Military Embedded Systems

We’re here on the first day of the 60th Annual AOC International Symposium & Convention, held at the Gaylord Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland. Electronic warfare (EW), spectrum dominance, and signals intelligence and the RF, microwave, and signal-processing technologies behind them are key components of both the conference and the exhibition.

For a take on the AOC event, and a look at the EW market, I sat down with Jerome Patoux, Director of Aerospace & Defense for the Aerospace, Defense, and RF Products Business Unit of Analog Devices. Here are some excerpts:

This week’s product, the Annapolis MicroSystems WILDSTAR 100GbE 3E20 Switch, a rugged 3U board that provides switching between backplane slots of multiple channels of 100Gb Ethernet and features high density VITA 91 backplane connectors that double the available density to as many as 128 different pairs of Ethernet, delivering increases in bandwidth and reductions in latency.

ANNAPOLIS, Maryland. Targeting radar, electronic warfare, jamming, and ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) applications, engineers at Annapolis Micro Systems developed an HD Switch and Chassis that are in final design verification, with customer shipping scheduled for this month. They are the industry’s first commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) products to integrate high density VITA 91 connectors that double the available backplane density.

Rust is a new systems-programming language that eliminates dangerous memory bugs while providing high performance. It has the potential to transform safety-critical software development through its innovative ownership model guaranteeing memory safety. However, challenges – including building out an ecosystem for certified code – may hinder Rust’s adoption. Even so, Rust provides a promising solution for more secure, reliable code.

The new SOSA [Sensor Open Systems Architecture] Technical Standard – aimed at creating a common framework for transitioning military electronics sensor systems to an open systems architecture – is positioned to bring back interoperability by keeping the OpenVPX high-performance architecture while replacing the myriad of design options with a limited set of industry-agreed choices.

The U.S. Navy’s Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) was an early adopter and supporter of the Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) Technical Standard and is at the forefront of open architecture development and leveraging modular open systems approach strategies (MOSA) in Navy avionics applications. During the MOSA Summit & Expo I sat down with Capt. Jarrod Hair, U.S. Navy, PMA-209 Program Manager, where we covered how NAVAIR leverages MOSA initiatives like FACE, the challenges with data rights, and how the defense community – government and industry – is embracing MOSA. Along those lines, at the NAVAIR booth at the expo, Capt. Hair hosted keynote speaker Hon. Nickolas Guertin, where he led an interactive discussion elaborating on current MOSA efforts in his role as Director of Operational Test and Evaluation. Guertin is a White House nominee for Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition.

Edited excerpts of the interview are below.

In modern warfare, where signal jamming is now as common as bullets and bombs, the ability to navigate without the guiding stars of GPS has become a critical survival skill for today’s soldier.

MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. Electromagnetic-spectrum specialists Pacific Defense demonstrated its modular open systems approach (MOSA) solutions at the recent Bold Quest 2023 field exercise at Camp Pendleton, in support of the Office of Naval Research (ONR) ENDOR Future Naval Capability (FNC) initiative.

EAST PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island. Quantic Electronics will showcase a range of RF/microwave electronics at the 2023 Association of Old Crows (AOC) symposium taking place Dec. 11-13 in National Harbor, Maryland, the company announced in a statement.

QUIMPER, France. Interface Concept launched its new IC-INT-VPX3l, a 3U VPX single-board computer (SBC) aligned with the SOSA Technical Standard and optimized for use in military, aerospace, and edge-computing applications.