thermal management design ideal for use in harsh environments.
 
 
 
 
 
GUEST BLOG
 
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Flying cars are being demonstrated and are close to becoming a reality as the urban mobility segment experiences significant investment. We’ve also had discussions with an automotive manufacturer who is looking to build avionics platforms. So that got me thinking about the way in which the avionics and automotive industries will come together. It’s already happening.
 
 
MARKET RESEARCH
 
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Civil Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) are predicted to be the most dynamic growth sector of the world aerospace industry this decade as commercial applications take off and civil governments adopt systems for new roles in border security and public safety. Teal Group’s 2020/2021 World Civil UAS Market Profile and Forecast forecasts that non-military UAS production will total $108 billion in the next decade, rising from $5 billion worldwide in 2020 to $18.4 billion in 2029, a 15.6% compound annual growth rate in constant dollars.
 
 
 
 
INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT
 
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There are many pitfalls to keep an eye on when assessing whether a current or potential enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is fit-for-purpose in defense and aerospace manufacturing. Making the wrong choice could leave a manufacturer hamstrung when looking to transform their operations, with existing software requiring expensive customizations, providing limited deployment options, offering little business intelligence or – a very bad situation – compromising security.
 
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TOP STORY
 
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Perspecta Labs -- the applied research arm of Perspecta Inc. -- received two awards on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Open, Programmable, Secure 5G (OPS-5G) program to perform work to improve the security of 5G networks.
 
 
TOP STORY
 
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A-Tech Corporation, doing business as Applied Technology Associates (ATA), has won a $17,663,490 other transaction prototype project agreement to obtain a ground-based Directed Energy Weapon (DEW) prototype for the purpose of fixed-site Air Force Air Base Air Defense against Group 1 and Group 2 unmanned aerial system (UAS) threats.
 
 
 
 
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The Boeing Loyal Wingman aircraft being developed with the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) recently moved under its own power for the first time, a milestone for the aircraft that’s expected to make its first flight this year. Reaching a maximum speed of 14 knots (approximately 16 mph, or 26 kilometers per hour), on the ground, the aircraft demonstrated several activities while maneuvering and stopping on command, officials claim.

 
 
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Honeywell has acquired privately held Rocky Research, a Boulder City, Nevada-based technology company specializing in thermal, energy, and power management solutions. This acquisition is intended to expand power generation systems, energy storage, and power and thermal management systems portfolio..

 
 
 
 
WEBCAST
 
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Commercial Solutions for Classified (CSfC) is part of the National Security Agency’s (NSA’s) commercial cybersecurity strategy to leverage commercial technology to protect national security systems. CSFC simultaneously implements two compliant commercial security components in a layered solution to protect the data. This webcast, "CSfC: Protecting Classified, Top Secret, and Secret Data Via Commercial Solutions," to be held on Tuesday, November 4, at 11 am Est., will discuss how CSFC enables use of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions to reduce long-term costs, enable faster deployments, improve flexibility and transparency while also leveraging open architectures and open standards.
 
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TOP STORY
 
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The latest concepts under development for the Royal Air Force’s (RAF) next generation combat air system have been revealed by British engineers on the program. Delivering the technology will be Team Tempest, a U.K. technology and defense partnership formed by BAE Systems, Leonardo, MBDA, Rolls-Royce, and the RAF, and also involving hundreds of high-tech companies and academia across the U.K.

 
 
GIVING BACK
 
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Each issue, the editorial staff of Military Embedded Systems will highlight a different charitable organization that benefits the military, veterans, and their families. This issue we are highlighting Operation Care and Comfort (OCC), an all-volunteer 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that brings people together to donate their time, talents, and funds to honor and help both active-duty military and those who have served in the past. According to information from the organization, it was established in April 2003 when the three cofounders decided to combine their efforts to send packages to military troops stationed in combat zones overseas.

 
 
 
 
TOP STORY
 
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Boeing and the U.S. Space Force completed the first major engineering design review for the Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS)-11+ communications satellite. This review demonstrates that Boeing is ready to proceed to the final system design phase. Production will begin next year at Boeing’s El Segundo factory, with delivery scheduled for 2024.

 
 
TOP STORY
 
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U.S. Army researchers have developed a tool that will aim to enhance warfighter data sharing across various platforms by addressing cyber, physical, and cyber-physical threats, and making privacy-preserving data sharing easier for the warfighter.

 
 
 
Interface Concept
 
 
 
 
 
Sponsored by: Curtiss-Wright, Wind River, Mercury Systems
Date: November 4, 11:00 a.m. ET
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