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February 2022

 
 
 
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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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INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT
 
With today’s emerging threats, traditional approaches to radar and electronic warfare (EW) systems that utilize static threat libraries are vulnerable to "mode-agile" or wartime reserve modes (WARM) threats operating in nontraditional modes. Use of a closed-loop integrated record, analysis & playback system (IRAPS)-based hardware-in-the-loop/software-in-the-loop (HIL/SIL) system is an excellent testbed to train, evaluate, and improve the artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI and ML) algorithms that are needed to implement the next generation of cognitive radar and EW systems and protect lives and assets against unknown threats.
 
 
TOP STORY
 
Northrop Grumman Corporation has won a $341 million contract by the U.S. Space Force (USSF) Space Systems Command (SSC) to develop, test, and deliver a Deep-Space Advanced Radar Capability (DARC) in support of its Space Domain Awareness mission.
 
 
 
 
GUEST BLOG
 
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Today’s global semiconductor shortage has stretched procurement lead times to unforeseen lengths. Delays in procurement lead times include the electronic components critical to military technology: Memory (as much as 22 to 26 weeks), integrated circuits (as much as 32 to 52 weeks), microcontroller units (as much as 42 to 53 weeks) and more are experiencing supply delays upwards of a year – with little to no relief arriving in the near term.
 
 
TOP STORY
 
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General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) has tested advanced datalink capability as part of a U.S. Army-funded development effort to upgrade the MQ-1C Gray Eagle Extended Range (GE-ER) unmanned aircraft system (UAS).
 
 
 
 
 
 
Models 5585 and 5586  3U VPX SOSA aligned boards combine three times more FPGA logic, twice the number of DSP engines, a 20-fold boost in memory bandwidth compared to earlier generation devices, plus powerful 100 GigE interfaces ensures significant gains in faster, real-time parallel processing for compute-intensive SWaP applications.
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MARKET RESEARCH
 
The global market for airborne intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) -- estimated at $19.7 billion in the year 2020 -- is projected to reach $26.8 billion by 2026, growing at a combined annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.1% over the study period, according to a new report from Global Industry Analysts, "Airborne Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) -- Global Market Trajectory & Analytics."
 
 
TOP STORY
 
Northrop Grumman Corporation has been selected to provide the U.S. Marine Corps with the Next Generation Handheld Targeting System (NGHTS). This compact targeting device is designed to provide precision targeting and be capable of operation in GPS-denied environments.
 
 
 
 
SPONSORED CONTENT
 
This week’s product, the Omnetics’ Nano-D Series of rugged connectors, brings users flexibility in defense applications that require rugged interconnectivity in small form factors. This family of connectors meets or exceeds MIL-DTL-32139 requirements for high-reliability applications such as cube sats, LiDAR, phased array radar, and soldier-worn communications devices.
 
 
SPONSORED CONTENT
 
This week’s product, the Abaco Systems’ SOSA aligned IPN254 6U OpenVPX multiprocessor solution, combines the latest GPU with the 9th generation Intel Xeon E CPU, formerly known as Coffee Lake Refresh (CFL-R), yielding maximum processing performance in a rugged, single VPX slot. The IPN254’s alignment and high-performance signal processing capability make it ideal for complex applications such as electronic warfare and radar systems.
 
 
 
 
TOP STORY
 
The Tri-Service Interoperability Open Architecture Demonstration (TSOA-ID) Technical Interchange Meeting (TIM) and Expo featuring Army, Navy, Air Force, and Department of Defense leader speaking on open achitecture strategies is being held on March 15, 2022 at the Solomons Inn and Marina near the U.S. Naval Air Station at Patuxent River.
 
Dawn VME Products
 
 
 
GUEST BLOG
 
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the world was captivated by one common goal: winning the space race to dominate a new uncharted domain. Since then, the U.S. defense and aerospace industries have taken great strides to innovate and to create next-generation systems that help the U.S. maintain a competitive advantage in global defense from space.
 
 
TOP STORY
 
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VITA, the trade association for standard computing architectures serving critical embedded-systems industries, announced that Dean Holman is VITA's President and Executive Director, effective February 1, 2022. Jerry Gipper, the previous Executive Director, will continue as VITA’s Marketing Director.
 
 
 
 
GUEST BLOG
 
In today’s unusually challenging environment, companies may need to look for workarounds to stay on track regarding supply chain and delivery. Some electronics companies are learning the hard way that supply-chain resilience is a critical qualification for doing business, whether in their own or in their business partners' and suppliers' operations.
 
 
TOP STORY
 
Saab is launching a ruggedized, 5G communication system for military and crisis operations at the Umex SimTEX 2022 exhibition in the United Arab Emirates called DeployNet.
 
 
 
 
TOP STORY
 
Leidos Inc. has won a contract with the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to produce a next-generation counter-electronic weapon (EW) system to defend against adversarial unmanned aerial system (UAS) activity.
 
 
GUEST BLOG
 
During the summer of 2021, U.S. Army leaders articulated the vision of Capability Set (CS) 25, which is the third in the Army’s iterative series of integrated tactical communications packages for delivery to soldiers. While each CS has had a different capability focus, the overarching objective is to realize “...the multidomain capable network of 2028, which seeks to enable information dominance against a peer or near-peer adversary.”
 
 
 
 
GUEST BLOG
 
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Last time, we looked at the Army’s IBCS (Integrated Battle Command System) program and Project Convergence exercises, through the eyes of their advanced AI (artificial intelligence) Kill Web algorithms (Rainmaker, Prometheus, FIRESTORM, and SHOT). Unfortunately, the Navy doesn’t talk much about AI algorithms, so that forces us to reluctantly abandon the trusted engineering principle of consistent analytical continuity and view their progress through what they do talk about: their platforms.
 
 
INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT
 
A zero-trust security posture assumes every user and device is untrusted, even if it is located within the protected perimeter of the local network. The concepts of such perimeterless security have been around for more than a decade, including the “black core” in the architectural vision of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Global Information Grid.
 
 
 
 
TOP STORY
 
SparkCognition Government Systems (SGS) has announced its participation at International Maritime Exercise (IMX) 2022/Cutlass Express. IMX/CE 2022 is a multinational naval exercise in the Middle East with more than 80 unmanned systems from 10 nations participating.
 
 
TOP STORY
 
BAE Systems announced that the company has formed a new Digital Intelligence business with the intent to bring together a number of digital, data, and cyber capabilities from across the company to deliver a greater digital advantage to its customers and partners.
 
 
 
 
SPONSORED WHITE PAPER
 
OSS
The current generation of AI compute platforms fail to integrate and optimize high performance computing with compact, rugged form factors. They force program managers to trade performance for rugged design or vice versa.
 
 
SPONSORED WHITE PAPER
 
Pentek
Aircraft designers and systems integrators are faced with an important question when it comes to embedded electronics. Is it better to develop the platforms inhouse or does it make sense to work with outside experts? General computer platform vendors can save these companies millions in costs and reduce developmental time.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Sponsored by: Wind River
Date: March 17, 1:00 p.m. ET
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