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December 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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MIL TECH TRENDS
 
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Shrink it down but bolster the processing power. Engineer it so it’s light enough to fly on an airborne platform but never overheats. These are the contradicting design challenges manufacturers still face when building power supplies for military applications. Innovations in the field are ongoing, and both standardization consortia and the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) are starting to phase out antiquated power supplies.
 
 
PODCASTS
 
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Our five most popular McHale Report podcasts for 2020 hosted by editors John McHale and Emma Helfrich featured guests from National Instruments, Liteye Systems, Pentek, and two guests from Mercury Systems on topics such as artificial intelligence for electronic warfare, the end of Moore's Law, the defense industry's response to COVID-19, counter-UAV advancements, and the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Consortium. Check them out below.
 
 
 
 
TOP STORY
 
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Lockheed Martin has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire aerospace and defense engine maker Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings for $56 per share in cash, expected to be reduced to $51 per share after the payment of a preclosing special dividend; the deal will operate on a postdividend equity value of $4.6 billion and a total transaction value of $4.4 billion, including the assumption of net cash.
 
 
TOP STORY
 
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The U.S. Air Force announced that it has conducted test flight with artificial intelligence (AI) as a working aircrew member onboard a military aircraft for the first time. The AI algorithm, known as ARTUµ, flew with the pilot on a U-2 Dragon Lady assigned to the 9th Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base.
 
 
 
 
 
 
The RTR 2757 4U 19-inch rackmount recorder complements Pentek's Quartz RFSoC products that stream digitized wide bandwidth signals across 100 GbE. The RTR 2757 captures these streams in real time at rates as high as 12.5 GB/sec. The recorder was designed with performance and rugged environments in mind. It includes up to 122 TB of NVMe storage, removable data drives and operating system drive.
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MARKET RESEARCH
 
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The global military-simulator systems market is anticipated to grow by 55% in 2030, as compared to the current year’s market value, according to a new study from GlobalData, "The Global Military Simulator Systems Market 2020-2030."
 
 
EDITOR'S PERSPECTIVE
 
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One impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been a decrease in mergers and acquisition (M&A) activity in the defense industry – and to some respect others – at least in the beginning of it all, when everyone was shutting down and didn’t know what to expect from the crisis. Folks were sheltering in place and in lockdown across the globe, not exactly an environment conducive to multimillion and multibillion-dollar acquisitions. Deals like that so often rely on face-to-face interaction.
 
 
 
 
TOP STORY
 
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The most popular stories on MilitaryEmbedded.com throughout 2020 covered subjects such as NASA's Artemis mission, radar for tracking hypersonics, certifying COTS software, big data challenges, and more. Check them out below.
 
 
TOP STORY
 
The joint force announced it has taken another step toward achieving a military Internet of Things (IoT) after fifth-generation aircraft overcame long standing connectivity limitations to share actionable operational data in their native secure digital “languages” with and through multiple sources for the first time.
 
 
 
 
UNIVERSITY UPDATE
 
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We’ve all heard the phrase “the graying of the workforce,” especially when it refers to the engineering and defense industries. It’s a fact that the average age for electrical and electronics engineers – many of whom are engaged in the defense industry – is older compared to the median age of other American workers. The median age of employed electrical and electronics engineers in 2019 was 44 years old, according to the most recent information from the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
 
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BLOG
 
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Our most popular blogs on MilitaryEmbedded.com from 2020 covered topics by guest bloggers from VITA, Crystal Group, Winmate, Curtiss-Wright, and Advantech on subjects such as 6G -stealth fighter planes, hardware security trust, UFOs, rugged tablets, tensors, unmanned fighter jets, small form factors, the kill web and more. Check them out below.
 
 
SPECIAL REPORT
 
Efforts to dominate the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) in the military arena are moving forward as manufacturers develop innovative technologies to find actionable needles in the crowded electromagnetic intelligence haystack. Cognitive capabilities, artificial intelligence (AI), and similarly cutting-edge developments have opened a new chapter in electronic warfare (EW), and so too has the need to keep pace with adversarial advancements.
 
 
 
 
INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT
 
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To exploit the potential benefits of new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, video analysis, Internet of Things (IoT), augmented reality and virtual reality, and other innovative technologies on mobile platforms at the tactical edge, Department of Defense (DoD) communications programs must effectively deploy advanced IT infrastructure, connectivity, and compute resources. The Army understands this need.
 
 
TOP STORY
 
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FLIR Systems has acquired Altavian (Gainsville, Florida), a privately-held manufacturer of small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) for defense and public-safety customers. Altavian’s airframes integrate multiple sensors, some of which include FLIR thermal technology, to enable decision support and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capability.
 
 
 
 
 
 
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.
 
 
 
 
 
TOP STORY
 
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Sagetech Avionics, technology company providing safety solutions for Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), and Hover, Inc., an embedded computing company, announced that they are partnering to provide OEMs with the key components of an onboard detect and avoid (DAA) solution for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
 
 
MARKET RESEARCH
 
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Even as the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) makes changes to improve its communications technologies, a new study -- conducted by the Government Business Council, the research division of Government Executive Media Group and communications company Viasat -- reveals that a number of challenges remain in the military's quest to deploy a successful military communications technology strategy for the multidomain battlefield.
 
 
 
 
TOP STORY
 
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General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) conducted an autonomous flight using a government-supplied Collaborative Operations in Denied Environment (CODE) autonomy engine to support air-to-air targeting missions. The CODE autonomy engine was installed on a GA-ASI Avenger Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS).
 
 
TOP STORY
 
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The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently finished field testing of a network-technology program that demonstrated successful use of new software that can bridge multiple disparate radio networks to enable communication between incompatible tactical radio data links, even if an adversary is trying to jam them.
 
 
 
 
TOP STORY
 
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Rolls-Royce has delivered an upgraded thermal management and power system from its ColdFire Solutions technology line to power directed energy field testing in 2021. The ColdFire Solutions system was delivered to Lockheed Martin for integration and testing. It is a standalone system and will power a Lockheed Martin 100kw directed energy system during range testing next year.
 
 
INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT
 
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Today’s embedded-system designers have a great variety of processor types to select from, with FPGAs [field-programmable gate arrays] and GPUs [graphics processing units] adding their own various advantages and disadvantages for consideration in contrast to the more familiar CPUs [central processing units]. Understanding these characteristics and how FPGAs and GPUs stack up can help system integrators make the right choice when choosing and installing a processor, to be used either individually or in combination with other types of processors.
 
 
 
 
TOP STORY
 
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The Space and Missile Systems Center’s Production Corps reports the successful transfer of satellite-control authority of the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) Space Vehicle 6 to the Space Operations Command, under whose auspices operational acceptance of the AEHF-6 is expected to occur before the end of 2020 once operational testing has successfully concluded.
 
 
TOP STORY
 
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IBM announced a Phase 1 Other Transactions Agreement (OTA) under the Rapid Assured Microelectronics Prototypes (RAMP) Advanced Commercial Capabilities Project through the Strategic and Spectrum Missions Advanced Resilient Trusted Systems (S²MARTS) OTA to support advancing U.S. microelectronics technology.
 
 
 
 
SPONSORED WHITE PAPER
 
Abaco
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SPONSORED WHITE PAPER
 
Card-Lok
nVent SCHROFF's NEW High Thermal Sawtooth (HTS) Card Lok is evolving the traditional card lok to better satisfy industry requirements for defense and aerospace. Military equipment—such as shipboard, surveillance, mobile artillery and control stations, combat aircraft and unmanned air vehicles—often consists of highly technological and sensitive electronics.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Sponsored by: RTI
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