The McHale Report Logo

October 2021

 
 
 
McHale-Img
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.
 
 
VPT
 
 
 
EDITOR'S PERSPECTIVE
 
Marty (1).jpg
At 40 years old this fall, the VMEbus standard’s longevity can be traced to its inventors, VME product designers, VITA Standards Organization members, military systems users, and also to the creativity and marketing acumen of a rock and roll aficionado named Marty Simon. Marty – founder of The Simon Group, member of the VITA Hall of Fame, early proponent of VME, my friend, and the most positive person I’ve ever come across – passed away in September at the age of 77 from complications from ALS.
 
 
TOP STORY
 
The U.S. Air Force has awarded the BAE Systems-Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) team a contract to provide a prototype design for next-generation open architecture signals intelligence (SIGINT) technology under its Global High-altitude Open-system Sensor Technology (GHOST) program.
 
 
 
 
PODCAST
 
img_185X240
Supply chain bottlenecks, small satellites, complex adversarial threats in space and electromagnetic spectrum domains are all driving innovation at the microelectronics level. In this podcast, Dave Young, CTO of CAES, formerly Cobham, discusses how these challenges impact microelectronics solutions for military programs, how the defense industry is coping with the semiconductor supply chain headaches through investment and a plan for on-sho​re production, and more.
 
 
TOP STORY
 
jmcahle_mchalerep_space.jpg
Low boom supersonic transport company Exosonic, Inc. has announced a Direct to Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract award from the U.S. Air Force (USAF). The contract will fund the development of a low boom supersonic uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) demonstrator.
 
 
 
 
 
 
The Model 8256 is a 3U VPX development platform that is aligned to the SOSA Technical Standard and includes IPMI and connectivity for RF and optical interfaces. The system is ideal for application development with Pentek's Quartz® RFSoC data acquisition and processing boards. Pentek's SOSA aligned products facilitate interoperability, re-use, and rapid technology insertion, all consistent with the SOSA Consortium's approach and vision.
View Video Demonstration
 
 
 
 
 
MARKET RESEARCH
 
HeadshotEmma.jpg
The global military unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) market is valued at $8.0 billion in 2021, according to a new study by GlobalData, "Global Military Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Market to 2031."
 
 
TOP STORY
 
A team consisting of personnel from General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) and Boeing has won a U.S. Army Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office (RCCTO) contract to develop a 300 kW-class solid-state distributed gain high-energy laser weapon system (HELWS).
 
 
 
 
PODCAST
 
In the third episode of On the Radar, Emma Helfrich and John McHale chat about Department of Defense (DoD) official budget request for Fiscal Year (FY) 2022's Innovation and Modernization section and how the DoD plans to bankroll cyberspace activities and efforts to tackle the climate crisis, and why the divestments are happening where they are.
 
Airborn
 
 
 
SPECIAL REPORT
 
Fifth-generation wireless technology, or 5G, is poised to emerge in a big way into the defense market. While the buzz surrounding the 5G technology standard has been growing in the general public in recent years, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has been trailing behind commercial entities on adopting 5G due in part to both the slower pace of the DoD’s acquisition process and the hard-to-keep-up-with pace of consumer-technology refresh. However, officials at several defense communications companies agree that it’s just a matter of time before 5G-enabled military solutions are deployed and forever change the way in which the armed forces communicate.
 
 
AUSA COVERAGE
 
Military Embedded Systems Technology Editor Emma Helfrich and Group Editorial Director John McHale give their insights into what they saw at the show on Day 1 Sensor Sopen Systems Architecture (SOSA) Technical Standard, Edition 1.0, to laser guidance systems to artificial intelligence (AI) software to people back attending live events.
 
 
 
 
AUSA COVERAGE
 
doty_russell_100x115.jpg
Radar platform provider Echodyne announced its new EchoShield line of midrange radars aimed at a wide variety of defense, government, and commercial use cases.
 
 
AUSA COVERAGE
 
Raytheon Missiles & Defense (a Raytheon Technologies business) introduced GhostEye MR, a new medium-range AESA [active electronically scanned array] radar for the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, or NASAMS, at the AUSA trade show.
 
 
 
 
AUSA COVERAGE
 
Military Embedded Systems Group Editorial Director John McHale and Technology Editor Emma Helfrich discuss what they saw on Day 2 of AUSA 2021, from sensor technology to imaging solutions to satellite communications and how the Army is adapting 5G tech.
 
Annapolis Micro Systems
 
 
 
AUSA COVERAGE
 
JKimage.jpeg
Military Embedded Systems is excited to announce today the winners of our Best in Show Award contest, which which we held for our supporters exhibiting at the Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA) Annual Meeting, held Oct. 11-13 in Washington, D.C. Contest winners included entries from Aegis Power Systems, Analog Devices, Atrenne Computing, Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions, Elma Electronic, General Micro Systems, and Systel.
 
 
AUSA COVERAGE
 
Mission-critical communications company Invisio debuted its V-Series Gen II tactical communications platform at the AUSA trade show.
 
 
 
 
GUEST BLOG
 
Radio frequency (RF) technology for avionics applications, both military and commercial, prioritizes weight reduction to increase fuel efficiency while also meeting stringent electrical and mechanical requirements for safety. Low loss, phase stability, and high performance in a shock-and-vibration environment require a balancing act to reduce size with careful evaluation of materials, constructions, and maintenance.
 
 
TOP STORY
 
Viasat Inc., a global communications company, has announced it won a Department of Defense (DoD) contract to provide vulnerability assessment testing and response support under a new pilot program focused on improving the cybersecurity and resilience of DoD weapon systems.
 
 
 
 
SPECIAL REPORT
 
Cost-effective, low probability of intercept and detection (LPI/D) networks can provide connectivity into the battlespace while remaining virtually undetectable and jam-resistant. Through appropriate integration, the benefits of 5G as a communications platform can reach deeper into the battlespace, and consequently can get into the hands of more soldiers.
 
L3 Harris
 
 
 
GUEST BLOG
 
ray_OCTOBER21.jpg
There’s been a lot of activity going on in the past few months, testing different technologies and operational concepts. We need a model to organize those events to avoid confusion and reduce complexity. So, we’ll use the basic structure of the Kill Web to make sense of it all. The JADC2 (Joint All-Domain Command and Control) program sits at the top. Off to the side is the JAIC (Joint Artificial Intelligence Center), that develops and feeds different artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms into JADC2 and the different services’ activities.
 
 
TOP STORY
 
AeroVironment, Inc. announced the maritime demonstration of a Puma 3 AE small unmanned aircraft system (UAS) and Switchblade 300 tactical missile system sensor-to-shooter (S2S) capability as part of NATO REP(MUS) 21, Europe’s largest maritime unmanned systems operational experimentation exercise.
 
 
 
 
TOP STORY
 
img_185X240
U.S. Army soldiers from the 4th Infantry Division tested the Army’s next-generation assured positioning, navigation, and timing (APNT) equipment recently; the Mounted Assured Position Navigation and Timing (MAPS) system enables soldiers to maintain integrity of position and timing in GPS-contested environments.
 
 
TOP STORY
 
img_185X240
Kratos Defense & Security Solutions announced that its Kratos Unmanned Systems Division (KUSD) has been awarded a contract worth $17.6 million to design and develop a jet-powered off-board sensing station (OBSS) unmanned aerial system (UAS) in support of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Autonomous Collaborative Platforms (ACP) technology maturation portfolio.
 
 
 
 
SPONSORED WHITE PAPER
 
Benchmark Secure Technology
This white paper details U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) expectations for DI and how defense contractors meet those requirements. This white paper also examines the meaning of DI in modern systems and its relationship to information interoperability.
 
 
SPONSORED WHITE PAPER
 
Pentek
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.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Sponsored by: Crystal Group, IEE, Digital Systems Engineering
Date: On-Demand
WATCH NOW
 
 
 
 
Facebook
 
Twitter
 
Linkedin