Military Embedded Systems July/August 2017

@military_cots

John McHale

7

Radar’s role at Pearl Harbor

Technology Update

12

Spectrum management for SDRs

Mil Tech Trends

2 8

Rugged panel PCs for battle vehicles

Industry Spotlight

Cyberwarfare calls for system resilience 32 MIL-EMBEDDED.COM

July/August 2017 | Volume 13 | Number 5

P 16

P 36 Establishing a root of trust: Trusted computing and Intel-based systems

By Steve Edwards, Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions

Videocentric ISR missions push rugged computing to the limits P 22

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Volume 13 Number 5

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July/August 2017

COLUMNS

BUDGET HIGHLIGHTS

Editor’s Perspective 7 Radar’s role at Pearl Harbor

DoD Budget Requests FY 2018

16

DoD major program procurement and modernization highlights from FY 2018 budget request

By John McHale

Field Intelligence 8 3U OpenVPX plus 40-gig Ethernet – best of both worlds

By John McHale, Editorial Director

By Charlotte Adams

MIL TECH TRENDS 16

Mil Tech Insider 10 Augmented reality and video-management systems

Rugged Computing

22

Videocentric ISR missions push rugged computing to the limits

By Kevin Rooney

By Mariana Iriarte, Associate Editor

26

Technology Update 12 The role of machine learning in autonomous spectrum sharing

Performance increases still needed for full adoption of mobile rugged computing for military use

By Mariana Iriarte

By Mariana Iriarte, Associate Editor

28 26

Cybersecurity Update 44 The power of light: A shortcut to satellite-based quantum encryption

Integrated panel PC solves many challenges in limited-space battlefield applications

By Sally Cole

By Chris Ciufo, General Micro Systems

University Update 45 Robotics family leverages open architectures to counter explosive ordnance threats

INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT Cyberwarfare Technology

32

Cyberwarfare: A “Wild West” of nonkinetic weaponry

By Mariana Iriarte

By Sally Cole, Senior Editor

36

DEPARTMENTS

Establishing a root of trust: Trusted computing and Intel-based systems

14

Defense Tech Wire

40 46

Editor’s Choice Products Connecting with Mil Embedded

By Steve Edwards, Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions

28

By Mariana Iriarte

By Mil-Embedded.com Editorial Staff

WEB RESOURCES Subscribe to the magazine or E-letter Live industry news | Submit new products http://submit.opensystemsmedia.com

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EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE

Radar’s role at Pearl Harbor

By John McHale, Editorial Director Many of you might not know that the first use of radar in a battlefield situation was during the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. Just prior to the attack by Japanese aircraft, U.S. Army personnel were training on brand-new radar equipment when they spotted incoming aircraft, but the warning was thought to be friendly ­aircraft and was subsequently ignored.

I had never heard that part of the story and learned about it while visiting the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, last month while attending the International Microwave Symposium (IMS) in Honolulu. Yeah, I know, I know … tough assignment, but we endured …

The morning of December 7, radar operators – Army Privates Joseph P. Lockard and George Elliott – at the Opana radar station detected approaching aircraft and called the officer on duty at the Fort Shafter Information Center, 1st Lt. Kermit A. Tyler, who was on his first day at the station, according to an exhibit at the Pearl Harbor Historical Site museum. Tyler said that Lockard told him that “it was the biggest plot he had ever seen, and I told him ‘Don’t worry about it. It’s OK.” [Pictured: The oscilloscope and radar equipment used by Lockard and Elliot (top) and the Opana radar plot (bottom).]

Tyler later explained that he thought it was likely a flight of B-17s due to land at Hickam Field at 0800 that morning, saying “There was no way of telling what they were. The problem was, [at that hour] we had no identification people on staff.”

Mobile radar and radar in general was so new to U.S. military forces that they were still training and learning how to use it.

Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short, commander of the military defenses at Pearl Harbor in 1941, said that he did the radar operations “for training more than any idea it would be real.”

Present time I also thought it ironic to be reading about the early use of radar while I was in Hawaii attending IMS, an RF and microwave technology event where exhibitors and attendees discussed the latest RF technologies, such as gallium nitride (GaN) components. These components are driving the increased capability of radar systems today, such as active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar systems, which use a large amount of RF components.

“Radar, in general, has the broadest market for RF with UHF, L-, S-, C-, and X-Band frequencies all seeing upgrades from legacy technologies which have less performance,” said Ryan Baker, product marketing manager for RF components at Wolfspeed, an exhibitor at IMS this year. “It’s the largest RF market within the military arena. New systems will be funded and RF will play into that funding as a driver.”

U.S. forces were not properly structured in 1941 to take advantage of radar prior to the attack, but since then the technology has saved countless lives and r­epresents perhaps the largest growth area for military suppliers of RF and microwave technology as well as embedded computing systems.

Back to Pearl Harbor Every American should definitely experience a visit to the Arizona Memorial if they are anywhere near the island of Oahu. Visitors watch a short film about the www.mil-embedded.com

attack before boarding the transport to the memorial.

Once you enter the memorial, you can actually still smell the oil leaking from the wreckage below, even now, 76 years later. (Not to worry, the leak is monitored so it doesn’t become an environmental hazard.) The site and the wreckage remain untouched, as it is sacred ground, not just to the U.S. military, but to the American people. It is the grave of the sailors who lost their lives that day.

Time onboard will be limited; aside from your smartphone’s camera, device use is restricted. So rely on your imagination and your senses, close your eyes, and think about what happened there. Read the names on the wall on the far side of the memorial. Say a prayer or a quiet “thank you” for those that gave their lives that day.

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

July/August 2017 7

FIELD INTELLIGENCE

3U OpenVPX plus 40-gig Ethernet – best of both worlds

By Charlotte Adams An Abaco Systems perspective on embedded military electronics trends To solve tough problems like synthetic aperture radar, sensor fusion, and target recognition processing, the military wants and needs performance. That requirement means getting the fastest throughput in the smallest package with the lowest power penalty. The hunger for performance is even more true for autonomous platforms – from aircraft to ground vehicles – that require highbandwidth processing to “think” for themselves and act on their own, as well as to perform basic sensor and mission processing, self-protection, and communications and navigation functions.

Small-form-factor, 3U, OpenVPX boards were invented for data-hungry and size, weight, and power (SWaP)-limited applications. OpenVPX, a highly flexible standard – and the successor to VME – can run almost any high-speed data transfer technology on its data plane – InfiniBand, PCI Express, Serial Rapid IO, or Ethernet.

OpenVPX boards come in many flavors, but multiple single-board computers (SBCs), each using multicore processors, would be appropriate for computationally intensive sensor processing tasks. A combination of such SBCs and massively parallel graphical processing unit (GPU) cards could also tackle these jobs.

The multicore boards, in turn, could be interconnected using a 40-gigabits-persecond Ethernet switch for maximum throughput to accommodate the inter­ board bandwidth required to keep up with front-end data collectors. The ­OpenVPX switch module 3U slot profile (SLT3SWH-8F) is a good fit for a 40-gigabit Ethernet system: A 40 GBASE-KR4 backplane connection would allow eight 3U payload boards to be interconnected via one switch.

Back to the future: Ethernet These days engineers increasingly are turning to Ethernet for high-speed

8 July/August 2017

board-to-board communications across the backplane. Designers of high-speed embedded computing (HPEC) systems prefer Ethernet to PCIe because it is a fast, low-latency network technology that is well-understood and easier to use than PCIe. Although Ethernet is a relatively ancient computer technology, it has kept up with the times – recently hitting 40 gigabits per second, or four times the maximum Ethernet data rate found on military platforms today. The Ethernet programming model also has stayed relatively stable through the years, and the switching mechanism is easier to accommodate than with PCIe. What’s more, profiles developed and controlled through groups like the IEEE [Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers] keep the standard aligned with the needs of its most demanding defense and aerospace users.

Lingua franca Anyone building a multinode system knows that it’s easier and more costeffective for the boards to talk Ethernet to each other than to speak PCIe. While PCIe works well for systems with one or two cards and peripherals, Ethernet is preferable for larger systems.

Ethernet is a lingua franca – or common language – that operating systems natively understand. With PCIe, in contrast, an extra software layer is required to allow multiple processors to talk to each other. Since each board vendor has its proprietary version of this code, PCIe-based backplanes are perceived as less open and more vendor-dependent.

Ethernet has a huge installed base in homes and offices as well as on military platforms. It is well-defined, reliable, ubiquitous, and affordable – all music to military ears. Moreover, because it is simpler and easier to implement than other data-transfer technologies, solutions can

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

›

Figure 1 | Abaco’s SBC367D 3U OpenVPX single-board computer features 40-gigabit Ethernet support for fast system interconnect.

be put together faster and at lower cost, another selling point for the technology.

An example of possible foundational elements for a 40-gigabits-per-second Ethernet-based 3U OpenVPX system: a pair of ruggedized, air/conduction-cooled products with security features from Abaco Systems: the SBC367D SBC, with Intel’s up to 16-core Xeon D-1500-series processor; and the SWE440 Ether­net switch, supporting as many as eight 40-gigabitsper-second ports and burning 40 watts or less of power. (Figure 1.)

High-density, low-SWaP computing is key to solving the military’s embeddedprocessing challenges. The lower the latency, the faster the data can be distributed among processing nodes, and the higher the data throughput volumes per unit of time. Following that logic, the more reliable and effective the results based on that data can be, the more effective the sensors or other systems can be, and the shorter the decision cycles based on that information will be.

High-speed Ethernet is a good fit for low-SWaP, highly compute-intensive applications, where massive amounts of data are being processed per node and flowed between nodes. In this context, multiple 40 gigabits-per-second modules coupled with a 40 gigabitsper-second switch could be the best of both worlds. www.abaco.com www.mil-embedded.com

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MIL TECH INSIDER

Augmented reality and video-management systems

By Kevin Rooney An industry perspective from Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions and other powerful mission information onto a helmet visor or on glasses takes the LCD display out of the equation.

Before, if operators turned their head away from the video screen, they paid the penalty of missing sensor data.

Over the last few years, the concept of augmented reality, in which computer-­ generated imagery is combined with views of the real world, has become mainstream.

Formerly found only in very high-end applications, such as helmet-based heads-up displays for fighter-jet pilots, this next-generation graphics capability is poised to revolutionize applications such as search and rescue (SAR) and airborne surveillance.

As the operator is asked to look at more and more information, we’re seeing display sizes grow increasingly large. Part of the problem is that it’s very difficult to sit close to a large display and effectively absorb all of the information it presents. It’s akin to watching a movie while seated in the front row of the theatre. On platforms such as helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, the space constraints make it unlikely that the operator can sit any distance from the video screen. As a rule of thumb, given a person with 20/20 vision seated 18 inches away from a screen, the largest video display that can be realistically viewed optimally is 17 inches. As displays increasingly embrace the use of HD, 2K, and 4K formats, the high level of information and detail delivered will be difficult to view if the operator is seated too close to the screen.

With augmented reality displayed properly on a visor or glasses, the o ­ perator’s viewing experience is optimized, enabling the operator to access additional data resources, whenever and wherever they turn their head. For the operator, the ability to view the real world and have overlaid information (such as Google Maps) makes them much more effective, while essentially removing the technology as an intermediary barrier. As information is delivered to the operator in a more human, seamless, and intuitive way, the

Augmented reality promises a solution that solves the constrained space issue, provides access to more useful and actionable data, and enables a more natural and effective interaction with the real world. Overlaying moving map data, license-plate identification,

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Recording and archiving the augmented-reality data, with support for time stamping, so that the captured video can be used in an evidence chain in court. Augmented-reality systems also offer an effective tool for crew training and scenario simulation.

›

Figure 1 | Curtiss-Wright’s RVG-SA1 analog video switch, a compact nonblocking crosspoint switch, is an example of a COTS element that can be used to integrate a rugged deployable augmented-reality solution.

result will be more successful missions.

Augmented reality can also take advantage of new features, such as the ability to dynamically “annunciate” or highlight any important changes. For example, if a target moves, the new state can be flagged to draw the operator’s attention.

One of the challenges for designers of augmented-reality display systems is development of a synchronized vision system able to handle latency of two frames or fewer. The delay experienced in the user’s brain, caused by a disparity between their eyesight vision and the movement of their body – well known from virtual-reality goggle users – can cause disorientation and bring on motion sickness. Another key element of delivering augmented reality is ensuring that latency is consistent: When latency is consistent and predictable, rather than random, the brain is able to develop a sort of muscle memory that enables it to conform and react to the disparity between what the eyes see and the body feels.

The opportunity for commercial offthe-shelf (COTS) vendors is to take this high-end technology from the realm of specialized applications and make it a pervasive and cost-effective solution.

Existing modular and scalable video gateway products can serve as the foundation building blocks for the development of COTS augmented-reality systems, supporting digital and analog switching and video format conversion, to develop affordable practical examples of deployable augmented-reality solutions. (Figure 1.)

Ethernet gateways will enable video over IP, while coming technological advances will support the safe use of video over wireless in aircraft environments. Also required: www.mil-embedded.com

As natural as it is to use a rear-view mirror while driving a car, it may well soon become as seamless to access real-time streaming video data that makes the operator more effective instead of removing them from the real world by placing a video screen in their field of vision. The next two years should see the emergence of new and practical augmented-reality solutions for a wide variety of applications. We are already seeing military implementation of this technology; we expect that the SAR and lawenforcement markets will follow very shortly.

Kevin Rooney is managing director for video and displays, Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions. www.curtisswrightds.com

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TECHNOLOGY UPDATE

The role of machine learning in autonomous spectrum sharing

By Mariana Iriarte, Associate Editor Speakers and attendees at the recent NIWeek in Austin, Texas, – the annual conference and exhibition held by National Instru­ments (NI) – discussed the technological obstacles and potential solutions for enabling autonomous spectrum sharing and touted the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA’s) Spectrum Collaboration Challenge (SC2) as an excellent platform for finding such solutions.

Launched in 2016, SC2’s goal is to create a collaborative machine-learning competition to address radio frequency (RF) spectrum challenges. DARPA experts created SC2 to help users of the existing radio spectrum overcome the problem of clogged spectrum. Demand for radio spectrum has grown steadily over the past century, and in the past several years has increased at a rate of 50 percent per year.

SC2 wants to move away from traditional ways of communicating via one frequency. As DARPA’s Paul Tilghman explained during his keynote speech at NIWeek, one of the biggest obstacles in spectrum management is that “frequency isolation completely dominates our spectrum landscape.”

The problem is that radios can no longer stay in one frequency lane and at the same time meet the growing needs of the commercial and military world, Tilghman pointed out. That’s where SC2 comes in: It’s an open competition to create a unique radio system that will autonomously collaborate with other radios with no spectrum allocation.

A total of 30 teams joined the competition, all competing for $3.75 million in prize money that will be allocated to first-, second-, and third-place winners.

To make this competition a reality, National Instruments teamed up with Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and DARPA to create one of the biggest test­ beds in history. Competitors will use what the group calls the “Colosseum,” with a physical location at John Hopkins, to test their algorithms and eventually create radios that can cognitively collaborate with each other.

The purpose of the Colosseum – a 256-by-256-channel RF channel emulator – is to emulate the wireless environment. It can calculate in real time more than 65,000 channel interactions among 256 wireless devices and can emulate thousands of interactions between all types of wireless devices that include the Internet of Things (IoT), cellphones, military radios, and the like.

“The Colosseum is the wireless research environment that we hope will catalyze the advent of autonomous, intelligent, and – most importantly – collaborative radio technology, which will

12 July/August 2017

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

be essential as the population of devices linking wirelessly to each other and to the internet continues to grow exponentially,” Tilghman said in a statement released by DARPA. NIWeek events provided a glimpse of what the future will hold in terms of spectrum management.

In short, said Manuel Uhm – director of marketing, Ettus Research, a National Instruments company, and chair of the Board of Directors of the Wireless Innovation Forum – at NI Week: “This huge effort will enable warfighters and their radios to have spectrum situational awareness through the machine learning and AI [artificial intelligence] capabilities.”

The ideal end goal of the program is to enable autonomous spectrum sharing. “Today we need spectrum sensors (Environmental Sensing Capability, or ESC) and a Spectrum Access System (SAS),” said Uhm. “In the future, it would be amazing if none of that was necessary due to optimized and highly effective collaborative spectrum usage. It will take a long time before DoD [the Department of Defense] or commercial operators put their faith in such algorithms, but one can dream!”

SC2 will address current limitations in the communications arena. “When a naval radar signal is detected by a spectrum sensor, all the radios – known as CBRSDs (Citizens Broadband Radio Service Devices) – in that area have to stop using that spectrum within 60 seconds of notification,” Uhm said during NIWeek. “Adding more of the intelligence into the radio so they can act more autonomously would be a tremendous ­benefit, both commercially and for the military.”

The SC2 project’s avenue into enabling machine learning are NI’s universal software radio peripherals (USRPs). “The teams are going to be controlling SDRs [software-defined radios] in multiple possible different scenarios,” Uhm explained. “The USRPs that the performers are going to be using have SDR and cognitive radio technology by the industry definition today, but the secret sauce isn’t for them to develop the radio part of it.

The radio’s a solved problem. The unsolved part is how do you create a radio that is intelligent enough to be able to adapt dynamically to the spectrum situation that it’s facing?”

Competitors will use the testbed to “upload machine learning algorithms into those servers that are connected to the radios and they’ll be judged on the basis of how well those algorithms do on a series of criteria in terms of being able to communicate not just to their team members, but doing so in a way that doesn’t impinge on the communications of other teams,” he adds. www.mil-embedded.com

An important factor in the challenge is that each simulated channel acts on the premise that it has 100 MHz of bandwidth.

Moreover, each transmission and reception frequency can be tuned anywhere between 10 MHz and 6 GHz. Knowing these parameters, collaboration is the operative word in this challenge. “The key is those machine-learning algorithms that are downloaded onto the server, which control the behavior of the radio in reaction to the scenario being faced,” Uhm stated.

Additionally, he said, “In the background, there will also be a system that helps enable spectrum awareness. If you think about spectrum sharing today, there are systems called SAS that are used in CBRS to be aware of all the nodes in a particular area, and what frequency range they’re transmitting in within the 3.55 to 3.7 GHz for CBRS. Then, if a maritime radar signal is sensed, the SAS sends a signal to stop transmitting in that band to all the CBSDs in that geographic vicinity so there’s no interference with the radar. Well, that SAS is a logical component of how you could create situational awareness within Colosseum. It’s also useful in a broader potential wartime ­scenario or other types of homeland scenario type of events where broad communications is vital.”

The Colosseum in the clouds SDR technology will enable SC2 competitors to integrate in a cloud-computing-like environment. By using such an environment, the testbed will be accessible by all teams from around the country. “Putting such a powerful wireless testbed into the cloud is a first-of-its-kind achievement in and of itself,” Tilghman said, “but the most exciting thing will be to see the rapid evolution of how AI solves wireless communications challenges once the competitors have this unique and powerful resource at their disposal.”

With cloud capabilities, the possibilities of using this testbed are endless. Uhm explained: “If you place the intelligence in the cloud, you have a number of dummy nodes, whether they’re radios or some other type of sensor node that is just essentially passing sensor data to the cloud. In this situation, the cloud is making the decisions and then changing the behavior of the nodes.”

Putting intelligence at the edge “means those nodes now have the capability to have some level of intelligence, as well as being able to communicate with the cloud in most scenarios.

By having processing capability right at the edge, it is possible to more quickly make decisions right at the edge. However, having artificial intelligence in a node means that you have to have computing resources, which consume power. For example, we all know how long our smartphone batteries last and none of us are happy about it.”

Which brings the competitors to some technical but well-known challenges that include processing and power limitations within the scenarios. “A smartphone can do amazing things within the context of a day before it needs to recharge. There are going to be scenarios where battery-operated sensors will need to last www.mil-embedded.com

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Figure 1 | In this photo illustration, a few dozen of the 256 software defined radio units, which comprise the heart of DARPA’s Colosseum – the world’s largest “channel emulator” for simulating electromagnetic communication in different peacetime and contested contexts – rise up from an image of the original Roman Colosseum, after which the electronic testbed is named.

Image courtesy DARPA.

more than a day before being recharged, perhaps years. From a practical perspective, those are going be scenarios where there will be very limited processing capability in the sensor to reduce power consumption. The sensor will communicate critical data to the network for decision-making. But again, that’s also a tradeoff because it also consumes power to transmit back and forth to a cloud. So there are a number of tradeoffs at the end of the day and the best answer will depend on the use case and requirements.”

The benefits of these teams running these scenarios are ­enormous for the military and commercial world. “There’s absolutely a huge commercial aspect related to having some level of dynamic capability and cognition in your smartphone,” Uhm said “And again, some capabilities may require the broader dataset and processing capabilities in the cloud, so your phone just becomes the sensor. Taking some of the technology developed in the DARPA Spectrum Collaboration Challenge and putting that into a commercial content is absolutely on the table and that’s what DARPA would like to see, very honestly.”

This issue and challenge is a big deal: “The spectrum is a multibillion-dollar asset,” Uhm stated. “Maximizing the value of it is critically important, not just for the military, but in particular for commercial operators, and for all of us as end users.”

The story doesn’t stop here. Manuel Uhm and Paul Tilghman will be hosting a full-day workshop at WinnComm 2017 on November 13-15. The workshop, titled “DARPA Spectrum Collaboration Challenge Challenges,” will also have multiple speakers discussing the challenges that engineers are still facing as well as those that have already been tackled. Check it out to get a better picture of SC2 at WinnComm and visit https://spectrumcollaborationchallenge.com to learn how to get involved.

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

July/August 2017 13

DEFENSE TECH WIRE NEWS | TRENDS | DOD SPENDS | CONTRACTS | TECHNOLOGY UPDATES

By Mariana Iriarte, Associate Editor NEWS

NASA’s supersonic X-plane completes preliminary design review

AT&T and Leidos team up to transform DoD network

NASA and Lockheed Martin engineers recently completed the preliminary design review (PDR) of its Quiet Supersonic Transport (QueSST) aircraft design. QueSST is the initial design stage of NASA’s planned Low Boom Flight Demonstration (LBFD) experimental airplane, which is also known as an X-plane.

Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) officials have tasked Leidos to automate Department of Defense (DoD) private networking services. Under the task order, Leidos will team with AT&T to help transform the DoD Information Network (DoDIN) to a software-defined network.

Following the PDR, Lockheed Martin and NASA engineers concluded that the QueSST design is capable of fulfilling the LBFD aircraft’s mission objectives: To fly at supersonic speeds, but create a soft “thump” instead of the disruptive sonic boom associated with supersonic flight today.

DISA’s goal is a software-defined enterprise that supports a high degree of automation and synchronization across networking, hosting, and related IT systems, officials say. Leidos and AT&T will engineer and deliver software-defined networking controller technology into the DoDIN backbone. The solution uses an open framework developed by AT&T that supports the automation of network services.

Over the next few months, NASA will work with Lockheed on finalizing the QueSST preliminary design effort. This undertaking includes a static inlet performance test and a lowspeed wind tunnel test at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

Dr. Daniel Voce, Leidos senior vice president, Enterprise Cyber and Solutions, calls the move “a good initial step to transforming the DoDIN to be more flexible, secure, dynamic, and resilient for the warfighter.”

Telephonics wins Navy ARPDD retrofit contract from Lockheed Martin

Figure 1 | A scale model of the QueSST design completed testing in the 8-by 6-foot supersonic wind tunnel at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. Photo courtesy of NASA/ Lockheed Martin.

U.S. Army’s Apache AH-64 completes flight test with high-energy laser The U.S. Army Apache Program Management Office collaborated with the U.S. Special Operations Command and Raytheon to complete a test flight of a high-energy laser system onboard an Apache AH-64 at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico.

Telephonics Corp. has been awarded year two of a multiyear, indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (ID/IQ) production contract – valued at approximately $37 million – by Lockheed Martin for providing naval helicopters with AN/APS-153(V)1 radar retrofit kits with automatic radar periscope detection and discrimination (ARPDD) capability.

The award – part of phase three of the U.S. Navy’s ARPDD Retrofit Program – is a follow-on phase to a previously awarded multiyear contract. Under the terms of the contract, Telephonics ARPDD systems will be installed on the U.S. Navy’s MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopters, providing advanced maritime and littoral surveillance.

Telephonics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Griffon Corp., will begin delivery of the retrofit kits in spring 2018.

The test achieved all primary and secondary goals, providing experimental evidence for the feasibility of high-resolution, multiband targeting sensor performance and beam propagation supportive of High Energy Laser (HEL) capability for the rotary-wing attack mission.

The design of future HEL systems will be shaped by the data collected during test flights on the impact of vibration, dust, and rotor downwash on HEL beam control and steering.

14 July/August 2017

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

Figure 2 | Coupled with the ARPDD, the AN/APS-153(V)1 radar system provides naval helicopters with advanced search. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Navy.

www.mil-embedded.com

NEWS

Sea Venom/ANL anti-ship missile completes first firing

Northrop Grumman inks torpedo contract with U.S. Navy

MBDA officials announced that the company’s Sea Venom/ANL anti-ship missile recently completed its first firing at the Île du Levant test range in France. The trial of the 100 kg-class missile was performed from a Dauphin test bed helicopter owned by the DGA (Direction Générale de l’Armement, France’s defenseprocurement agency).

The U.S. Navy has awarded Northrop Grumman Corp. a $9.6 million contract, with options totaling as much as $40.5 million, to produce the transducer array/nose shell assembly of the MK 48 heavyweight torpedo, the main offensive weapon deployed from all U.S. Navy submarines.

The Sea Venom was developed to enable enhanced capability and replace existing and older systems such as the Britishdeveloped Sea Skua and the French-developed AS15TT antiship missiles. Jointly ordered in 2014, the Sea Venom/ANL project has been developed 50/50 between the U.K. and France and has played a key part in the creation of shared centers of excellence on missile technologies in both countries, according to MBDA. “Although a first firing, this was in no way a cautious one,” stated Paul Goodwin, deputy head of the Sea Venom project.

“The system was pushed to the very edge of its range capability. The next step is to exercise the systems’ operator-in-theloop capabilities.”

Under the terms of the initial contract, Northrop Grumman will handle engineering and production of 45 torpedo transducer arrays/nose shell assemblies for the MK 48. The contract also allows for three additional options of as many as 45 units apiece, for a total of up to 180 systems over five years, and includes orders for spare parts and engineering support services.

Work on the arrays and assemblies will be conducted at Northrop Grumman’s Annapolis, Maryland facility; at the Ultra Electronics Ocean Systems facility in Braintree, Massachusetts; and at additional supplier locations. When completed, the assemblies will be delivered to the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Keyport, Washington, for installation into complete MK 48 torpedoes.

CH-53K King Stallion starts transition to Naval Air Station Lockheed Martin announced that its CH-53K King Stallion cargo helicopter program has completed its first extended “crosscountry” flight from Sikorsky’s West Palm Beach, Florida, facility to Naval Air Station Patuxent River, the first of several such flights that will occur during 2017 and 2018 as the CH-53K flight test program transitions to the flight-test facilities at Patuxent River.

Figure 3 | In service in the U.K., the Sea Venom missile is expected to be used from the AW159 Wildcat helicopter, while France will operate the missile from its new Hélicoptère Interarmées Léger. Photo courtesy of MBDA.

Comtech Telecommunications obtains $14.5 million contract add-on for USMC satellite services

The CH-53K helicopter flew on June 30 from Sikorsky’s Devel­ opment Flight Center in West Palm Beach to Patuxent River, a distance of approximately 810 miles.

Lockheed Martin clocked the total flight time at six hours, with two fuel stops at Naval Air Station Mayport, Florida, and Marine Corps Air Station New River, North Carolina.

Comtech Telecommunications Corp. announced that its Com­mand & Control Technologies group has received a $14.5 million contract modification from the Defense Informa­tion Systems Agency (DISA) that will result in the exercise of the fourth-year option under an existing contract to provide Ku-band satellite bandwidth and support services for the U.S. Marine Corps Tactical Satellite Communications Network.

The additional option year covers the period from August 1, 2017, through July 31, 2018; the Marine Corps has now expended $73.0 million to date on this contract.

Under contract, Comtech will continue to provide the Marine Corps with commercial satellite services to various terminals to extend the Marine Corps Enterprise Network for deployed users. www.mil-embedded.com

Figure 4 | The CH-53K King Stallion arrives at Naval Air Station, Patuxent River, on June 30, 2017. Photo courtesy U.S. Navy.

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

July/August 2017 15

Budget Highlights DOD BUDGET REQUESTS FY 2018

DoD major program procurement and modernization highlights from FY 2018 budget request

By John McHale, Editorial Director WASHINGTON. Funding requested for Department of Defense (DoD) Major Defense Acquisition Programs (MDAPs) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 totals $94.9 billion, more than $17 billion dollars over the FY 2017 request, making up 46 percent of the Trump administration’s $208.6 billion FY 2018 acquisition budget request.

U.S. sailors aboard the Pre-Commissioning Unit Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) man the rails as the ship pulls in to Norfolk, Virginia, after conducting builder’s sea trials April 14, 2017. The first-of-class ship – the first new U.S. aircraft carrier design in 40 years – spent several days conducting builder’s sea trials, a comprehensive test of many of the ship’s key systems and technologies.

U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Seaman Gitte Schirrmacher.

The acquisition budget request makes up about 33 percent of the overall FY 2018 DoD budget request of $639.1 billion – $574.5 billion in the base budget and $64.6 billion in the Over­seas Contingency Operations (OCO) budget. This number is an overall increase of nearly nine percent over FY 2017’s $586.7 billion total.

The MDAP funding is detailed in the DoD’s “Program Acquisition Cost by Wea­pons System” booklet. Air, ground, and maritime platform program highlights are detailed below. To read the entire booklet, visit http://comptroller.defense. gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/ fy2018/fy2018_Weapons.pdf.

16 July/August 2017

Major aircraft programs Funding slated for major aircraft and related systems totals $49.9 billion under the DoD FY 2018 acquisition funding request, an increase of $4.6 billion from the FY 2017 request.

Aircraft and related systems funding includes procurement of 70 F-35 jets, 29 logistics support aircraft, 198 helicopters, and 50 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). In addition, the funding in this category provides for the development of aircraft-related technology, the procurement of aerospace equipment and systems, various modifications to existing aircraft, and the procurement of initial spares.

Manned platforms The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) consists of three variants: the F-35A Conventional Take-Off and Landing (CTOL), the F-35B Short Take-Off and Vertical Landing (STOVL), and the F-35C Carrier variant (CV). The FY 2018 program calls for continued development of the air system and the F135 single-engine powerplant; it also asks for funding for systems engineering, development, and operational testing and supports follow-on modernization. Procurement for a total of 70 aircraft:

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

www.mil-embedded.com

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Figure 1 | Several U.S. Air Force F-35A Lightning II aircraft assigned to the 58th Fighter Squadron, 33rd Fighter Wing, fly in formation following an aerial refueling qualification mission over Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. DoD photo by Master Sgt. John R. Nimmo Sr., U.S. Air Force.

The AH-64E Apache program is a parallel new-build and remanufacture effort, which integrates a mast-mounted fire control radar into an upgraded and enhanced AH–64 airframe. The FY 2018 program funds the remanufacture of 48 AH-64D aircraft to the AH-64E configuration and 13 new build AH-64Es in the second year of a five-year multiyear procurement (MYP) contract (FY 2017 to FY 2021), along with continued development of upgrades to enhance operational capabilities. It also procures two AH-64E aircraft in the OCO. FY 2018 funding requested is $1.441 billion, down from $1.840 billion in the FY 2017 request.

46 CTOL for the Air Force, 20 STOVL for the Marine Corps, and four CV for the Navy in FY 2018. FY 2018 funding requested is $10.837 billion, down from $11.323 billion in the FY 2017 request.

(Figure 1.)

The V-22 Osprey is a tilt-rotor, vertical takeoff and landing aircraft designed to meet the U.S. military’s amphibious/ vertical assault needs. The FY 2018 program calls for funding the first year of a follow-on seven-year multiyear procurement contract (FY 2018 to 2024), procuring six CMV-22 aircraft for the Navy. FY 2018 funding requested is $961.8 million, down from $1.822 billion in the FY 2017 request. www.mil-embedded.com

The UH-60 Black Hawk is a twin-engine, single-rotor, four-bladed utility helicopter designed to carry a crew of four and a combat-equipped squad of 11, or an external load of as much as 9,000 pounds. The FY 2018 program calls for funding the procurement of 48 UH-60M aircraft in the second year of a follow-on five-year MYP contract (FY 2017 to FY 2021). It also funds the continued development of upgrades to the UH-60L Digital, now designated as the UH-60V. FY 2018 funding requested is $1.059 billion, down from $1.352 billion in the FY 2017 request.

The P-8A Poseidon is multimission platform designed to replace the P-3C Orion propeller-driven aircraft. The FY 2018 program procures seven P-8A aircraft, ­support equipment, spares, and advance procurement for FY 2019 aircraft. It also continues research and development on the P-8A capabilities to meet the anti-submarine warfare (ASW); anti-surface warfare (ASuW); and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) objectives that will be delivered incrementally while full-rate production continues for the baseline aircraft. FY 2018 funding requested in this area is $1.609 billion, down from $3.267 billion in the FY 2017 request.

The F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet is a carrier-based multirole tactical fighter and attack aircraft. Two versions are being produced: the single-seat E model and the two-seat F model. The FY 2018 program calls for procuring 14 E/F model aircraft, which

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

July/August 2017 17

Budget Highlights will lessen the shortfall in naval combat aircraft. FY 2018 funding requested is $1.253 ­billion, down from $2.504 billion in the FY 2017 request.

The Long Range Strike (LRS) platform is intended to counter post-2020 challenges to the DoD’s power projection capabilities. The FY 2018 program seeks to continue engineering and manufacturing development of the next generation B-21 and perform upgrades to modernize legacy strategic bombers. FY 2018 funding requested is $2.945 billion, up from $2.241 billion in the FY 2017 request.

The F-22 Raptor is a fifth-generation air superiority aircraft fighter. The FY 2018 program continues planned modernization for F-22 aircraft via incremental capability upgrades and reliability and maintainability improvements. It also continues development and testing of advanced air superiority capabilities to include integration of AIM-120D and AIM-9X air-to-air missiles, additional electronic protection, and improved geolocation. The program completes fielding of Increment 3.1, enhancing Global Strike capabilities such as Small Diameter Bomb I, synthetic aperture radar (SAR), and geolocation. FY 2018 funding requested is $915.5 million, up from $704.4 million in the FY 2017 request.

Unmanned platforms The U.S. Air Force MQ-1B Predator and the Army MQ-1C Gray Eagle unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) are comprised of aircraft configured with a multispectral ­targeting system (electro-optical, infrared [IR], laser designator, and IR illuminator) providing real-time full-motion video, weapons, data links, and ground control stations with communications equipment providing line-of-sight and beyond-line-of-sight control. The FY 2018 program calls for funding the test and evaluation efforts associated

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DOD BUDGET REQUESTS FY 2018

with the MQ-1 Gray Eagle Extended Range engineering change proposal.

The Army plans to procure 11 UASs in FY 2018, which is the last planned year of procurement for the MQ-1C Gray Eagle. FY 2018 funding requested for these particular unmanned platforms is $174.4 million, down from $308.1 million in the FY 2017 request.

The U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper UAS ­program is comprised of an aircraft segment consisting of aircraft configured with an array of sensors to include day/night full-motion video (FMV), signals intelligence (SIGINT), and SAR sensor payloads, avionics, data links, and weapons; a ground control segment consisting of a launch and recovery element; and a mission control element with embedded line-of-sight and beyond-line-of-sight communications equipment. The FY 2018 program funds the continued development, transformation, and fielding of Reaper aircraft and ground stations. The base request includes the procurement

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of 10 dual ground control stations and continues the modification of MQ-9s to the extended-range configuration. The OCO request includes the procurement of 32 additional aircraft, updated multispectral sensors, and payload modifications. FY 2018 funding requested is $1.008 billion, down from $1.053 billion in the FY 2017 request.

The U.S. Air Force RQ-4 Global Hawk, Navy MQ-4C Triton, and NATO Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) UAS programs provide high-altitude, longendurance ISR capabilities. The FY 2018 program for RQ-4 funds the development and modification efforts for the Block 30, Block 40, Airborne Signals Intelligence Payload (ASIP) Increment II, and various sensor enhancements, along with the U.S. contribution to the NATO AGS. For MQ-4C, it funds the procure­ment of three low rate initial production (LRIP) systems and continues to fund development activities associated with software upgrades and the multi-

intelligence effort. Total FY 2018 funding requested for these platforms is $1.282 ­billion, up from $1.213 billion in the FY 2017 request.

The RQ-7 Shadow, RQ-11 Raven, RQ-20 Puma, and RQ-21 Blackjack UAS platforms provide organic reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition (RSTA) capabilities. The FY 2018 program calls for funding upgrades to system hardware and payloads for the RQ-7 Shadow. It also procures upgrades and provides training and contractor logistics support for the RQ-11 Raven. In addition, the program procures RQ-20 Puma systems for the Marine Corps and Special Operations Command, while procuring a total of four systems and provides contractor logistics support for the RQ-21 Blackjack. Total FY 2018 funding requested for these platforms is $129.7 million, down from $522.4 million in the FY 2017 request.

Major ground systems Funding slated for major ground systems totals $11.2 billion under the DoD FY 2018 acquisition funding request, an increase of $1.4 billion over the FY 2017 request.

Ground systems funding includes the Army efforts to continue to modernize and upgrade MDAP programs such as Stryker vehicles, Abrams tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and Paladin 155 mm howitzers. The Marine Corps’ ground force focus in FY 2018 is on the Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV). All the services will procure the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) as part of the LRIP. Program highlights are below.

The Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) is a joint program currently in development for the Army and Marine Corps. The FY 2018 program calls for funding the third and final year of LRIP, procuring 2,777 trucks. It continues full-up system level (FUSL) test;

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July/August 2017 19

Budget Highlights multiservice operational test and evaluation (MOT&E); automatic fire extinguishing system (AFES) test; and command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) test. FY 2018 funding requested is $1.142 billion, up from $775.8 million in the FY 2017 request. (Figure 2.)

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Figure 2 | The Joint Light Tactical Vehicle on the production line at Oshkosh Defense.

Photo courtesy of Oshkosh Defense.

The Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV) will replace the M113 Armored Personnel Carrier program that was terminated in 2007. The FY 2018 program funds engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) prototype testing (including performance and reliability testing), completion of the interim design review (IDR) and functional configuration audit (FCA), continued development of logistics support products, procurement of live-fire test assets, and procurement of 107 LRIP vehicles. FY 2018 funding requested is $674.4 million, up from $184.2 million in the FY 2017 request.

The Family of Heavy Tactical Vehicles (FHTV) consists of the Palletized Load System (PLS) and the Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT). The FY 2018 program calls for funding the procurement of 621 FHTVs, as well as trailers to modernize the heavy tactical vehicle fleet for the active, National Guard, and reserve units as well as to fill urgent theater requirements. FY 2018 funding requested is $118 million, up from $57.1 million in the FY 2017 request.

The M1A2 Abrams is the Army’s main battle tank, first entering service in 1980; it was produced from 1978 until 1994. Since then, the Army has modernized the M1A2 with a series of upgrades to improve its capabilities, collectively known as the System Enhancement Package (SEP) and the Tank Urban Survival Kit (TUSK). The FY 2018 program funds the upgrade of 56 M1A1 vehicles, variants to the M1A2 SEP v3 variant. Also requested: Continued support of the engineering change proposal (ECP) 1A installation of M1A2SEP v3 production in FY 2018 as well as numerous approved modifications to fielded M1A2 Abrams tanks, including the Ammunition Data Link (ADL) to enable firing of the Army’s new smart 120 mm ammunition, Low Profile Commander’s Remote Operating Weapon Station (CROWS), and Active Protection System. FY 2018 funding requested is $1.213 billion, up from $898.7 million in the FY 2017 request.

Stryker is a 19-ton wheeled armored vehicle that provides the Army with a family of 17 different vehicles (10 flat bottom and seven double V-hull). The FY 2018 program for the Stryker funds ECP 1 testing, ECP 2 lethality upgrades, and continued support of the application of multiple fleetwide modifications. Modifications address

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MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

DOD BUDGET REQUESTS FY 2018

the areas of training devices: command, control, communications, computers, intelligence (C4I) obsolescence; reliability, capability, and performance degradation; safety; and operational-related issues. It also provides for the fielding of a 30 mm weapon system. FY 2018 funding requested is $178.2 million, down from $735.4 million in the FY 2017 request.

The Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV) will replace the aging Amphibious Assault Vehicle. The FY 2018 program funds the purchase of four FUSL test vehicles and continued test and evaluation efforts. It procures the LRIP of 26 vehicles, plus procurement of related items such as production support, systems engineering/program management, engineering change orders (ECOs), government furnished equipment (GFE), and integrated logistics support. It also provides for initial spares, which support the ACV Increment 1.1 program. Milestone C is scheduled in FY 2018. FY 2018 funding requested is $340.5 million, up from $158.7 million in the FY 2017 request.

Shipbuilding and maritime systems Funding slated for major shipbuilding and maritime systems totals $30.4 billion under the DoD FY 2018 acquisition funding request, an increase of $3.4 billion over the FY 2017 request.

The shipbuilding portfolio for FY 2018 includes funding for the construction of 12 ships (two SSN 774 Virginia-class nuclear attack submarines; one CVN 78 Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier; two DDG 51 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers; one Littoral Combat Ship (LCS); one Fleet Replenishment Oiler; one Towing, Salvage, and Rescue [T-ATS(X)] ship; one landing craft and three ship-toshore connectors; and the second year of incremental construction funding for one amphibious assault ship, the USS Bougainville (LHA 8). In addition, the FY 2018 request contains funding for advance procurement to support detail design activities and long-lead items for the Columbia-class Fleet Ballistic Missile Submarine (SSBN) and a longlead item for the refueling and complex www.mil-embedded.com

overhaul of USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74).

Program highlights are below.

of ship systems. FY 2018 funding requested is $4.013 billion, up from $3.498 billion in the FY 2017 request.

The CVN 78 Gerald R. Ford-class ships will include new technologies and improvements to improve efficiency and operating costs as well as reduced crew requirements. These ships will be the premier forward asset for crisis response and early decisive striking power in a major combat operation. The FY 2018 program funds the first year of construction costs for USS Enterprise (CVN 80); the final year of construction costs for USS John F. Kennedy (CVN 79); plus outfitting, training, and continued development of ship systems. FY 2018 funding requested is $4.638 billion, up from $2.791 billion in the FY 2017 request.

The Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) is a small surface combatant capable of operations close to shore. The FY 2018 program funds construction of one LCS seaframe, outfitting, trainers, and development costs for a new class of small surface combatant. FY 2018 funding requested is $1.152 billion, down from $1.598 billion in the FY 2017 request.

The DDG 51 Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers provide a wide range of warfighting capabilities in multithreat air, surface, and subsurface environments.

The FY 2018 program calls for funding two Flight III DDG 51-class destroyers as part of a multiyear procurement for 10 ships from FY 2018 to FY 2022, outfitting costs, and continued development

The Virginia-class submarine is a multimission, nuclear-powered attack submarine.

The FY 2018 program calls for funding two ships as part of a multiyear procurement contract, advance procurement for two ships in future years, and outfitting and support equipment. It also continues funding the development of the Virginia Payload Module, technology, prototype components, and the systems engineering required for design and construction. FY 2018 funding requested is $5.546 billion, up from $5.322 billion in the FY 2017 request.

The Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine is designed to replace the current Ohio class of SSBN. The FY 2018 program funds advance procurement for long-lead items, detail design, and research and development of nuclear technologies and ship systems such as the propulsion system, combat systems technology, and the common missile compartment. FY 2018 funding requested is $1.884 billion, up from­ $1.864 billion in the FY 2017 request.

USS America-class ships are large-deck, amphibious assault ships designed to land and support ground forces. The FY 2018 program continues construction funding of LHA 8, outfitting costs, and continuing research and development efforts.

FY 2018 funding requested in this area is $1.748 billion, up from $1.648 billion in the FY 2017 request. MES

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July/August 2017 21

Mil Tech Trends RUGGED COMPUTING

Videocentric ISR missions push rugged computing to the limits

By Mariana Iriarte, Associate Editor The 721st Communications Squadron provides monitoring of the nation’s strategic missile-warning systems to ensure a constant flow of key information. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Air Force/Airman 1st Class Krystal Ardrey.

Intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions put extreme performance demands on data servers, as they struggle to contend with large amounts of video and data coming in while hewing to strict size, weight, and power (SWaP) constraints. Even as SWaP dominates the conversation, though, designers are beginning to realize that performance eclipses nearly everything else.

ISR missions are bringing in all kinds of actionable data, but not without pushing the high-power/high-performance servers to the limit. “Our military has the tremendous capability to gather the world’s best intelligence, but the hardware and software applications that really need to do this collection of information in real time are really pushing COTS [commercial off-the-shelf] products to the limits,” says Jason Wade, president of ZMicro in San Diego.

SWaP: The P stands for performance The commercial technology revolution is undoubtedly affecting military technology, and the focus is definitely “SWaP, SWaP, SWaP. How do you reduce size, weight, and power?” Wade asks. “What we’re seeing is that the SWaP acronym might still be valid but the definition has completely changed. While there’s still

22 July/August 2017

a focus on size and weight, we’re not seeing such a focus on power anymore; what we are seeing is a strong push towards performance. Our customers are really, really, starting to push the boundaries with technology and where it’s going, therefore we need to have the highest-performance systems in the field. This is really driven primarily by the need to gather some deep intelligence out in the field.”

›

Performance means that the server needs to be able to handle video processing, data processing, storage, even live video streaming, all of which needs to be in a small package. “We are seeing more and more small-form-factor embed­ded systems for applications like on aircraft or Humvees, ground vehicles, and UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles], where space is an issue,” says Aneesh Kothari,

marketing manager at Systel in Sugar Land, Texas. An example of the small form factor is Systel’s EB700 (Figure 1). “It’s a rugged high-performance small-formfactor embedded system that provides video processing, compute, encoding, storage, and networking capabilities in a single system,” Kothari says.

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

Figure 1 | Systel’s EB7001 is rugged small-form-factor embedded video capture system for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) applications. Photo courtesy of Systel.

www.mil-embedded.com

›

Figure 2 | Crystal Group’ s rugged embedded computer RE1312 features 6th-generation i7/ Broadwell-DE, Xeon-D CPU technology. Photo courtesy of Crystal Group.

The live video stream is not just in one channel: “We have some airborne ISR customers and what they’re doing with their software is they’re pulling in multiple video streams,” Wade says.

“They’re fusing this video. They’re fusing data sources. They’re georegistering data. They’re encoding, they’re decoding, and then they’re starting the full exploitation. There’s so much data that’s getting processed and it’s such a priority to get this data for good intelligence that the software developers are now starting to push the performance boundaries.”

Serving up multiple live video streams With increased demand for more “eyes in the sky” to gather intelligence, “video is playing a much more vital role and will continue to do so going forward,” Kothari says.

“What we really see is this push towards everything to be very videocentric. This leads to managing increased data volume, bandwidth issues, and the challenge of being able to accurately and consistently stream live video feeds from various platforms in the battlefield to command and control headquarters to then be able to make realtime decisions.”

This push for a videocentric world brings latency issues. “It does no one any good if you have these video feeds streaming in and you’re not seeing the video till a few seconds after the fact,” Kothari says. “Therefore, you really have to minimize that latency, which is hard at high bandwidths and high resolution. “ In order to deliver that high resolution and capability in real time, companies are taking a deep dive into the design process. “When they’re developing this software, they’re not looking at, ‘How do we keep this power down?’ They’re not looking at the hardware limitations, what they’re really looking at is the limitations of technology that’s out there,” Wade explains. In response to this need for power, “they’re using high-end gamer GPUs [graphics processing units], the latest Intel CPUs [central processing units], the latest multicore processors.”

There is a “significant interest in general-purpose processing and virtualization,” says Jim Shaw, executive vice president at Crystal Group in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The reason for this increase is because “the platforms that are in demand continue to push the edge for CUDA cores or CPU cores. Much of the core cycles being expended focus on analyzing large amounts of data or creating virtual machines to spin off processes for control or communication.” (Figure 2). www.mil-embedded.com

Leveraging standards The warfighter – looking to gain an edge by streaming video and ­processing data in real time – is increasingly finding that open standards can ease the way.

“Increased display resolutions are driving the video processors to move more and more data quickly,” says Steve Motter, vice president of business development at display provider IEE in Van Nuys, California. “The open standards are driving video protocols at several levels. Within the devices, there are newer internal video standards, such as MIPI and eDP, that directly link the silicon processor to the LCD row/column driver circuits.”

Engineers are leveraging everything at their disposal to take this technology to the next level. “Between embedded computer products, we are seeing highspeed serial digital interfaces, such as SMPTE-292, become more common replacements for legacy video interfaces,” Motter adds.

They are also looking to fiber optics that enable better performance: “In the aerospace community, ARINC-818 is offering high-speed serial on either copper or

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fiber optic, allowing for lightweight long cable runs,” Motter adds. “Although not an open standard, GigE Vision may make inroads for a switched, packetbased video transport. ARINC-661 is an example of a mechanism to manipulate pre-ertified graphic display elements located in a display’s local library by a remote user application.”

GPUs and CPUs are also popular: “More and more we are seeing customers wanting to integrate GPUs and higherend CPUs within a closed environment, which bring thermal concerns to the forefront,” Kothari says.

Ultimately, data is at the center of everything. “The latest Intel Xeon Skylake architectures are demonstrating exceptional advancements in state-of-theart computing,” Shaw adds. “With these

advances, however, comes the reality of increased thermal challenges and packaging difficulties.”

Thermal challenges magnified Designing in the latest technology means that engineers are pushing the thermal threshold in systems. For example, designers at ZMicro are starting to “load in multicore CPUs ... I think we’re now selling 16-core Xeons dual-socketed,” Wade says.

What does that mean for the engineer?

It means 300 watts of CPU power to contend with. “Then we’re putting in these high-end gamer GPUs, which adds another 250 watts. Now with just CPU and GPUs, we’re pushing 550 watts of processing. It’s a serious engineering challenge to figure out how to keep those computers and those servers cool,

but at the end of the day, that’s our job,” Wade states.

Powerful CPUs and GPUs are certainly posing a challenge: “From a core and rackmounted server perspective, the power dissipation per core continues to drop; however, the core count per CPU is increasing at a significant rate,” Shaw says. “What used to be an eightto 12-core system dissipating 80 watts is being replaced with silicon that has 24 cores, and is dumping 150 watts of heat into a socket. With a dual-socket motherboard, this equates to 300 watts that needs to be dissipated in 1U space.”

“As computing becomes more dense, our engineers must think outside the box to find ways to address thermal concerns,” Kothari notes. This also means working with the user during the design

Data security in the realm of servers Hardware security is a relatively new arena: After all, no one ever expected the adversary to able to hack into servers via a microcontroller or a line-replaceable unit (LRU). In the past, hardware security for a server meant locking up all that valuable data with an actual lock and key.

Interestingly enough one of ZMicro’s first product launches was “specifically for data security,” says Jason Wade, president of ZMicro in San Diego. “This was back in the ‘80s, so data security meant pulling it out of a computer and locking it in the safe at night.”

That method is still used today, but more sophisticated forms of security are now available. “We manage data security through what comes on the SSDs [solid-state drives] we buy,” says Aneesh Kothari, marketing manager at Systel in Sugar Land, Texas. In fact, he adds, “Most commercial SSDs do not offer any security. But the majority of industrial SSDs offer AES-256 encryption and/or zeroization (the ability to erase sensitive information in the event the equipment is compromised; FIPS 140-2 standard). In other words, we spec in the components that offer the appropriate security level that the customer requires.”

Hardware security is not an easy fix, so “From a mechanical perspective, we provide locking mechanisms on the musthave removable hard drives and have even installed ‘locking bars’ over some hard-drive carriers,” Kothari adds.

Moving forward, some industry experts are adjusting to meet a user’s security requirements. “In our upcoming products, we have the capabilities for users to support embedded electronic serial numbers, so that way they can create their own security protocols,” Wade states. The beauty of this method is that “Hard drives that aren’t authorized to be connected to 24 July/August 2017

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

the current server or system won’t be able to boot up. That’s kind of one of our approaches towards ensuring data security in the product line moving forward.”

“Fortunately now there have been transitions and changes in technology that have self-encrypting drives, which are supported in all of our removable hard drives, but the idea behind it is there are industry groups that support various standards,” Wade says. “Opal 2.0 and self-encrypting drives are pretty much the standard in the industry right now to ensure that data is encrypted as it’s written to disk.”

In addition, engineers at Systel “can design servers to the red/ black security enclave architecture with isolated domains to ensure security,” Kothari explains. “In effect, two separate computing systems are housed in the same enclosure with the utmost care taken to partition based on classification levels and prevent any information or signal leakage between the two.”

Many options exist to ensure security. Jim Shaw, executive vice president at Crystal Group in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, says that “Most server-class architectures come with the capability to add Trusted Platform Modules (TPM), which provides a dedicated microcontroller designed to secure hardware by integrating cryptographic keys into the motherboard system.”

Crystal Group offers products that “also provide the capability to secure erase drives by selecting FIPS-compatible drives and enable line options. Customizing the I/O with mil-spec circular connectors and limiting intrusion points is one of the most useful approaches to limiting unwanted access to a networked server. Beyond these options, tamper-proof screws and chassis-intrusion monitors are reasonable hardware methods of maintaining a secure server system.” www.mil-embedded.com

process in order to “marry the customer requirements with power budgeting, package size, and environmental conditions to determine the optimal thermal solution.”

Servers are carrying quite a load. Miti­ gating the heat necessitates different methods that include thermal modeling.

“There’s heatsinking the heat pipes.

There’s making sure that there’s plenty of exhaust and evacuation,” Wade says.

“At the end of the day, we consider it always a high-risk item, and so we track that through our design process. It’s just a combination of prudent thermal modeling in design. It’s verification testing for the various components after the prototype is built. And then it’s the qualification to make sure at the end of the day that the system does perform.”

Additionally, these ‘microappliances’ could be connected to everything important to a particular user via connections integrated on a single piece of silicon.”

These advancements in technology, while the military user may not initially relate to them, “are really going to accelerate the implementation of machine learning and artificial intelligence into industries across the world, and of course the military is going to be all over this technology and this capability,” Wade asserts.

For the next phase to begin, rugged computers will have to “support the high-end computation that’s needed to support emerging technology,” Wade adds. “There will be systems that are not going to be the traditional CPU with PCI card expansion and storage. It’s going to be systems that are more architected around heterogeneous computing, so you’ll see FPGAs [field-programmable gate arrays], you’ll see GPUs, you’ll see CPUs all working in concert, load-sharing, balancing the different computing requirements to take advantage of the high-end parallel processing that’s needed.” MES

SWa P

As industry experts try to satisfy users’ requirements, “it’s a design challenge,” Wade states simply. “It’s an engineering risk; we need to understand what triedand-true techniques are used to mitigate the thermals.”

The next phase of development Department of Defense (DoD) officials have been preaching their SWaP mantra for years, so much so that SWaP-optimized embedded servers are the future for the military, Kothari says.

“Modern warfighter applications will demand single LRUs [line-replaceable units] to replace multiple legacy systems, moving from standalone systems to allin-one embedded solutions.”

SWaP requirements continue to drive the evolution of today’s military-use rugged computing, but technology doesn’t stand still and trying to figure out what’s next for rugged computing is an exciting challenge. “Where we’re at right now? We’re kind of in that next phase of technology where the next major technology disruption is self-driving cars,” Wade says.

While it may be difficult to project into the future, the industry should look at “the impact of cellphones, tablets, and IoT [Internet of Things] on the market,” Shaw points out. This reality will enable the introduction of “very low-cost, highdensity storage combined with advanced processing architectures that will play a role in the next five to 10 years. www.mil-embedded.com

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Mil Tech Trends RUGGED COMPUTING

Performance increases still needed for full adoption of mobile rugged computing for military use

By Mariana Iriarte, Associate Editor The crew for an RQ-4 Global Hawk is shown using mobile-computing technology to review technical orders and prepare the unmanned aircraft system (UAS) for launch. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Air Force/Staff Sgt. Bennie J. Davis III.

The constant drive forward in commercial technology is also driving military-computing technology to new heights. As this progress occurs, mobile computing is becoming more relevant to the warfighter, while at the same time posing huge challenges for designers and engineers. Even as engineers deal with shrinking size and weight requirements, performance is still a big issue that mobile computing doesn’t quite answer for military use.

“Today’s soldiers and military personnel have device performance and operation expectations set by the latest tablet and smartphone devices,” says Steve Motter, vice president of business development at display provider IEE in Van Nuys, California. “Extremely high-resolution touchscreens (beyond full HD) are commonplace [in consumer applications], with interoperable applications, common user interfaces, and dependency on networked information”

26 July/August 2017

These types of capabilities are what military users are looking for “in their rugged mobile devices,” Motter adds. “The innovations and advances achieved in the ­consumer space are tremendous; we should similarly enable and equip warfighters. We should build a framework [in the industry] that rewards invention.”

Commercial offerings are still beyond anything the warfighter can experience today, however. “Tablets continue to be constrained by battery power, thermal limitations, and an insatiable demand for more processing,” points out Jim Shaw, executive vice president of engineering at Crystal Group in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. With an increase in the use of smaller computing devices, and as more battlefield applications get deployed on tablet-like devices, Shaw says, “processing demand increases accordingly.”

At the core of what will drive the true adoption of mobile laptops and tablets in the field: raw performance capabilities. “The designer (and the customer that selects the appropriate device) is challenged to select a device with the maximum performance (processing speed, connectivity, display, and peripheral, etc.), while still low-power enough that the device will operate (in the rugged environment) long enough to achieve the mission parameters,” Motter explains. “There should also be adequate reserves to handle contingencies and unexpected emergencies, often encountered in the dynamic fielded operation.”

“While rugged tablets are becoming more and more powerful, they are of course still not able to process as much information as a traditional server (Intel Core CPUs versus Xeon, for example),” adds Aneesh Kothari, marketing manager at Systel in Sugar Land, Texas. “That being said, tablets are still able to perform many of the same tasks at a much lower price point. Between pricing and much smaller footprints, rugged mobile solutions are extremely attractive for the military.”

Traditional servers were not designed to run on batteries, explains Jason Wade, ­president of ZMicro in San Diego. In addition, “the power requirements or the power

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

www.mil-embedded.com

is driving toward smaller, lighter-weight devices that are truly portable,” Motter says.

“With most of the weight allocation given to the battery, the thermal design of the device depends on careful material selection. The enclosure requires a combination of molded lightweight materials and selective application with high thermal-conductive materials. Electrical shielding and EMI/EMC ­compliance remains a requirement, driving the designer to select deposition techniques for applying conductive materials within the housing.”

That still doesn’t change the reality that “the processing isn’t necessarily going to be taking place on the mobile-computing solution, just because there is such high-end, backend server processing that’s still required for collecting the data, analyzing the data, and distributing the data,” Wade clarifies. “I think it’s kind of a synergistic role between the two platforms, the mobile and the server platform. I think that as the power of mobile computing goes up, so will the backend processing that will feed that information out to the server. There’s a pretty dramatic difference.”

What end users are currently seeing is “several key manufacturers that are producing families of multicore processors around scaled performance; from the extreme low-power ARM processors, to midrange power Atom x86 devices, to the latest-­ generation i7 workhorses,” Motter explains. “In the rugged embedded space, there are wide-temperature-range, controlled- (lower) power variants of each of these that lend themselves nicely to rugged embedded mobile computing.”

›

Figure 1 | IEE’s 3.5-inch handheld control display unit (CDU) with embedded processor hardware implementation.

Photo courtesy of IEE.

Wade says he thinks that talking about mobile computing in the same terms as traditional servers is a little bit premature: The benefits that tablets and laptops bring to the warfighter are just out of reach, but, he says, “there’s no doubt that as the warfighter becomes more mobile and the capabilities of technology provide more information, that will bring the increase in the use of mobile computing in the field.” MES

limitations aren’t an issue for servers so much, versus power requirements for mobile computing.”

The reason is simple: Soldiers in the field can only carry so much, therefore “extra batteries are generally not an option for those carrying laptops as batteries would take the place of water, food, or ammunition,” Shaw says. “This combination fuels the development of more efficient architectures, which benefits tablets, laptops, workstations, and servers alike.”

For companies like IEE, “network connectivity and video interfacing is key,” Motter says. “To achieve mobile embedded performance, we add direct silicon-based acceleration engines, whether it’s video decoding or video preprocessing/­windowing. These hardware-based solutions allow for highspeed, low-latency performance without requiring extreme processing performance to support a software implementation.” (Figure 1.)

It is true that server and mobile computing technology is moving forward rapidly. “Mobile embedded computing

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Mil Tech Trends RUGGED COMPUTING

Integrated panel PC solves many challenges in limited-space battlefield applications

By Chris Ciufo Saving space in cramped ground vehicles is as “simple” as combining computers and displays into one chassis – once the new system challenges that arise are managed.

The interior of this Stryker armored vehicle appears to have loads of space, but vetronics computer chassis are stuffed into every cranny, including panel PCs and displays. Other Stryker variants have human-machine interfaces (HMIs) on either side for squad and commander use. (Image courtesy of Wiki Commons; used under open source license.)

The modern battlefield depends on computers on the move. While the practice of embedding a range of rugged computers into military vehicles is wellestablished, the human-machine interface (HMI) for these systems presents new challenges, especially with the need for real-time, high-definition video. A vehicle such as a Stryker personnel carrier, for instance, may contain multiple systems for communications, weapons control, identification friend or foe (IFF), battlefield mapping, inertial navigation, and more, and many of those systems require a display as part of the humanmachine interface.

The Stryker appears to have more interior room than a Humvee, mine-resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicle, or Apache cockpit to incorporate all those systems, but that space fills up quickly.

Moreover, while rugged embedded computers can be tucked into every available nook and cranny, the HMI displays to interact with them must be easily accessible by onboard personnel. Yet what’s the tradeoff between more computer

28 July/August 2017

equipment that enhances the vehicle’s battlefield utility and interoperability versus that equipment taking up space at the expense of personnel comfort and amount of crew and gear that can be carried?

Reducing individual chassis size is an option for freeing up space. Another is combining more functions into each box to reduce the total number of vetronics chassis.

Taken even further, since the HMI must remain – it can’t be eliminated – why not move a whole vetronics box inside the HMI itself?

A panel-PC-style “smart display” that integrates a vetronics chassis and computer subsystem and display into a single, rugged, application-tailored form factor is an ideal option for these mobile applications. These smart displays can reduce the total space required for separate computer and display, and can be networked so that a single smart display interfaces with multiple systems.

In Figure 1, the General Micro Systems architecture shows one or more computers feeding purpose-built HMIs. Merely integrating each HMI’s computer into the display chassis itself will free up space in the vehicle, but that move changes a few things: We’ve moved some of the heat load from a separate box into the display, created some new HMI mounting challenges to remove that heat, and possibly wreaked havoc with the cabling.

The upshot is that while an integrated panel PC will free up space, the designer needs to pay attention to these three challenges: ›› HMI heat dissipation ›› HMI mounting for cabling and usability ›› Video or local-area network (LAN) integration between multiple or “slave” displays

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

www.mil-embedded.com

Integrated computer and display bring new heat-dissipation challenges Soldiers commonly refer to computers in vehicles as “personnel heaters.” For missions in snowy areas, that warmth might be appreciated, but recent wars are primarily being fought in deserts; the last thing warfighters need are additional heat sources inside the confined spaces of military vehicles. This reality means that convection cooling is a nonstarter. Fans would simply blow hot air into the vehicle and grit and dust into the computer, making these mechanical elements a source of discomfort for soldiers and a significant point of failure for the embedded computer.

Integrated smart displays, therefore, must use conduction cooling, which can still dump hundreds of watts of heat onto the “cold plate” – the metal shell of the vehicle. That will still eventually heat the interior, so smart displays – which now include a full-featured vetronics computer such as a mission processor – must also use highly efficient design and lowpower electronics to keep dissipated www.mil-embedded.com

›

Figure 1 | General Micro Systems photo of a typical ground vehicle architecture with commander’s display and mission processor, plus one or more crew displays and associated computers (such as for navigation and IFF).

›

Figure 2 | This modular smart display from General Micro Systems offers flexible mounting options and conduction cooling, and allows a single display to support multiple computer systems, or to daisy-chain to other smart displays.

heat to a minimum. At the same time, the display must be designed to be as thin as possible to reduce its footprint – there’s no room inside a vehicle for a display that is five inches thick due to a bulky heatsink.

An ideal approach to cooling the whole HMI starts at the hottest point: the CPU and/or video processor. Here, a high-efficiency conduction heat sink can be used that’s composed of a corrugated alloy slug with an extremely low thermal resistance. This acts as a heat spreader at the processor die (see Figure 2). Once the heat is spread over a large area, a liquid silver compound in a sealed chamber transfers the heat from the spreader to the systems’ enclosure. This approach yields a temperature delta of less than 10 °C from the CPU core to the cold plate, compared with more than 25 °C for typical systems.

In this manner, the increased heat load of the computer plus HMI is quickly conducted to the vehicle’s cold plate, while keeping the whole HMI extremely thin.

Another advantage of this hot-spot approach is the effect on shock and vibration.

Because the CPU die does not make direct contact with the system enclosure, but rather connects via a liquid silver chamber, that acts as a shock absorber that saves the processor from microfractures that can cause failure.

Mounting options require flexible, customizable design Computer systems inside military vehicles often require creative mounting options to make the best use of limited space for equipment and personnel. While embedded computers can be tucked out of the way, the challenge for displays is mounting them with appropriate viewing capability for operators to manage weapons control, monitor maps, examine video, and more.

Smart displays can be bulkhead-mounted (cut into the vehicle’s wall) or surface-mounted on the wall; can fold down from a ceiling mount; or can be installed on a swing arm. Each of these options requires a different cable output location – out the back, from the top

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

July/August 2017 29

Mil Tech Trends or bottom, or right or left side. A modular design approach to the smart display enables the cable location to be easily adapted to any configuration requirement.

Consumer video interfaces not up to the task Cables present additional challenges, however. Even though a vehicle is a relatively small area, displays and the systems they are connected to may not be mounted close together. In some applications, an operator may need to share information with another operator’s screen. For instance, if one operator receives thermal imaging or moving map data from an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) over the battlefield, the operator may need to share that information with a gunner or tactical platoon leader located on the other side of the vehicle.

Cabling may need to snake as much as 20 feet around the inside of the vehicle perimeter rather than taking the shortest distance. Video quality breaks down over these long distances using typical video interfaces such as HDMI or DisplayPort. Another factor: The electromagnet interference (EMI) from the vehicle’s engine and alternator can also affect performance, which can hamper the safety and efficiency of the soldiers in the vehicle.

One way to deliver video is digitally over a LAN. For some implementations, a single display can provide the interface for multiple computer systems. Packetized video is efficient and can be delivered over long runs using video protocols as long as each HMI includes 1 GbE or 10 GbE [Gigabit Ethernet] network interfaces up to the task.

GigE Vision is a high-performance interface standard designed for industrial cameras that transmits high-speed video and related control data over Ethernet networks.

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This standard enables video to be routed to multiple displays within a vehicle – or from a camera outside the vehicle to the display – without running additional cables between systems. A setup using an integrated smart display and network server is also possible, which would provide a backbone for digital switching of video data from a central, compact workstation.

Another way to route video between master and slave displays is by daisy-chain method; however, most civilian commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) video standards are not up to the task. Fortunately, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) has developed highperformance standards for long cable runs. High-definition serial digital interface (HD-SDI) is standardized in SMPTE 292M, which supports uncompressed video streams at full high-definition rates that can run over hundreds of meters with no quality degradation. These cables can also be used to connect cameras outside the vehicle to computers and displays inside, or to daisy-chain computers and displays as needed.

Smart design for smart displays The human-machine interface is a traditional challenge in demanding, spaceconstrained environments, but with the right design approach, an integrated rugged display and computer makes mobile battlefield applications viable and reliable. MES Chris A. Ciufo, the CTO of General Micro Systems, is a veteran of more than three decades of the embedded systems and semiconductor industries. Ciufo brings extensive experience working with government program offices and prime contractors for M1A2 and M2A3 (Army), F14D (Navy), AAAV (USMC), and B-2 (USAF).

Ciufo holds degrees in electrical engineering and materials science from the University of California.

General Micro Systems www.gms4sbc.com www.mil-embedded.com

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Industry Spotlight CYBERWARFARE TECHNOLOGY

Cyberwarfare: A “Wild West” of nonkinetic weaponry

By Sally Cole, Senior Editor Cyberwarfare is akin to “a guerrilla warfare domain,” where attackers hide behind proxies to maintain a level of plausible and diplomatic deniability.

The term cyberwarfare is so ambiguous – a solid definition that everyone can agree on remains elusive – and there is certainly no accepted set of rules to follow ... yet.

It tends to focus on “intentionally breaking or damaging the software that a critical system depends on to function so that it’s no longer functional or capable of carrying out its intended use,” says Bill Leigher, director of Raytheon’s government cybersecurity solutions business and a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral.

Cyber and other nonkinetic capabilities “are an emerging class of weapons that will eventually mature and make their way into the arsenals of commanders.”

These noncombat attacks are used to “deny, deter, disrupt, or delay electronic communications of infrastructure, public confidence, or military technologies used to support combat operations,” explains Bryan Singer, director of Industrial Cybersecurity Services for security firm IOActive. “The intent of these cyber operations is to enhance the ‘fog of war’ against enemy nation states to impede their ability to support

32 July/August 2017

command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) in military operations.”

“Wild West” in terms of lack of rules and laws So far, no treaty provisions deal specifically with cyberwarfare. “NATO produced the Tallinn Manual in an attempt to provide direction and guidance, but it’s a nonbinding study,” points out Neil Haskins, general manager, Middle East, for IOActive.

Once you begin developing capabilities that fit the description of a cyberweapon, “it must meet guidelines that we as a nation agree are appropriate – the weapon needs to be legal and not indiscriminately kill or cause civilian populations undue harm,” Leigher says. “It must be possible to responsibly control it, and a commander who uses it needs to have an understanding of the limits of its power and what really happens once they use it in a combat situation. This starts to define the nature of cyberweapons, and I think it needs to meet the same standards the International Law of War demands. But we’re not really there from in a mature way from a cyber perspective.”

Cyberwarfare is evolving in a variety of intriguing ways. It used to be “nation-states squaring off against other nation-states with their own hacking teams,” says Dennis Moreau, senior engineering architect, networking and security, for VMware. “That’s not what we’re seeing now. Cyberwarfare is being conducted in more of a guerrilla warfare domain where attackers use proxies to maintain a level of plausible and diplomatic deniability. But the victim is clearly a national interest, and we’re seeing these attacks across the very broad spectrum of their interests. Attackers are using every bit of the technical sophistication developed by nation-states, including the U.S.” Deniability extends “not just to the malactors but also to the targets. For example, the attack on the Democratic National Committee, which the U.S. maintains didn’t reach the level of being cyberwarfare,” Moreau points out. “Yet, right now NATO is wrestling with the question: Does a cyberattack against critical infrastructure trigger Article 5

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in a joint defense sort of response? This is a conversation about the definition of cyberwarfare – in terms of what’s considered to be an ‘act’ and what it means for policy – being discussed at the highest levels. So far it’s in flux as to where the lines are.”

What’s crystal clear, Moreau says, is that it’s no longer the case that only nationstates use advanced persistent threats (APTs) and go only after direct national military assets. “Cyberwarfare includes critical infrastructure, decision making, and population influence. In a broad sense, nothing is off the table,” he adds.

Not quite so clear is what exactly the U.S. is capable of in terms of cyberwarfare, because “very few people on the planet have accurate, detailed information about the true adversarial digital capabilities of the U.S.,” says Brad Hegrat, practice director, Advisory Services, for IOActive.

Cyberwarfare targets What’s being targeted with cyberwarfare? Ukraine seems to be providing a clear example of how things might play out, Moreau points out. “Since 2015, with the efforts of BlackEnergy and TeleBots, we’ve seen distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks front and center there for denial of services of all sorts,” he says. “We expect to see information theft, especially logistical and deployment information directly related to the military. But also expect to see more strategic attacks, discovering and closing arms gaps, understanding defense posture, and strategic planning sorts of attacks.”

Even more so, expect “disinformation attacks to influence decision making by corrupting the intelligence or creating ‘intelligence fog.’ In Ukraine, we’re seeing a complex broad-sweeping stroke that is the difference between the classical view of cyberwarfare and what we’re seeing today,” Moreau continues. “I think we’ll see that full spectrum form of warfare – well beyond just turning off lights or interfering with the national gas.”

Not surprisingly, targets are continuing to expand. “In a lot of ways, what we’re www.mil-embedded.com

seeing right now is proof-of-concept tests,” Moreau says. “It’s not so much large superpowers throwing cyberweapons at each other so much as smaller and emerging or independent states that don’t necessarily have the power to respond to attacks.

We’re seeing a ‘toe dipping in the water’ in some broad sense.”

In Ukraine, attackers have gone after the media infrastructure, power grid, financial institutions, and quite possibly many other things. “A clearer picture will begin to emerge as more of the forensic aftermaths become visible,” Moreau says. “If you look at the information warfare associated with the cultivation of extremism, it’s being used as a proxy for a level of international policy expression or ‘rage.’ There’s no clear boundary – the targeted infrastructure and capabilities are becoming more diverse.

We’ve seen everything from intellectual property theft to the attempt to close the arms gap by stealing R&D [research and development] and operational and testing information. But we’ve also seen direct attempts to disrupt operational activities to interfere with signals intelligence, control systems, satellites, and all of the communications infrastructure.”

The availability of “very high-end exploits and techniques” that don’t require the users to be rocket scientists are enabling record-setting attacks such as “a 600-Gbit DDoS carried out by leveraging compromised webcams,” Moreau notes. “Sophisticated malware becomes a tool that can be used without much capital investment or infrastructure, which effectively levels the playing field in terms of who can inflict devastating levels of disruption.”

Cyberwarfare tends to be a “passive-aggressive style of conflict,” according to Hegrat.

“It’s equally suited to the removal of the enemy’s desire and ability for conflict. The aggressor in any scenario may have many goals and, like many nuanced campaigns, multiple fronts. On the ‘desire’ front, the focus would likely be on digital targets with the greatest physical and psychological impact. Attacks that disrupt people’s lives could range from catastrophic – power, water and wastewater, communications, and banking – to inconvenient.”

From a military standpoint, there is “little to no impact for operations across this spectrum,” Hegrat says. “This speaks to the ‘ability’ front. To deny an enemy the ability to wage conflict, targeting must focus on that enemy’s digital backbone. For example, the U.S. intelligence community refers to its own backbone as C4ISR capabilities. In targeting adversaries, removing the ability to engage in conflict doesn’t always need to be kinetic; the use of the cyber battlespace to deny adversarial use of its own C4ISR capabilities is the ideal use of this front.”

Cyberwarfare attacks The types of cyberwarfare attacks launched depend largely upon targets and objectives.

Haskins categorizes them as advanced disruptive attack vectors. “If the aim is sabotage, for example, it could be something like targeting the opposition’s ability to generate power through a malware-based attack or disrupting normal function of a vital government or financial website with a DDOS attack. Alternatively, if the objective is espionage, the acquisition and exfiltration of an opposition’s tactical or strategic information – such as troop movements – could be the result of sustained phishing, social engineering, or malware-enabled attacks.”

The “sky is the limit” for attacks, adds Singer, although he doesn’t dismiss sky-based threats, which are all too real. “Low-intensity conflict or noncombat operations will likely see attacks ranging from low-order denial-of-service (DoS) and psychological operations (PSYOPS) to harassing infrastructure, such as events that have occurred in Ukraine. Combat operations could see similar attacks as well, ranging up to electromagnetic pulse (EMP) threats from ballistic missiles to pre-positioned satellites in space,” he says.

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Industry Spotlight What kinds of cyberwarfare might we see?

Some attacks will be blatantly obvious, but many are often stealthy and never acknowledged.

In a war scenario, if you wanted to go after the U.S. banking structure, “you could figure out where a bank’s primary data centers are, for example, and lurk off the coast of the U.S. and launch a cruise missile to target and destroy them,” Leigher notes. “Or you could do the same thing with cybertargets much more subtly by learning how to get access to their network and taking control of the facility by either subverting its software or causing things to happen within the computing system that will flat-out break the computers. When you’re at war with a nation, we need to acknowledge that these two actions are fundamentally equivalent.”

CYBERWARFARE TECHNOLOGY

The types of things Leigher worries about in this scenario include being able to do “the targeting that allows me access to a processor in an adversary’s aviation squadron maintenance shop so that when the next aircraft is connected to its maintenance console malware gets uploaded,” he says. “The next time or 15th time it flies, the pilot will get a warning that causes them to question the material condition of their aircraft so they can’t fly it anymore. Or malware that targets the engineering plant on a ship, because if a ship can’t make electricity its combat systems won’t work. The ship may go through the water, but it won’t be an effective warfighting platform.”

Speaking of targeting warships, when we recently saw a container ship smash into the U.S.S. Fitzgerald, an Arleigh Burkeclass destroyer within the U.S. Navy, it prompted the question: Is it possible to hack and hijack a container ship? While no one is publicly suggesting that’s what occurred, it is indeed possible. (Figure 1.)

“There’s a wealth of satcom and GPS research that suggests shipborne telemetry and control assets are vulnerable to remote compromise and hijacking, so these types of attacks are absolutely possible,” Hegrat says. “But in a wartime scenario, a container ship is unlikely to be able to get within a few thousand feet of a combat vessel before it would be attacked, disabled, and likely sunk based on wartime rules of engagement.”

Moreau concurs that this sort of attack is entirely possible. “The underlying systems – navigation, tactical steering, broadscale GPS – can all be interfered with and we’ve seen attempts to interfere with them,” he elaborates. “Our most recent revision of the GPS system is intended to cultivate more resilience in our geopositioning and navigation capabilities, as well as to be more resistant to attacks on satellite infrastructure and those sorts of things. As we move to more autonomous and assisted technologies, we need to worry about interference with the underlying information systems. The right response is to make them more resilient by design – assuming that something can go wrong

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or be compromised and have the design and forethought in place to be able to confirm independently that things are doing what we intend them to do, as compared to what they’re demonstrating as automated behavior.”

Protecting U.S. infrastructure and military assets One glaring difference between protecting U.S. infrastructure and military assets is control and responsibility. “The U.S. government handles both for the military, which means that maintenance, response, and protection are all under the purview of a single well-funded entity,” points out Hegrat. “But the vast majority of U.S. critical infrastructure is owned by individual corporations with differing goals, business drivers, operational responsibilities, budgets, constituents, and customers, which are only influenced by the market and regulation.”

Perhaps the biggest chink in our armor is that the U.S. has assets that have been around a very long time, with embedded technology that has a long life cycle, some based on outdated and unsupported technologies, Moreau says.

“These were designed before the current threat profiles were known, so they don’t necessarily have the right kinds of hardening or protection and can get compromised when adversaries go after critical infrastructure. So the biggest concern is the legacy footprint of older technologies and their embedded vulnerabilities.”

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Figure 1 | The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald (DDG 62) returns to Fleet Activities (FLEACT) Yokosuka following a collision with a merchant vessel while operating southwest of Yokosuka, Japan. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Peter Burghart.

“Any cybersecurity person will tell you that the only 100 percent impervious system is one that isn’t turned on,” Leigher says. “Even with our best cybersecurity, penetrations can occur.”

Attackers will “find ways to access the industrial-control systems and software that run our power plants, financial systems, and our lines of communications to aircraft, ships, and roads,” Leigher continues. “Everything is connected, so how do we think about protecting these systems in an IoT environment? What are critical infrastructure capabilities, and what’s the relationship between the network and the basic things connected to the network? How can they be made more resilient? It’s all about the resiliency of the system and the ability to withstand an attack.”

There are current legislative initiatives aimed at making headway within this realm, including the work under the Modernizing Government Technology Act of 2017, which is largely focused on the basics of leveraging hosting and eliminating unsupportable platforms.

Software isn’t perfect and it isn’t likely to ever be perfect, so “the focus should be on system resiliency, which is the idea that we can design systems capable of tolerating attacks and continuing to operate with integrity,” Moreau says. “For example, this might leverage the ability to detect when something’s acting anomalously and, in response, reprovision or correct it from trustworthy sources. Cloud-platform operators do this to maintain services when they see an important service start using memory or resources differently … they simply reprovision it. It’s a compelling form of resilience.”

System resilience One way to protect U.S. infrastructure and military assets is by focusing on system resilience. Much of the cyber­ security discussion today centers on protecting networks, smarter passwords, better firewalls, and technical things, as Leigher points out, but we’re not discussing the systems that are connected to our networks enough.

The idea of system resilience needs to become a first-class part of software design, right up there with performance, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness, Moreau says.

“It doesn’t happen by accident,” he adds. “It happens by intention and focused action, so we need to cultivate a development culture that embraces resilience. The good news is that emerging technologies are creating the opportunity to do just that. Software-designed infrastructure, application/service blueprints, containers, and API [application program interface] brokering, virtualized security technologies, distributed scalable analytics, and granular instrumentation all are enablers of simpler, more effective security that’s ‘designed in’ rather than ‘bolted on’ after the fact.”

MES

www.mil-embedded.com

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Industry Spotlight CYBERWARFARE TECHNOLOGY

Establishing a root of trust: Trusted computing and Intel-based systems

By Steve Edwards Advanced weapons systems – like that in the F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft – rely on complex software that is constantly vulnerable to cyberattacks. In this photo, a U.S. F-16 Fighting Falcon flies towards Rimini, Italy, to join the Italian air force on a training mission. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Dave Ahlschwede.

In the global defense-electronics market there is a growing demand for trusted computing solutions that carry effective protections against cyberattacks. Users want to be confident that when they power up their deployed embedded system, the code that their system is running can be trusted. In this sense,“trusted” means that the system is running only the software code that the system integrator intends it to, and that no other code – malicious or otherwise – has been added to it.

Unfortunately, it takes almost no effort to think of recent examples where corrupted code has caused great harm to computing systems around the world.

One potent example is the WannaCry ransomware worm unleashed in May 2017 that wreaked havoc on thousands of computers by encrypting their data. In just one day, WannaCry infected 230,000 systems in 150 countries. According to the FBI, ransomware is the fastest growing malware threat, targeting users of all types – from the home user to the corporate network. On average, says the FBI, more than 4,000 ransomware attacks have occurred daily since January 1, 2016, a 300 percent increase over the approximately 1,000 attacks per day seen in 2015. It only takes one innocent click

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on a URL link to inadvertently install malicious code into a computer’s BIOS – the malicious code then essentially owns that infected system. The threat is real and demands a proactive response.

Embedded defense systems are also vulnerable to cyberattacks. In 2015, the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) conducted a study on “Cyber Vulnerabilities of Embedded Systems on Air and Space Systems” and concluded that “there is a broadbased set of immediate actions that can significantly mitigate embedded system cyber risk.” Moreover, a 2015 RAND Corp. report on “Cybersecurity of Air Force Weapon Systems” concluded that cyber capabilities “create potential opportunities – and incentives – for adversaries to counter U.S. advantages through cyberattacks.” To counter the cyberthreat in its weapons systems, the U.S. Air Force established the Cyber Resiliency Office for Weapons Systems (CROWS), which has the task of supporting the design, development, and acquisition of weapons systems that are more resilient to cyberattack.

A foundational concept in cybersecurity, and the starting point for the right response, is the hardware root of trust (RoT). Such components establish trusted functions, based on hardware validation of the boot process, that ensure that the device’s operating

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THERE ARE A VARIETY OF APPROACHES AVAILABLE FOR SYSTEM DESIGNERS TO SELECT AND MIX OR MATCH TO ESTABLISH A TRUSTED COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT. SOME OF THESE APPROACHES ARE MORE SECURE THAN OTHERS.

system is being started up with uncorrupted code; these functions are located in hardware so they can’t be changed.

Protecting embedded systems against cyberattacks must start with the very first instruction a processor executes.

There are a variety of approaches available for system designers to select and mix or match to establish a trusted computing environment. Some of these approaches are more secure than others.

For Intel-based embedded hardware, two important weapons in the system designer’s trusted computing arsenal are Intel’s Trusted Execution Technology (TXT) and Boot Guard. With TXT, after the code begins executing, the system inspects and “measures” the executed code, comparing it to what would be expected if every piece of code is as it should be. TXT provides hardwarebased security technologies, built into Intel’s silicon and a device called the trusted platform module (TPM), that harden a platform against attacks to www.mil-embedded.com

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Industry Spotlight the hypervisor, operating system, or BIOS; malicious root kit installations; and other software-based attacks.

Intel TXT creates a cryptographic hash (a “measurement” in Intel terminology) of ­critical BIOS components and compares them to a known good measurement. TXT provides hardware-based enforcement mechanisms to block the launch of any code that does not match approved code. This trust can then be extended all the way through the boot loader and into the operating system. Any error in the code will be detected and addressed according to the launch control policy (LCP) established by the user. Because TXT provides the system integrator with a launch control policy, a notification of corrupted code can have different consequences. After being informed that the system has been modified and is no longer trusted, the user can choose to either continue to run or to shut down. If the system integrator has established an “open”

CYBERWARFARE TECHNOLOGY

launch policy, the decision to continue to run is made with the full knowledge that the system is no longer trusted.

Boot Guard works in a complementary fashion to TXT. Intel describes Boot Guard as “hardware-based boot integrity protection that prevents unauthorized software and malware takeover of boot blocks critical to a system’s function.” Boot Guard is a hardware trust system that inspects an initial boot block, which runs prior to the BIOS, and ensures that it is trusted before allowing a boot to occur.

Both TXT and Boot Guard are valuable tools for establishing RoT in Intel-based embedded systems and are important elements of a comprehensive trusted computing solution. Designers of embedded commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware and systems remain informed and knowledgeable about the latest options for protecting their hardware and data from malicious attack or intrusion.

COTS products are now available that include designed-in security features that enable users to quickly and economically implement their protection plans for critical technology and data. Such secure products enable designers and users to begin their system development on standard COTS hardware and software and then move to a secure, 100 percent ­software- and performance-compatible version of the product when they are ready to implement their program protection requirements. (Figure 1.)

Deployed embedded military systems run applications that may contain critical program information (CPI), which – if compromised – could lead to a loss of competitive advantage to the U.S. military and put the warfighter in danger.

Defense electronics designers and users need to know that their application code is secure, and that their valuable software intellectual property (IP), such as algorithms for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), can’t be accessed or corrupted by an adversary. Trusted computing techniques should go beyond protecting hardware at the module and chassis level; trusted

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BIOS will cause no harm. The first step is to establish the root of trust. MES

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Figure 1 | Intel’s 7th Generation Core processor used on select Curtiss-Wright rugged SBCs supports TXT and Boot Guard. Image courtesy Curtiss-Wright.

computing must also provide a comprehensive approach to data protection that enables data to be securely stored, retrieved, and moved in a system while allowing only authorized access. This level of trust may require secure network routers for data in motion solutions as well as secure storage for data at rest, with support for Type I, FIPS 140-2, FIPS-197, AES-256, and AES-128 encryption.

Ensuring that a system is trustworthy begins with the first instruction on trusted hardware. An effective trusted computing strategy for COTS solutions can include antitamper protection that guards against physical hardware intrusion, encryption techniques for critical data at rest, and effective cyberattack protections that ensure that a corrupted

Steve Edwards is Director, Secure Embedded Solutions, for Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions.

Steve joined the company in 1998 in the position of senior hardware engineer, and has since held numerous leadership positions including CTO for Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing, technical product lead, and product development manager. He was also responsible for the development of the company’s first FPGA-based computing platform. He holds a BS in electrical engineering from Rutgers University. Readers may reach him at Steve.Edwards@curtisswright.com.

Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions www.curtisswrightds.com

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Editor’s Choice Products

Video encoding and streaming for rugged environments Tyton VS2 is a H.265 (HEVC) / H.264 (AVC) video encoding and streaming solution from Eizo Rugged Solutions, which is aimed at video-transmission needs in harsh field environments. Tyton VS2 can bypass video outputs and offers low latency encoding and low power consumption. It is able to capture two 3G-SDI, HD-SDI, or SD-SDI video inputs simultaneously and encode them using video encoding standard H.264 (MPEG-4 AVC) as well as the H.265 (HEVC) standard. All streams are then sent out from the 1 gigabit-persecond Ethernet output.

Tyton VS2 is ruggedized for harsh environments (shock, vibration, humidity) and temperatures from -45 °C to 85 °C (meeting MIL-STD-810G & IP67) and also comes with dedicated mounting holes for mounting onto racks. Its rugged small-form-factor design meets the SWaP [size, weight, and power] requirements for vertical markets. Three encoders can fit in a 19-inch 2U rack with accessible front-facing connectors. In the default configuration, the product accepts two high-definition video inputs through BNC connectors. Audio, 1 gigabit-per-second Ethernet, and RS-232 are routed over a 22-pin rugged circular mil-spec connector. The product can be modified to meet various user requirements, such as different video-input formats.

Eizo Rugged Solutions | www.eizorugged.com | www.mil-embedded.com/p374264

C-band RF power modules for radar applications Communications Power & Industries (CPI) developed the VSC3645, C-Band gallium nitride (GaN) 4.2 kilowatt (kW) pursed solid-state radio frequency (RF) amplifier module to be combined to create high-power C-band radar transmitters for use in maritime surveillance and weather radar transmitters. The module covers the 5.2 – 5.9 GHz frequency band. The air-cooled GaN transistors – with a combined 4.2 kW output – are air-cooled. The modules can be power-combined using waveguide combiners to achieve the higher power levels required for various radars.

Features include a building block for C-band radar systems, four combined 1.1 kW pulsed modules, high-efficiency GaN transistors; built-in-test (BIT) and controls via EIA-422 remote connection, blind mate DC and control connectors, and controllable output power reduction. Operating ambient temperature ranges between +5 +50 °C. Communications Power & Industries (CPI) | www.cpii.com | www.mil-embedded.com/p374215

Amp for low-level sensor telemetry data in communication satellites Intersil’s ISL70617SEH is a high-performance, differential input, differential output instrumentation amplifier aimed at precision analog-to-digital applications.

It can operate over a supply range of 8 volts (±4) to 36 volts (±18) and features a differential input voltage range up to ±30 volts. The output stage has rail-to-rail output drive capability optimized for differential analog-to-digital converter (ADC) driver applications. Separate supplies power the output stage, enabling the output to be driven by the same low-voltage supplies powering the ADC; this configuration provides protection from high-voltage signals and the low-voltage digital circuits.

The gain of the ISL70617SEH can be programmed from 0.1 to 10,000 via two external resistors, RIN and RFB; gain accuracy is determined by the matching of RIN and RFB. The gain resistors have Kelvin sensing, which removes gain error due to PC trace resistance. The input and output stages have individual power-supply pins, which enable input signals riding on a high common-mode voltage to be level shifted to a low voltage device, such as an ADC. The ISL70617SEH is offered in a 24-lead ceramic flatpack package with an operating temperature range of -55 °C to +125 °C. Intersil | www.intersil.com | www.mil-embedded.com/p374268

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Editor’s Choice Products Miniature connectors with IP68 rating for body-worn applications The Fischer MiniMax Series of miniature rugged connectors handles mixedsignal and power connections in a higher-density configuration, enabling designers to save design space and reduce weight by as much as 75 percent.

The miniature solution is suited for handheld or body-worn applications when space is limited. It also can be designed into smaller devices and can lower the total cost of ownership.

The Fischer MiniMax Series is available in two sizes, 06 and 08, with receptacles having 10 mm and 12 mm footprints, respectively. It is available in three locking systems – push-pull, screw, and quick-release – and are designed to connect and disconnect up to 5,000 times. Configurations range from four to 24 contacts; the connectors are tested for highspeed protocols such as USB 3.0, HDMI, and data transfer up to 10 gigabits per second. The series is IP68 (sealing) rated for both mated and unmated connectors.

Fischer Connectors | www.fischerconnectors.com | www.mil-embedded.com/p374265

Cross-domain solution that delivers network isolation The OCDS-ST06 from Owl Cyber Defense filter is designed as an all-in-one cross-domain solution: It is Unified Cross Domain Services Management Office (UCDSMO) baseline-listed and received its Authorization to Operate (ATO) in 2015. The OCDS-ST06 is designed to stream User Datagram Protocol (UDP) traffic from “unclassified”-level networks to “secret”-level network domains; it transfers UDP packets containing MPEG-TS video. When installed at a ground station, OCDS-ST06 receives multiple inbound UDP video streams from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) supporting intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) activities, and transfers the video across network boundaries to the secret network.

The OCDS-ST06 filters the corresponding metadata as remotely gathered unclassified video is collected. The Owl MPEG data filters explicitly check MPEG-TS packet framing, MPEG-TS protocol, and KLV metadata conformance to MISB standards. The incoming full-motion video UPD streams are then multiplexed into one stream for transfer across the domain boundaries to the secret enclave. It is available in an all-in-one 1U (1.75 inches high) rack-mountable chassis. The OCDS-ST06 delivers network isolation and discrete domain separation at bandwidth rates from 26 to 155 megabits per second.

Owl Cyber Defense | www.owlcyberdefense.com | www.mil-embedded.com/p374266

SMHF42 DC-DC converter withstands transients to as much as 80 volts The Crane Aerospace Interpoint SMHF42 Series of converters is intended to withstand transients up to 80 volts for up to 50 ms. The SMHF42 Series of 42-V DC-DC converters offers a wide input voltage range of 35 to 55 volts and up to 15 watts of output power, and are targeted for operation on a 42-volt satellite power bus. The converters are switching regulators that use a quasi-square wave, singleended forward converter design with a constant switching frequency of 500 kHz (typical). Isolation between input and output circuits is provided using a transformer in the forward path and a temperature compensated optocoupler in the feedback-control loop. The optocoupler is radiation-tolerant for space applications.

Dual-output models maintain cross regulation with tightly coupled output magnetics. As much as 70 percent of the total output power is available from either output, provided the opposite output is simultaneously carrying 30 percent of the total output power. SMHF42 converters offer screening to Class H or K and radiation hardness assurance (RHA) levels L - 50 krad(Si) or R - 100 krad(Si). Single-event effects (SEE) allow linear energy transfer (LET) performance to 86 MeV cm2/mg.

The converters are screened to MIL-PRF-38534. Class H, Class K, RHA L, RHA R, and SEE are pending product validation.

Crane Aerospace & Electronics | www.interpoint.com | www.mil-embedded.com/p374270 www.mil-embedded.com

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EXECUTIVE SPEAKOUT

ADVERTORIAL

COM Express Type 7 Will Revolutionize Rugged ISR Computing

zmicro

By Jason Wade, President – ZMicro, Inc. ISR platforms are critical for gathering the deep intelligence required to ensure the safety and security of the United States and our allied partners. Our military recognizes this and now includes ISR capabilities in nearly every mission, requiring higher levels of intelligence from every node on the network.

Investments in high-resolution sensors and state of the art exploitation software greatly enhance our information gathering capabilities, but can also dramatically increase requirements for size, weight, power, (SWaP) and thermal performance.

In the case of manned ISR aircraft, which can only support a set payload, increases in equipment weight require more fuel and thus limit the duration of missions. The new COM Express Type 7 standard is a game changer because it offers a far more efficient SWaP platform while delivering far more compute and networking performance. In the coming years, ISR systems will be designed around the COM Express Type 7 form-factor because it provides server-class performance with the capability to shrink the physical size and weight of ISR platforms.

Heterogeneous Processing As ISR applications have evolved and the software has become more sophisticated and visual, there has been a shift to heterogeneous processing architectures where software tasks are assigned to specialized processors that can efficiently share the computational load. For example, applications that require realtime analysis can off-load computation to a parallel processor such as a GPU or FPGA while near real-time requirements might leverage the CPU. The COM Express Type 7 architecture supports this type of distributed architecture by providing up to 32 lanes of PCI Express in the system. This flexibility allows manufacturers of rugged computers to design systems ideally tailored for ISR applications by allocating the PCI Express lanes to high-end graphics card, encoder cards, and storage devices.

Versatility in Rugged Environments Since the COM Express Type 7 module is a PICMG industry standard, computers designed around this form-factor ensure long-term program support and versatility for rapid customizations to varying environmental requirements. For many manned ISR applications, a 50C operating temperature is sufficient, but for environments where the temperature grade is more extreme, like 70C, a more rugged Type 7 module can be used to provide users with the flexibility to determine the tradeoffs between ruggedization and performance.

Boosting performance in small form factor systems has always been a challenge due to stringent space and power constraints.

Additionally, it’s difficult to keep up with the changing design rules associated with implementing new processor generations.

COM Express solves this by essentially isolating the processor, chipset and memory from the rest of the design. This allows manufacturers to dial-in the right amount of performance by bringing together the best mix of available computing modules.

Storage Designed for Video Collection Video collection and storage is pivotal to intelligence gathering. COM Express Type 7 supports the NVMe PCIe Gen 3 interface, which is designed specifically for SSDs to overcome the speed bottleneck imposed by the older SATA connections. NVMe drives support read/write speeds three to four times faster than SATA 3 to support more data and situational awareness in real-time applications, increasing the value of intelligence. In addition, the COM Express Type 7 provides 10GbE LAN to support rapid communication of video over the network.

High-Density Packaging Military customers have clearly communicated to the industry that they want a lightweight, minimized packaging. The COM Express Type 7 form-factor provides mechanical design flexibility to create systems that are right-sized for any given ISR application. Since COM Express is an industry standard that plugs into a baseboard for the supported I/O, the mechanical packaging can be tailored to optimize the physical space resulting in a very dense, efficient packing that maximizes the performance to volume ratio. Since there are no physical constraints to remain in an ATX or Extended ATX form-factor, there is little to no unused space in an ISR focused computer. Rugged computer designers such as ZMicro now have a new opportunity to revisit their approach and strategy for the mechanical form and fit to respond to customer needs.

ZM3 Compact Computer ZMicro invites you to learn about its ZM3 compact computer designed specifically to minimize size, weight and power for airborne ISR applications. Built to provide advanced compute capability in the smallest form-factor possible, the ZM3 use COM Express Type 7 modules to offer full server capability in small, rugged packaging. The ZM3 incorporates two ZMicro TranzPak 1 compact removable M.2 NVMe SSDs for high capacity and best-in-class storage performance. In addition to a 16-Core Intel Xeon D processor, the ZM3 has support for a x16 GPU, up to the NVIDIA Quadro P6000 GPU and a x8 encoder card for video ingestion.

ZMicro www.zmicro.com

WHERE TECHNOLOGY EXPERTS GATHER

MARKET TRENDS, TECHNOLOGY UPDATES, INNOVATIVE PRODUCTS Military Embedded Systems focuses on embedded electronics – hardware and software – for military applications through technical coverage of all parts of the design process. The website, Resource Guide, E-mags, and print editions provide insight on embedded tools and strategies such as software, hardware, systems, technology insertion, obsolescence management, and many other military-specific technical subjects.

Coverage includes the latest innovative products, technology, and market trends driving military embedded applications such as radar, sonar, unmanned system payloads, signals intelligence, electronic warfare, C4ISR, avionics, imaging, and more. Each issue provides readers with the information they need to stay connected to the pulse of embedded technology in the military and aerospace industries. mil-embedded.com

CYBERSECURITY UPDATE

The power of light: A shortcut to satellite-based quantum encryption

By Sally Cole, Senior Editor

Researchers in Germany have demonstrated ground-based measurements of quantum states sent by laser aboard a satellite 38,000 kilometers above Earth, suggesting that satellite-based quantum encryption may be within reach by as soon as five years.

operate, which enabled them to make quantum-limited measurements from the ground.

Quantum entanglement, which Albert Einstein termed “spooky science at a distance,” is the physical phenomenon at the heart of the demonstration by of a team of researchers at Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light that the technology on satellites – already space-proofed against the harsh environments – can be used to achieve quantumlimited measurements. They believe this puts satellite quantum networks within reach much sooner than anticipated and significantly reduces the development time involved.

From their measurements, they deduced that “the light traveling down to Earth is very well suited to being operated as a quantum key distribution network,” Marquardt says. “We were surprised because the system wasn’t built for this.

The engineers had done an excellent job of optimizing the entire system.”

“We were quite surprised by how well the quantum states survived traveling through the atmospheric turbulence to a ground station,” says Christoph Marquardt, group leader of Quantum Information Processing at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Germany.

Satellite-based quantum encryption networks could provide an extremely secure way to encrypt data sent over long distances. The researchers estimate that such a system is possible within five years, although that seems extremely fast if you consider that satellites generally require roughly 10 years of development work.

Quantum key distribution encryption, instead of relying on math, taps properties of light particles known as quantum states to encode data and send the decryption key.

If anyone attempts to measure the light particles to steal the key, it changes the particles’ behavior in a way that alerts the intended communicating parties that the key has been compromised and should not be trusted. In other words: Eavesdropping will be detected, so secure communication is guaranteed.

“Quantum cryptography ensures long-term security of information,” Marquardt says.

“This is especially important for strategic information, but also ensures that you’re safe against unknown threats against current encryption algorithms – apart from the quantum computer threat that will become more urgent during the next decade. And a satellite service could connect different bases or embassies.”

To measure quantum states, the researchers worked with satellite communications company Tesat-Spacecom GmbH and the German Space Administration. The German Space Administration had previously contracted with Tesat-Spacecom on behalf of the German Ministry of Economics and Energy to develop an optical communications technology for satellites. The technology they previously developed is now being commercially used in space for laser communication terminals onboard Copernicus – the European Union’s Earth Observation Program – and by SpaceDataHighway, the European data-relay satellite system.

Marquardt and colleagues discovered that this satellite optical communications technology works much like the quantum key distribution method developed at the Max Planck Institute. So they set out to see if it was possible to measure quantum states encoded within a laser beam sent from a satellite already in space.

During 2015 and the beginning of 2016, the team made these quantum state measurements from a ground-based station at the Teide Observatory in Tenerife, Spain.

The team created quantum states within a range where the satellite normally doesn’t

44 July/August 2017

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

Now, the researchers are working with Tesat-Spacecom and others within the space industry to design an upgraded system based on hardware already used in space. Marquardt says that while quantum communication satellite networks won’t need to be designed from scratch, converting ground-based systems to quantum-based encryption to communicate quantum states with satellites may still take five to 10 years. This effort will involve upgrading the laser communication design, incorporating a quantum-based random number generator to create random keys, and integrating post-processing of the keys.

The team’s work is generating “serious interest from the space industry and other organizations to implement scientific findings,” Marquardt says. “We, as fundamental scientists, are now working with engineers to create the best system and to ensure no detail is overlooked.”

It’s also worth noting that another significant advance within this realm was very recently made by an unaffiliated team of researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China: They demonstrated satellite-based distribution of entangled photon pairs over a distance of 1,200 kilometers, which they say now “opens the door to both practical quantum communications and fundamental quantum optics experiments at distances previously inaccessible on the ground.” www.mil-embedded.com

UNIVERSITY UPDATE

Robotics family leverages open architectures to counter ordnance threats

Designers and engineers are taking advantage of the ability of open architectures and commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies to counter emerging threats quicker by more easily upgrading legacy systems with newer, faster technology. In one such project, a U.S. Navy-sponsored program focuses on a family of robotics that will keep soldiers out of harm’s way.

The U.S. Navy teamed up with John Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab (JHU/APL) and an industry team that includes Northrop Grumman, OpenJAUS, and GuardBot to work on the U.S. Navy’s Advanced Explosive Ordnance Disposal Robotic System (AEODRS) program.

The goal of the program is “to develop modular, open-architecture robotic platforms for use in explosive ordnance disposal across the U.S. Navy,” says Danny Kent, Ph.D., president and cofounder of OpenJAUS. “By utilizing an open architecture, components and modules can be reused across the family of systems. In addition, future technologies and capabilities can rapidly be brought from the research laboratory to the warfighter.”

To that end, the team announced in May 2017 that the AEODRS Increment 1 and Spherical Platform for AEODRS Appliance Research (SPAAR) systems had completed a demonstration for Joint Services EOD Action Officers in Indian Head, Maryland. While Increment 2 and Increment 3 systems are still awaiting award, the U.S. Navy’s AEODRS program aims to be “the Navy’s next-­generation, open architecture robotic family of systems,” Kent says.

By Mariana Iriarte, Associate Editor technology that was once considered a figment of the imagination becomes a reality, it is clear that open architectures are readily addressing the Department of Defense (DoD) demand to quickly upgrade and stay ahead of the game.

In the AEODRS case, the program addresses the dangers of explosive ordnance disposal (EOD). “It is comprised of three classes of vehicles, Increment 1, Increment 2, and Increment 3. The Increment 1 Primary System Integrator program has been awarded to Northrop Grumman Corp.,” Kent explains.

Leveraging COTS components and open architectures is a big part of the program, as COTS has helped the military control costs, particularly during its sequestration years. “Using COTS components on government programs such as AEODRS enables the military to leverage the rapid progress being made in the robotics community,” Kent says.

This is especially essential in the field of robotics: “What is innovative technology today may be obsolete in a matter of years and sometimes months,” he explains. OpenJAUS – a Florida company specializing in middleware solutions for unmanned systems developers – is helping commercial companies adapt their technology to the AEODRS program at a quicker pace, lower cost, and at a reduced risk, Kent adds. ”By utiliz­ing OpenJAUS’s commercial JAUS and AEODRS software libraries, companies jumpstart integration into the existing AEODRS architecture.”

The program is capitalizing on the open architecture movement, which will help today’s warfighters to fight emerging threats by enabling engineers to quickly adapt new technology to current systems.

Officials consider Increment 1 as the first of a family of open architecture robotic systems designed to be interoperable and having the capability to integrate new technology quickly that will benefit the warfighter.

JHU – along with the industry team – is taking advantage of the movement. As

Kent explains that OpenJAUS’s role in the AEODRS program is “to provide our

www.mil-embedded.com

›

Figure 1 | AEODRS Increment 1 system and handheld operator control unit. Photo courtesy of OpenJAUS.

JAUS [joint architecture for unmanned systems] expertise to JHU/APL and others in the form of architecture analysis and recommendations, software development activities, and general consulting and support. OpenJAUS also provides system integration testing, evaluation, and support to Northrop Grumman as part of its AEODRS Increment 1 project.

Under the program, OpenJAUS supplies software services including “integration of hardware with the program architecture for risk reduction and development of more user-friendly interfaces to tools developed for testing and validation of the AEODRS architecture,” he adds.

Robotic-vehicle maker GuardBot, with support from OpenJAUS, developed the SPAAR system, which enables reconnaissance in harsh environments. Engineers at OpenJAUS integrated the SPAAR architecture with the AEODRS system architecture, according to a statement released by OpenJAUS. The results of this collaboration enabled engineers to integrate and demonstrate a system using “AEODRS Handheld Operator Control Unit (HOCU) and the MultiRobot Operator Control Unit (MOCU) software application.” (See Figure 1.)

The end result of the SPAAR program demonstrates that technology can be more interoperable and will likely prompt engineers to quickly integrate new technologies into the AEODRS family, both of which will benefit military-sponsored programs.

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

July/August 2017 45

CONNECTING WITH MIL EMBEDDED

By Mil-Embedded.com Editorial Staff

www.mil-embedded.com

CHARITIES | MARKET PULSE | WHITE PAPER | BLOG | VIDEO | SOCIAL MEDIA | E-CAST

CHARITY

United Through Reading Each issue in this section, the editorial staff of Military Embedded Systems will highlight a different charity that benefits military veterans and their families. We are honored to cover the technology that protects those who protect us every day. To back that up, our parent company – OpenSystems Media – will make a donation to every charity we showcase on this page.

This issue we are highlighting United Through Reading, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to uniting U.S. military families who face physical separation by facilitating the bonding experience of reading aloud together. In more than 200 locations worldwide – available to all deploying military units and at select USO locations – United Through Reading offers military service members the opportunity to be video-recorded reading books to their children at home.

The program, says the organization, aims to help the deployed service member and the child to make powerful connections, aids the deployed military personnel as they try to parent from afar, reassures the child that their parent is safe and thinking of home, and provides support to the parent or caregiver at home.

United Through Reading was founded in 1989 by Betty Mohlenbrock, the wife of a Naval flight surgeon who was deployed when their daughter was a baby. When her husband returned, their daughter didn’t recognize him and it took time to rebuild their bond.

Mrs. Mohlenbrock – who was also actually a reading specialist with a master’s degree in education – realized that she could help parents and children stay connected during separations by enabling them to read together using video recordings.

According to the organization, United Through Reading has helped more than two million mothers, fathers, and children to sustain family bonds and build childhood literacy skills by reading stories together across long distances.

For more information, please visit www.unitedthroughreading.org.

E-CAST

WHITE PAPER

Demystifying security for military data storage Sponsored by Mercury Systems Modern military sensor and other high-performing processing systems generate massive amounts of data, much of which is stored on solid-state drives (SSDs). While commercial off-the shelf (COTS) SSDs can usually offer an attractive initial price, use in military applications often end up requiring time and work so that they can deliver the security, ruggedness, and performance required for most defense applications. As a result, the initial cost savings is lost and the added time and effort can lead to blown schedules.

This webcast will cover the differences between COTS SSDs and secure military-grade SSDs. Also discussed: the fact that security must be embedded into the design of military systems, which is the only avenue for designers to obtain the highly desired “CSfC” listing granted by the NSA.

High data rates over the VPX infrastructure

By Kontron VPX VITA 46 has been one of the first modular computer open standards to define a connector and backplane infrastructure allowing data transfers at rates in excess of one gigabit per physical channel.

VPX is now ready to adopt the higher data rates required by the latest version of two fundamental protocols: PCIe gen3 at 8 gigabits per second and Ethernet at 10 gigabits per second.

In this white paper, learn what designers will encounter when implementing 10 gigabit per second rates over a VPX copper backplane and discover some of the available architectures and products.

View archived e-cast: ecast.opensystemsmedia.com/747

Read the white paper: http://www.embedded-computing.com/hardware/ high-data-rates-over-the-vpx-infrastructure

View more e-casts: http://opensystemsmedia.com/events/e-cast/schedule

Read more white papers: http://mil-embedded.com/ white-papers

46 July/August 2017

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

www.mil-embedded.com

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