Military Embedded Systems

Emerging cognitive-based capabilities offer tremendous promise for dealing with the increasingly challenging battlespace.

Experts from the Navy Air Combat Electronics program office (PMA-209) recently participated in the Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) and Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Consortia exposition in Dayton, Ohio. At the event the Avionics Architecture Team (AAT) for PMA-209 demonstrated several of its open architecture (OA) projects that are reducing software integration time and maintenance costs for the U.S. Navy. 

The U.S. Army’s Mounted Assured PNT System (MAPS) program was initiated to replace existing GPS receivers and antennas in most of the Army’s ground vehicle variants, eliminating redundancy. The program is overseen by PM-PNT at the Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, where mounted and dismounted position, navigation, and timing (PNT) technologies for the Army are developed and managed.

The U.S. and its military allies rely on GPS for navigation of high-value assets, but the technology is quite vulnerable to jamming and other interference. Teams in the military-communications industry are looking at solutions including machine learning (ML) and alternative navigation systems that are less susceptible to disruption.

Power is a key consideration for modern open architecture initiatives such as the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Technical Standard, says John Sturm, Vice President of Business Development for the Aerospace & Defense business unit of Vicor, when I interviewed him just before Thanksgiving. We also discussed where custom power supplies fit into the defense world and talked about how commercial AI and big data applications are driving innovation and cost reductions in defense power component manufacturing, recruiting engineering talent into the defense market, and what will be a disruptor in military power supplies in the future. Edited excerpts follow.

Pixus Technologies, a provider of embedded computing and enclosure solutions, has developed a high performance backplane with signals above 28Gbaud across the backplane slots. The design leverages the 6U OpenVPX form factor and VITA 66/67 RF and optical interfaces, but utilizes a special high-speed connector for the fastest data rates.

This week’s product, the Kontron VX3060-S2 3U VPX Rugged Blade PC, leverages the 11th Gen Intel Core processor for artificial intelligence (AI), CVGIP, and digital signal processing (DSP) workloads. Developed in alignment with the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Technical Standard, the VX3060-S2 serves demanding military programs with intensive processing and extreme ruggedization requirements.

WASHINGTON. Those developing the process for conforming to the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Technical Standard want a process that is easy to understand, is affordable, and that keeps vendors honest. SOSA representatives C. Patrick Collier, Mark Littlefield, and Ilya Lipkin outlined the status of the conformance process at a SOSA briefing held at the AOC Annual Symposium in Washington this week.

Experts in modular open systems approach (MOSA) initiatives highlight the agenda of the Aerospace Tech Week Americas MOSA Conference track November 8-9 in Atlanta. Key speakers include C. Patrick Collier, co-founder of the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Consortium and Jeffry Howington of Collins Aerospace.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. Open systems integrator Pacific Defense has contracted with the U.S. Marine Corps USMC to deliver multiple SX-3000 systems in support of the MAGTF Electronic Warfare Ground Family of Systems (MEGFoS) static site system evaluation effort.