Military Embedded Systems

SAN DIEGO, California. The military uncrewed systems industry is moving towards greater electrification and away from fossil fuels and more traditional power sources, exhibitors at the XPONENTIAL 2024 show say.

This week’s product, Rantec’s 270V 3U 1200W defense power supply, is developed in alignment with the SOSA Technical Standard and addresses the needs of today’s military for VITA 86 plug-in applications. Designed with a modular open system approach (MOSA), the power supply is targeted for applications such as signals intelligence (SIGINT), radar, electronic warfare, and more.

RESTON, Va. -- Metron Inc. and Cellula Robotics, USA Inc. joined hands in a partnership to expand uncrewed underwater vehicle (UUV) capabilities for advanced operations in dynamic environments. Company officials say the new agreement will leverage the expertise of each company and address specific technical gaps in the UUV defense and offshore energy markets especially for long duration, multi-payload mission operations where communications are often denied or restricted.

SAN DIEGO, California. BlueHalo is pitching swarming drones that essentially act as a truck for any sensor that the operator wants to put on it, and the company showcased the technology at the XPONENTIAL 2024 exhibition.

SAN DIEGO, California. In the world of uncrewed systems, the U.S. military is more focused on finding commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions that can be fielded rapidly rather than expensive bespoke platforms that take years to develop, sources at the XPONENTIAL 2024 exhibition say.

XPONENTIAL 2024 -- SAN DIEGO. Autonomous aerial platform provider Nearthlab is showcasing its latest counter-UAS [uncrewed aerial system] technology at  at this week's AUVSI XPONENTIAL trade show. 

XPONENTIAL 2024 -- SAN DIEGO. Tekever, a UAS [uncrewed aerial system] company in Lisbon, Portugal, debuted its modular ARX platform at this week's AUVSI XPONENTIAL trade show. 

XPONENTIAL 2024 -- SAN DIEGO. Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) officials announced during a keynote address at XPONENTIAL 2024 that the entitiy has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) as a way to create a process for uncrewed systems manufacturers holding Green UAS [uncrewed aerial system] certification to share their data directly with DIU, with the aim of potentially including "Green-Certified" components on the DIU’s Blue UAS Framework list.

SAN DIEGO, California. The Department of Defense is using artificial intelligence and machine learning to speed up software improvements to uncrewed vehicles across the services from a matter of months to a few days, a DoD official said at the XPONENTIAL 2024 exhibition on Tuesday.

SAN DIEGO, California. The Department of Defense is working on a second tranche of systems for the Replicator initiative, an effort to field thousands of autonomous systems across multiple domains over an 18- to 24-month time frame, a DoD official said at the XPONENTIAL 2024 exhibition on Tuesday.