MES September 2021 with Resource Guide

@military_cots

John McHale

7

Editor’s Perspective

Technology Update

8

Biomimicry for defense

Executive Interview

With Neal Austin & Rodger Hosking

Mil Tech Trends

32

Countering complex threats

www.MilitaryEmbedded.com

14

September 2021 | Volume 17 | Number 6

2021 RESOURCE GUIDE

P 54

SHIPBOARD ELECTRONICS P 20

P 36 MOSA provides the flexibility the DoD needs to modernize the battlespace

By Nicholas Borton, SRC Inc.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 20

September 2021 Volume 17 | Number 7

36

COLUMNS Editor’s Perspective 7 Returning to shows, SOSA news, supply-chain woes

By John McHale

Technology Update 8 Biomimicry for defense aims for agility, small size

By Lisa Daigle

Mil Tech Insider 9 Doubling down: Intel’s 8-core Xeon processor raises the performance bar for rugged systems

By Aaron Frank

Guest Blog 52 Three keys to frictionless zero-trust security

By Mike Epley, Red Hat

FEATURES PERSPECTIVES: Executive Interview 14 Mercury and Pentek leaders on acquisition, radar/EW market trends Q&A with Neal Austin, Vice President and General Manager of the Mixed Signal Business Unit within Mercury Systems and Rodger Hosking, cofounder and VP of Pentek, now part of Mercury Systems

By John McHale, Group Editorial Director SPECIAL REPORT: Shipboard electronics 20 Automation, digitization, and GaN drive shipboard radar upgrades

By Emma Helfrich, Technology Editor 28 Strong signals: Improve antenna performance in high-frequency military

applications with radome innovations

By Rick Johnson and Eric Trantina, Laird R&F Products/Laird Performance Materials

MIL TECH TRENDS: Test & measurement trends

THE LATEST

32 Complex threats require complex & test solutions

By Sally Cole, Senior Editor

Defense Tech Wire 10 By Emma Helfrich

36 MOSA provides the flexibility the DoD needs to modernize the battlespace

By Nicholas Borton, SRC Inc.

Connecting with Mil Embedded 98 By Mil Embedded Staff

INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT:

WEB RESOURCES Subscribe to the magazine or E-letter Live industry news | Submit new products http://submit.opensystemsmedia.com WHITE PAPERS – Read: https://militaryembedded.com/whitepapers WHITE PAPERS – Submit: http://submit.opensystemsmedia.com All registered brands and trademarks within Military Embedded Systems magazine are the property of their respective owners. © 2021 OpenSystems Media © 2021 Military Embedded Systems ISSN: Print 1557-3222

To unsubscribe, email your name, address, and subscription number as it appears on the label to: subscriptions@opensysmedia.com

Managing supply chain, obsolescence, and counterfeit parts 44 Semiconductor supply-chain challenges

By John McHale, Group Editorial Director 50 Demand for digital is on the rise and military organizations are responding in

quick time

By Graham Grose, IFS

PG 54 RESOURCE GUIDE ON THE COVER: To better enable development of shipboard radar and electronic warfare (EW) systems, naval researchers and electronics providers are looking to commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products, open architectures, and even artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).

In this photo from 2015, U.S. sailors conduct low-light training aboard the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer the USS Ross in the Mediterranean Sea. U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Justin Stumberg.

Published by:

4 September 2021

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/1864255/

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS with Resource Guide

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EMBED MISSION SUCCESS

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ADVERTISERS PAGE

ADVERTISER/AD TITLE

35

Acromag – Because we know I/O

43

Aldec – Executive Speakout

30

ALPHI Technology – Mission-critical solutions

2

Analog Devices, Inc. – Complex problems, simple solution

19

Atrenne – Defy limitations

3

Behlman Electronics, Inc. – Beware of copycats. Rely on the original VPXtra 800B Dawn VME Products – Dawn single slot OpenVPX development backplanes

18

Elma Electronic – Development to deployment

17 25

GMS – Rugged servers.

Engineered to serve.

38

Interface Concept – Optimized single board computers

100

Pentek, now part of Mercury – Breakthrough performance … weight no more!

47

Phoenix International – Phalanx II: The ultimate NAS

31

PICO Electronics Inc – .18” ht. Size does matter!

48

Pixus Technologies – Ultra-high speed & powerful cooling OpenVPX

22

SeaLevel Systems, Inc. – Intentional design. Exceptional standards.

27

Smart EC (Smart Embedded Computing) – Supporting open standards for military applications for 40 years.

42

State of the Art, Inc. – No boundaries!

39

Vector Electronics – VME/VXS/cPCI chassis, backplanes & accessories

5

WinSystems – Embed mission success

GROUP EDITORIAL DIRECTOR John McHale john.mchale@opensysmedia.com ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR Lisa Daigle lisa.daigle@opensysmedia.com SENIOR EDITOR Sally Cole sally.cole@opensysmedia.com TECHNOLOGY EDITOR Emma Helfrich emma.helfrich@opensysmedia.com ONLINE EVENTS MANAGER Josh Steiger josh.steiger@opensysmedia.com CREATIVE DIRECTOR Stephanie Sweet stephanie.sweet@opensysmedia.com SENIOR WEB DEVELOPER Aaron Ganschow aaron.ganschow@opensysmedia.com WEB DEVELOPER Paul Nelson paul.nelson@opensysmedia.com CONTRIBUTING DESIGNER Joann Toth joann.toth@opensysmedia.com EMAIL MARKETING SPECIALIST Drew Kaufman drew.kaufman@opensysmedia.com VITA EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Jerry Gipper jerry.gipper@opensysmedia.com

SALES/MARKETING DIRECTOR OF SALES AND MARKETING Tom Varcie tom.varcie@opensysmedia.com (734) 748-9660 MARKETING MANAGER Eric Henry eric.henry@opensysmedia.com (541) 760-5361 STRATEGIC ACCOUNT MANAGER Rebecca Barker rebecca.barker@opensysmedia.com (281) 724-8021 STRATEGIC ACCOUNT MANAGER Bill Barron bill.barron@opensysmedia.com (516) 376-9838 STRATEGIC ACCOUNT MANAGER Kathleen Wackowski kathleen.wackowski@opensysmedia.com (978) 888-7367 SOUTHERN CAL REGIONAL SALES MANAGER Len Pettek len.pettek@opensysmedia.com (805) 231-9582 ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF PRODUCT MARKETING/SALES Barbara Quinlan barbara.quinlan@opensysmedia.com (480) 236-8818 STRATEGIC ACCOUNT MANAGER Glen Sundin glen.sundin@opensysmedia.com (973) 723-9672 INSIDE SALES Amy Russell amy.russell@opensysmedia.com TAIWAN SALES ACCOUNT MANAGER Patty Wu patty.wu@opensysmedia.com CHINA SALES ACCOUNT MANAGER Judy Wang judywang2000@vip.126.com EUROPEAN MARKETING SPECIALIST Steven Jameson steven.jameson@opensysmedia.com +44 (0)7708976338

WWW.OPENSYSMEDIA.COM PRESIDENT Patrick Hopper patrick.hopper@opensysmedia.com EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT John McHale john.mchale@opensysmedia.com

EVENTS

EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT Rich Nass rich.nass@opensysmedia.com

AUSA 2021 Annual Meeting & Exposition October 11-13, 2021 Washington, DC https://meetings.ausa.org/annual/2021/index.cfm

EMBEDDED COMPUTING BRAND DIRECTOR Rich Nass rich.nass@opensysmedia.com ECD EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Brandon Lewis brandon.lewis@opensysmedia.com TECHNOLOGY EDITOR Curt Schwaderer curt.schwaderer@opensysmedia.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR Tiera Oliver tiera.oliver@opensysmedia.com ASSISTANT EDITOR Taryn Engmark taryn.engmark@opensysmedia.com ASSISTANT EDITOR Chad Cox chad.cox@opensysmedia.com

AOC – 58th Annual AOC International Symposium & Convention November 30-December 2, 2021 Washington, DC https://www.crows.org/mpage/2021HOME embedded world 2022 March 15-17, 2022 Nuremberg, Germany https://www.embedded-world.de/en

6 September 2021

CREATIVE PROJECTS Chris Rassiccia chris.rassiccia@opensysmedia.com MARKETING COORDINATOR Katelyn Albani katelyn.albani@opensysmedia.com FINANCIAL ASSISTANT Emily Verhoeks emily.verhoeks@opensysmedia.com FINANCE Rosemary Kristoff rosemary.kristoff@opensysmedia.com SUBSCRIPTION MANAGER subscriptions@opensysmedia.com CORPORATE OFFICE 1505 N. Hayden Rd. #105 • Scottsdale, AZ 85257 • Tel: (480) 967-5581 REPRINTS WRIGHT’S MEDIA REPRINT COORDINATOR Wyndell Hamilton whamilton@wrightsmedia.com (281) 419-5725

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS with Resource Guide

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EDITOR’S PERSPECTIVE

Returning to shows, SOSA news, supply-chain woes

By John McHale, Editorial Director

John.McHale@opensysmedia.com

Welcome to our 2021 September Resource Guide, which is 100 pages or more for the ninth straight year. Print lives, my friends, especially in the defense electronics community. Thanks again to all our loyal readers and advertisers for your support.

More importantly, thank you for supporting our warfighters who sacrifice for all of us every day, especially the 13 who gave their lives during the evacuation of Afghanistan, which is happening as I write this column. We can’t thank them enough.

SOSA news Our subscribers receiving this issue in their mailbox also received a copy of the 76-page SOSA Special Edition, which marks the release of The Open Group Sensor Open Systems Architecture Technical Standard 1.0. The enthusiasm behind the development of this standard has been remarkable. Please check it out if you haven’t already. If you don’t have a copy, visit us online at https://militaryembedded.com to peruse the first issue of what will be an annual SOSA Special Edition.

SOSA is an example of the Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) that U.S. Air Force, Army, and Navy leaders said in 2019 must be an imperative for weapons systems going forward. MOSA is thoroughly explained on page 36 by Nicholas Borton, machine intelligence hardware architect at SRC, in his article titled MOSA provides the exibility the DoD needs to modernize the battlespace.”

Returning to shows The Open Group and the Army are hosting a SOSA/FACE Technical Interchange Meeting in Huntsville in mid-September, several weeks from when I write this. The FACE [Future Airborne Capability Environment] Technical Standard is also managed by the Open Group. That trip will mark my second in-person event in a month, as I attended the Navy League’s Sea Air Space 2021 event in Maryland in early August. “Surreal” was the word many people used to describe attending their first show after 18 months.

Personally, it was wonderful to see so many familiar faces standing in front of me as opposed to remotely through a monitor. Attendees and exhibitors alike were excited to be amongst their colleagues, customers, partners, and even the tech media.

Tech investment Show attendees were also bullish on funding for defense and naval technology in areas such as hypersonics, hypersonic detection, cybersecurity, and naval radar upgrades. Research on counter-hypersonic weapons draws the most concern, as hypersonics are difficult to track by radar. Frost Sullivan analysts say that U.S. spending on hypersonic capability rose from 350 million in 2016 to 3. billion in 2020. www.militaryembedded.com

Countering potential missile threats in the Pacific theater also fuels much of the funding for naval radar upgrades. In her Special Report on shipboard electronics this month, Technology Editor Emma Helfrich covers upgrades to the Aegis SPY-1 radar system and how digitization is critical to the upgrade process.

To read her conversations with Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Naval Research Laboratory engineers, turn to page 20 for the article titled, Automation, digiti ation, GaN drive shipboard radar upgrades.”

Welcome to our 2021 September Resource Guide, which is 100 pages or more for the ninth straight year. Print lives, my friends, especially in the defense electronics community. Thanks again to all our loyal readers and advertisers for your support.

Supply-chain shortages remain While people are returning to in-person industry events and funding continues to be strong for radar, electronic warfare (EW), and associated technologies, many in the defense community find the global component shortages frustrating, especially when it comes to semiconductors. Lead times for chips are getting longer in every industry, not only in the military.

While military suppliers are skilled at managing end of life (EOL) and obsolete parts, today’s shortages present a different challenge: “COTS [commercial off-the-shelf] suppliers are better suited for typical EOL, long-tail tech sourcing,” Frank Cavallaro, CEO of A2 Global, tells me in the Industry Spotlight article titled “Semiconductor supply chain challenges” on page 44. “The challenge today is the shortages are not just with EOL products, but with current technology. Before the current shortages they were managing a handful of parts in long tail, but now it’s a mix of long tail and current tech and none are getting attention from the supply chain.”

Even as COTS suppliers face new supply-chain challenges, they still have to deliver embedded solutions to the DoD. You can find many of them in our Resource Guide, which starts on page 54, or in the SOSA Special Edition product profile section. Both issues will be at the Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA) annual meeting in October, which my staff and I plan to attend. The SOSA Special Edition will also be distributed at the Association of Old Crows International Symposium and Convention in December in Washington, D.C. Let’s hope we can keep returning to live events.

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS with Resource Guide September 2021

7

TECHNOLOGY UPDATE

Biomimicry for defense aims for agility, small size

By Lisa Daigle, Assistant Managing Editor Military technology has long looked to the natural world for its cues, taking a page from a field called biomimetics, in which principles from chemistry, biology, and engineering are applied to human-fabricated materials, systems, or machines that function similarly to biological processes.

From simple military camou age – used in a basic way in the mid-1 00s by ri e-bearing armies – to the more recent U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) tests of robotic doglike quadrupeds and insect-like small drones, biomimicry can often suggest a path for armies to send in a ringer when terrain or front-line circumstances are too dangerous.

The purpose of the dog-like uad-legged Unmanned Ground Vehicles ( -UGVs) – added in early 2021 to the safety initiatives at Tyndall Air Force Base (AFB) in Florida – is to add an extra level of protection to the base, Air Force officials say. The robot dogs, designed by Ghost Robotics and Immersive isdom, are the first of their kind to be integrated onto a military installation. (Figure 1.)

As a mobile sensor platform, the -UGVs will significantly increase situational awareness for defenders, says Mark Shackley, Tyndall AFB Program Management Office security forces program manager. “They can patrol the remote areas of a base while defenders can continue to patrol and monitor other critical areas of an installation.”

Features on the robot dogs enable them to easily navigate difficult terrain, using 14 sensors to create 360-degree awareness, according to the Air Force. The -UGVs can operate in -40 F to 131 F conditions, are e uipped with a crouch mode that lowers their center of gravity, and can switch into a high-step mode that improves leg mobility.

The U.S. Air Force also reports that it is now developing remote-controlled microdrones that borrow from the avian world. While bird-like drones or miniaturized unmanned aerial systems (UASs) are nothing new, what makes these under-test UASs unique is the way they ap their wings and change direction in the air, ust like real birds.

The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) recently announced that it is collaborating with California-based engineering firm Airion Health to develop a prototype of what it terms the micro air vehicle (MAV) that can mimic bird and insect ight. hen complete, the drone will be capable of six degrees of ight (6DOF) that is, it will be able to move freely in three dimensions.

According to information released by the AFRL, its engineers have found a number of challenges exist when manipulating man-made mechanisms to perform instinctive movements of ying insects and birds created by nature. One such challenge is designing an aircraft capable of 6DOF ight with only two actuators. Actuators are components used in many kinds of devices that convert energy – whether it’s air, hydraulic, or electrical impulse – into mechanical or electromechanical movement.

For actuators to work, they need both a control signal and a source of that energy.

The device would enable a biomimetic microrobotic aircraft to perform insect-like maneuvers with two physical actuators, while using minimal computer processing power. According to information from the AFRL, the wings of the device generate controllable forces based on position and velocity profiles, resulting in time-varying wing upstrokes and downstrokes, which at times may be asymmetrical.

8 September 2021

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS with Resource Guide

Figure 1 | Master Sgt. Krystoffer Miller, 325th Security Forces Squadron operations support superintendent, operates a Quadlegged Unmanned Ground Vehicle (Q-UGV) at Tyndall Air Force Base. U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Anabel Del Valle.

The continuous process of updating the position and velocity, taken together with remotely controlled directions from a human user, will enable apping-wing MAVs to achieve the desired 6DOF ight dynamics, Air Force officials say.

The AFRL states that practical applications after successful implementation of the invention include, but are not limited to, in-the-open surveillance, aerial swarm operations, and battlefield situational awareness. Tiny unmanned systems with this kind of range would be able to maneuver into very small or tight spaces, such as tunnels, or be sent into larger spaces, like pieces of machinery, for remote inspection in spots where humans would not fit.

Specifics such as the weight and si e of the MAV are yet to be disclosed. The nonexclusive Patent License Agreement (PLA) signed between the AFRL and Airion Health dictates that a workable prototype will be produced within 15 months.

Joshua Laravie, the Technology Transfer Specialist and Domestic Alliance Program Manager for AFRL’s Aerospace Systems Directorate, said in an announcement about the AFRL/Airion Health agreement: “We were excited to license our technology to a small business that was building strategic relationships in the drone industry. “[We] are looking forward to supporting their efforts to commercialize an [Air Force] technology.” www.militaryembedded.com

MIL TECH INSIDER

Doubling down: Intel’s 8-core Xeon processor raises the performance bar for rugged systems

By Aaron Frank An industry perspective from Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions In August 2021, Intel announced the new Intel Xeon W-11000E Series processor (formerly known as “Tiger Lake-H”), designed for the embedded market. This new processor follows the announcement of similar 11th-generation processors introduced for the commercial market several months earlier.

For designers of rugged commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) systems, this new processor – which supports critical features for embedded systems, such as DRAM error correction (ECC) and extended operating temperatures – is a great addition to Intel’s range of embedded processors that also offer extended life cycle availability, which is especially important for typically long-life military programs. At the high end of the Xeon W-11000E series is an 8-core device that doubles the core count of previousgeneration quad-core processors, making it all the more attractive for embedded virtualized applications.

The Intel Xeon W-11000E provides enterprise-class virtualization with its large core count, the ability to support as much as 128 GB of memory, and its use of Intel Virtualization Technology (VT-x, VT-d). The processor’s high core count enables system designers to reduce their platform’s S aP profile by consolidating multiple independent processing applications onto a single module.

What does this mean for embedded system designers? Processing tasks that formerly required multiple modules or multiple systems can now be consolidated into a single slot. Additionally, the Intel Xeon W-11000E boosts single-thread performance by as much as 32 , increases multithread performance by as much as 65 , and improves graphics performance by as much as 0 .

For deployed general-purpose applications, the Intel Xeon W-11000 is aimed at applications that require extreme single-threaded performance. The high-end 8-core device runs at 2.6 GHz nominally (4.7 GHz with turbo), enabling multiple time-sensitive tasks to be run in parallel, minimizing the latency in reaching critical decisions. For artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) applications, the processor family uses built-in support for VNNI instructions and the Intel OpenVINO framework. It also accelerates vector processing algorithms using AVX-512 engines, which support accelerated oating-point math algorithms at more than double the speed of previous generations.

For applications needing intensive math-processing capabilities, embedded designers have traditionally relied on external graphics processing units (GPUs), such as those supplied by NVIDIA. Now, for many of these DSP applications, the Intel Xeon W-11000E provides TeraFLOP-level performance sufficient to meet or even exceed the previous generation’s capabilities. Eliminating an external GPU delivers significant si e, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C) savings to systems built around Intel’s new processor.

In the area of embedded graphics, this 11th-generation processor includes Intel’s Gen 12 graphics engine, which enables as many as three 4K display interfaces. It delivers 2D and 3D performance that rivals, and often exceeds, the performance of many of the discrete graphics chips from other vendors that have been used in embedded systems in the past.

An example of a new single-board computer (SBC) that’s able to maximize the features of Intel’s new processor is Curtiss-Wright’s VPX6-1961. (Figure 1.) This rugged 6U www.militaryembedded.com

Figure 1 | The VPX6-1961 SBC enables data to flow from the VPX backplane directly to the XMC sites to support demanding highbandwidth applications such as sensor and data processing or video/graphics mezzanine modules. Curtiss-Wright photo.

OpenVPX board has eight high-speed hyperthreading cores, a dual-channel DDR4 memory subsystem connected directly to the processor, and support for as much as 64 GB of SDRAM with ECC support. Additional features include up to 1 TB of high-speed NVMe on-board SSD memory. Dual XMC mezzanine sites support a wide variety of expansion mezzanine daughtercards, such as highperformance FPGA field-programmable gate arrays], general-purpose GPUs, and storage modules. Four 10G Ethernet ports are included for control plane connectivity, supporting 10GBASE-T and 10GBASE-KR interfaces. The board also supports 1000BASE-T and 1000BASEKX/BX for backwards compatibility to 1G-based systems.

The Intel Xeon W-11000E processor is a helpful addition to the range of processors available for designers of deployed military systems. Its combination of high performance and maximum connectivity aim it squarely at use in highperformance embedded computing systems, general computing, and mission-processing solutions, as well as use in multi-SBC systems used in advanced processing and ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] applications.

Aaron Frank is senior product manager at Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions.

Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions https://www.curtisswrightds.com

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS with Resource Guide September 2021

9

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

By Emma Helfrich, Technology Editor

Hardware- and software-based ground control solution released by AeroVironment

AeroVironment introduced Crysalis, the company’s nextgeneration ground control solution. Crysalis is an integrated hardware and software-based ground control system (GCS) that is designed to provide command and control of compatible AeroVironment unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and their payloads through an intuitive user experience. The GCS is intended to enable interchangeability, either as modular elements or turnkey systems, both adaptable to meet specific mission re uirements.

Crysalis was designed with an intuitive user interface intended to reduce users’ cognitive load and training burden while enhancing situational awareness and battlefield collaboration. Users can plan and execute ight missions as well as navigate and control UAS assets and payloads with access to critical information, modes, and telemetry metadata. The GCS was also designed to enable groups to gain situational awareness, share information, and collaborate on tactical decisions by accessing telemetry and downlink data through remote video terminals, while accomplishing data capture directly on their devices.

Figure 1 | Photo courtesy of AeroVironment. Crysalis is an integrated software and hardware-based ground control solution (GCS).

RQ-4 global hawk cockpit displays to be modernized under new program

Northrop Grumman’s RQ-4 Global Hawk Ground Segment Modernization Program (GSMP) is currently in integration and testing following a first ight in 2020. According to the company, the program will aim to provide new cockpit displays intended to enhance situational awareness for the pilot and sensor operator while improving overall mission capabilities.

According to information from Northrop Grumman, GSMP is part of a series of Global Hawk modernization efforts that will enhance the ability of the system to monitor and deter near-peer and peer threats around the globe. The system is on schedule to complete operational test and evaluation in October 2022. The company’s R -4 Global Hawk is a high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aircraft system (UAS) engineered with an integrated sensor payload that is intended to provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capability.

THOR counter-UAS system will be equipped with new drone “hammer”

The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Directed Energy Directorate is seeking partners to build a new counter-electronics weapon system to defend against the threat of adversarial drone activity. Building upon the Tactical High-Power Operational Responder (THOR) technology demonstrator, AFRL officials claim that it is developing an advanced high-power microwave weapon system to help their newest technology keep pace with the threat from unmanned aircraft systems (UASs).

According to the AFRL team, the THOR demonstrator uses bursts of radio waves to disable small UAS. The Mjolnir prototype will use the same technology but will add advances in capability and manufacturing readiness. AFRL is also working with cross-service partners in the oint Counter sUAS Office and the Army’s Rapid Capability and Critical Technologies Office.

10 September 2021

Figure 2 | An artist’s rendering of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s THOR counter-UAS technology, which the Air Force says is capable of downing many adversarial drones in fractions of a second.

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Fire-control system from Saab gets nod from U.S. Navy to upgrade Raytheon shipboard missiles

Saab has won a 32.24 million contract with the U.S. Navy to implement its MK Tracker Illuminator System Replacement Continuous ave Tracking Illuminator that is aimed at upgrading the Raytheon MK 57 NATO Seasparrow surfaceto-air missile system on board aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships.

According to information from the U.S. Navy, the Seasparrow is a radar-guided, short-range surface-to-air missile that equips ships with self-defense capability against a variety of air and surface threats, including high-speed, low-altitude anti-ship Figure 3 | An older Sea Sparrow missile is launched from the aircraft carrier USS cruise missiles (ASCMs). Work on the initial part of the conCarl Vinson (CVN 70) in July 2010. U.S. Navy photo. tract will be done at Saab in Syracuse and East Syracuse, New ork, and is expected to be completed in August 2023. The contract includes options which, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of the contract to 104. million and could continue through March 2030.

Neural network research aims for more ethical AI decision-making

Quickdraw2 GPS interrogator certified for use aboard F-35

The researchers developed insights from the uncertainty-management approaches into a work ow that is intended to maximi e effectiveness in accomplishing mission goals despite the presence of uncertainty in data inputs. Through this process, they are aiming to teach neural networks when to accurately be sure about a decision. Researchers claim that this improved confidence in neural networks could have significant implications for the battlefield.

According to the company, the Quickdraw2 can be attached via a single cable to the existing intercom system of the F-35 without modifying the aircraft’s electronics, transforming it into a Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) aircraft. The QuickDraw2 transmits a message to the survivor on the ground, which then responds with the radio’s GPS location.

Researchers from the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (known as DEVCOM), the Army Research Laboratory (ARL), and university partners from the Internet of Battlefield Things Collaborative Research Alliance (IoBT CRA) announced the development of a method for neural networks to be more confident in their understanding of battlefield environments. According to the research team, researchers reviewed frameworks to represent uncertainty, categorized sources of uncertainty in military information networks’ common operating environment, and then created solutions to manage uncertainty within systems.

General Dynamics Mission Systems’ Quickdraw2 Handheld GPS Interrogator has completed electromagnetic compatibility testing and ight certification by the U.S. Navy for use aboard Navy-operated F-35 Lightning II aircraft. The uickdraw2 Handheld GPS Interrogator is part of the company’s Dynamics HOOK Combat Search and Rescue System to locate and rescue downed pilots and isolated military personnel.

Seahawk helicopters to be equipped with MOSA computers

Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions division announced that it won a contract by Lockheed Martin to provide its Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) computers and video-processing modules to upgrade the Mission Computer and Flight Management Computer (MC/FMC) on the U.S. Navy’s eet of Sikorsky MH-60R/S Seahawk helicopters. The initial contract is valued at $24 million, with the estimated lifetime value of the contract as much as $70 million.

Curtiss- right states that the MH-60R/S MC/FMC upgrade – aimed at bringing advanced display graphics capabilities to the Seahawk helicopters – is intended to provide compatibility with existing imaging and display systems and enables enhanced capabilities for future imaging sensors and high-resolution displays. The commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) modules will also aim to enable integration of Curtiss- right’s enhanced secure computing features.

Figure 4 | U.S. Navy photo of a Sikorsky MH-60R/S Seahawk helicopter.

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

Semiconductor development to be accelerated with advanced electronics

BAE Systems recently announced a strategic business agreement with Intel that will result in the BAE Systems’ FAST Labs research and development organization having early access to select Intel technologies. According to the company, the agreement will aim to enable BAE Systems to develop and more uickly field next-generation defense applications based on Intel’s technology.

Figure 5 | New strategic business agreement will result in BAE Systems’ FAST Labs research and development organization having early access to select Intel technologies.

In the announcement, BAE Systems says that despite the wave of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) semiconductor technology being integrated into U.S. defense applications, military-grade technology requires domestically developed custom capabilities that extends beyond what is offered by commercially available technology. The company states that the agreement was inspired by a lag time during pushes to customize commercial technology, which so often results in significant time gaps between chip-level technology and defense applications being fielded.

AI procurement process piloted by JAIC to establish ethical use in DoD

Cyber contract for U.S. DoD worth $495 million signed by Verizon

According to news from the Institute, the Responsible AI Procurement pilot is part of a holistic approach that focuses not only on the technology but also on organizational operating structures and culture to advance Responsible AI within the DoD. It will aim to establish clear guidance and expectations for those who are interested in working with the DoD to ensure responsible development and use of AI. Foundational procurement protocols are intended to be developed and piloted through JAIC’s Tradewind Initiative, a pilot business-development ecosystem.

The Verizon statement describes the DREN as a high-speed fiber-optic network that enables military researchers to use supercomputers for its part, the HPCMP is aimed at bringing advanced computing capabilities to the DoD’s research community.

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) oint Artificial Intelligence Center ( AIC) is continuing to operationali e responsible artificial intelligence (AI) with the announcement of a pilot program of a procurement review process that will aim to ensure AI acquired by the JAIC is aligned with the DoD’s AI Ethics Principles. The Responsible AI Institute (Austin, Texas), a nonprofit focused on providing certification for advancing trustworthy AI, will support the pilot.

Verizon’s Public Sector unit has announced that it won a $495 million contract with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to set up and deliver the network for the agency that connects 200 research labs and supercomputer locations. According to a Verizon news release, it is tasked with creating a high-bandwidth, low-latency, Layer 2 wide area network that will include switch, router, firewall, and edge-computing capabilities for the DoD’s Defense Research and Engineering Network (DREN) and its High-Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP).

Hypersonic aircraft and propulsion in development with Air Force and Hermeus

The U.S. Air Force is investing in the Hermeus Corp. via a $60 million jointly funded contract intended to accelerate the development of hypersonic aircraft and propulsion systems. A statement claims that the company is developing a hypersonic aircraft capable of ying at five times the speed of sound. The contract is being funded by the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Presidential and Executive Airlift Directorate, the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), and various venture capital sources.

The initiative aims to partner with commercial sector leaders to accelerate the project’s development and, as a byproduct, advance enabling technologies that could provide the Air Force with options for a variety of missions.

The objectives established for Hermeus to meet in the contract include increasing the understanding of enabling technology and development of mission capabilities for reusable hypersonic aircraft.

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Figure 6 | The vehicles will be dependent on the accuracy of the target-acquisition radars to achieve full operational effectiveness.

Hermeus image.

www.militaryembedded.com

B400 target acquisition radars to equip fleet of armored fighting vehicles

Blighter Surveillance Systems, the British designer and manufacturer of electronic-scanning radars and surveillance solutions, has been selected to provide a minimum of 25 target acquisition radars for a eet of armored fighting vehicles (AFVs). According to the company, the initial contract with a major European defense company will last for approximately three to five years, with the possibility to extend, and provide a minimum of another 60 radars in the following phase.

Figure 7 | Engineered with defensive and offensive capabilities, the vehicles will be dependent on the accuracy of the target acquisition radars to achieve full operational effectiveness.

The Blighter B400 series target acquisition radars, set to be integrated with the defensive capabilities of this eet, are designed to provide long-range targeting capability for the weapons system and are already in use as part of an integrated mobile border security platform deployed in Europe. The B400 radars are intended to be versatile and suited to fixed, mobile, and portable applications.

Mission-command computing systems to be delivered to U.S. Army

AI solutions to aid Army’s sensors directorate in large-scale data labeling

Clarifai, a company speciali ing in artificial intelligence (AI) life cycle platforms, announced that it has entered into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (CCDC), C5ISR Center, Night Vision and Electronic Sensors Directorate (NVESD). According to officials, the CRADA will aim to address the need for quick and accurate labeling of large-scale electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) data to improve data understanding and algorithm development.

The U.S. Army claims that it will evaluate Clarifai’s Scribe Labeler product to create high-quality training data related to combat-ready night vision and electronic sensor applications. Clarifai has a track record of handling pro ects with the U.S. federal government – including the DoD, the intelligence community, and civilian agencies – with computer-vision and natural-language-processing AI solutions put into place to help government and defense agencies make sense of unstructured data.

Leonardo DRS announced that it has won its third production delivery order contract for the next generation of U.S. Army mission command computing systems, called the Mounted Family of Computer Systems (MFoCS) II. The contract value is worth more than $105 million.

According to the company, the MFoCS II system is a family of common computing and display systems designed to consolidate a range of programs and military computing users. The upgrade in the latest contract features system capability updates, cybersecurity improvements, and implementation of multitouch displays. The modular system is designed to support the Army’s current modernization strategy for ground combat vehicles, combat service support vehicles, and command posts.

Eurofighter self-protection system to be investigated for modernization

Sensor solution provider HENSOLDT has been commissioned by the German procurement authority BAAINBw to investigate the moderni ation and performance enhancement of the Eurofighter self-protection system in a multiyear study. According to HENSOLDT officials, the BAAINBw’s study mandate aims to ensure the Eurofighter’s assertiveness and survivability against modern threats including long-range integrated air defense systems and highly agile radars.

Also part of the investigation: new cybersecurity requirements, the use of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components, and the new Eurofighter design and development standards. Company officials also state that the results of the investigations will be worked out in close cooperation with the German air force and regularly presented to the customer by means of hardware and software demonstrations.

Preparations for a comprehensive weapon system update have begun with the Eurofighter Long Term Evolution (LTE) program to ensure operational capability. www.militaryembedded.com

Figure 8 | The Eurofighter Typhoon is designed to be the world’s most advanced swing-role combat aircraft.

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PERSPECTIVES

Executive Interview

Mercury and Pentek leaders on acquisition, radar/EW market trends

By John McHale, Editorial Director

Rodger Hosking Cofounder and VP of Pentek Systems

Neal Austin Vice President and General Manager of the Mixed Signal Business Unit within Mercury Systems

Mercury Systems acquired Pentek earlier this year. I discussed the acquisition and the changes it brought to the companies and the industry in a podcast with Neal Austin, Vice President and General Manager of the Mixed Signal Business Unit within Mercury Systems and Rodger Hosking, cofounder and VP of Pentek Systems. We not only took a deep dive into details into the purchase of Pentek, but we also discussed how the acquisition impacts both companies’ roles within the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Consortium, design trends in the radar and electronic warfare markets, commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) procurement, the impact AI and 5G will have on military electronics, and how defense companies can tackle engineeringrecruitment challenges. Edited excerpts follow. To listen to the podcast in full, visit https://militaryembedded.com/radar-ew/ signal-processing/deep-dive-on-pentek-acquisition-by-mercury-systems-and-radarew-market-trends.

MCHALE: Please tell me about your roles within Mercury Systems and your experience in the defense industry.

AUSTIN: I started my career 30 years ago in the defense industry, in engineering, bringing surface electronic warfare systems to market. Three years ago I took on my current role as vice president and general manager of the mixed-signal business for Mercury Systems.

HOSKING: I am now the vice president of the COTS [commercial off-the-shelf] product facility, here in Upper Saddle River, which is now part of the mixed-signal business unit of Mercury. Before this position, I was in the business for over 40 years, and 35 years of those were with Pentek.

MCHALE: Let’s talk about that acquisition. Why did Mercury buy Pentek, Neal?

Aside from you wanting to get to know Rodger better?

AUSTIN: Funny you mentioned getting to know Rodger better, because the folks here at Mercury have known Rodger, and Paul Mesibov , and Danny Shamah – the founders of Pentek – for many, many years. e’ve admired the business that Pentek has developed over the years. Especially their ability to focus on true commercial, offthe-shelf products. [They] have clear market vision and a clear prioritization of activities.

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And [they’re] building what we believe is the predominant, commercial, off-theshelf product offering, for radar and EW [electronic warfare] mixed-signal and FPGA applications.

MCHALE: Rodger, why did you and your partners decide to sell to Mercury Systems?

HOSKING: We wanted to become a bigger company, getting access to larger programs that we previously have not been participating in, to the extent that we really thought we could. What Mercury brings to us, is a chance for us to grow, by having access to larger opportunities that are in the defense market space that we previously haven’t been big enough for or had enough access to. www.militaryembedded.com

That’s the primary reason. It’s also [provides a stronger] career path for our employees.

MCHALE: From a structural standpoint, Neal, where does Pentek fit in?

AUSTIN: The mixed-signal business unit that Rodger and I are responsible for fits into the microelectronics division of Mercury. From an electronic warfare and radar subsystems perspective, in many ways, we’re the ham in the ham sandwich. We’re where the techniques reside, where the mixed-signal conversion from RF to bits actually happens.

We’re a growing business unit within Mercury. Pentek expands the products and the channels to market, within the mixed-signal business unit.

MCHALE: What about overlap?

Rodger mentioned a lot of different products. But there was some overlap.

Did compete with [Pentek] somewhat before you bought them, like in some FPGA signal-processing applications.

Is that a concern or is it the overlap is so small, it doesn’t really make a difference?

HOSKING: I can answer that. We really rarely competed with Mercury, again, because of the different focus on the markets.

One of the things that we bring to the market is real COTS products that are published on our website with full product specifications and documentation. They’re not ITAR-controlled. A lot of the similar board-level products that Mercury has are primarily programbusiness products and often they are ITAR-controlled. So, we’re quite complementary in that way with the existing board-level COTS or modified COTS products that the mixed-signal group is responsible for.

We didn’t see Mercury playing or competing with the types of opportunities that we were trying to win. There are a couple of exceptions here and there. But, for the large part that’s one of the reasons that I think Mercury wanted to acquire us and why we wanted to join with Mercury.

It was really on both sides. The acquisition made sense for a lot of reasons. www.militaryembedded.com

We also have a lot of sales [channels] worldwide. So, we’re able to open up markets for Mercury with these noncontrolled products that we can sell outside the U.S. I think that’ll be a way for Mercury to expand its overall global market. e can help them grow and they can help us grow.

MCHALE: Neal, did you want to add anything to that?

AUSTIN: I agree 100 with Rodger. e’re complimentary companies. e have different channels to market. The Pentek channel to market was very much a commercial approach, that was really organi ed to get to a very broad base of customers whereas Mercury’s channel to market is very strategically focused on the primes that really move the needle.

And so we rarely ran across each other. And in some instances, there were cases where we had opportunities that needed a commercial off-the-shelf product like an off-the-shelf tuner, for data recorder products. We would look to Pentek for help with those commercial products.

MCHALE: From your customers’ standpoint, it’s Pentek Systems, part of the Mercury Systems mixed-signal business unit. But if they go to Pentek.com, they’ll still be able to find Pentek. From a product nomenclature standpoint, how fluid will the transition be? Will product names change?

HOSKING: I think that the transition is definitely going to be gradual and appropriate. e definitely want to keep the Pentek name for as long as it benefits us and our customers, for recognition and coming back. I think the website will eventually transition over and the name will eventually transition over. But, it will be gradual and it will be appropriate to basically preserve our business and our name recognition until that transition can be done with no ill effects, in terms of us not being seen or easy to find.

AUSTIN: Yes. There’s great value in the Pentek name. There’s great value in the brand that Rodger, and Paul, and Danny, and Gina [Peter] built over the years. And we’re not going to jeopardize that. The transition will be slow. We haven’t thought through it completely, because we’re taking it very slowly. And we’re going to listen to the market. We’re going to listen to what our customers say. So: TBD, John, is the message there.

MCHALE: COTS is directly related to the open architecture initiatives that are trending today. The most active right now – the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) – is getting close to releasing SOSA Technical Standard. 1.0, Mercury and Pentek are both active in the committees developing that standard.

Will that change in any way after the acquisition? Do you see any indication of increasing participation, if one did more than the other?

HOSKING: I see both of our companies, now our single company, continuing the roles that we have. We really are extremely focused on SOSA, because it really is so important to government procurement, going forward. We really want to continue the role that we have.

We have, within the previous Mercury organization, several leadership roles in the business and technical working groups, as we do here in the Upper Saddle River division. Here, of course, we have Paul Mesibov, he’s the co-lead of the hardware subcommittee. And Gina Peter is a co-lead for the outreach committee. And I know that that Bill Conley, CTO of Mercury, is involved very actively in supporting SOSA. There are other members of the technical team as well that are definitely involved in the SOSA technical working area. So, we will continue, each of us, in those roles.

The overall role of Mercury – now combined – will increase its interest in the SOSA organization and perhaps increase its participation level as well.

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PERSPECTIVES MCHALE: Even as we are on the eve of the release of SOSA Technical Standard 1.0, there is still a lot of education to be done regarding the need for SOSA. Do you agree?

HOSKING: That’s for sure. It’s evolving. Any good standard will continue to evolve.

If it doesn’t evolve, it’s probably not worth much. Of course, we’ve [also] seen that with OpenVPX continuing to evolve, because people are interested in it, contributing to it and extending the specification, to accommodate new standards and needs.

And SOSA will continue to do that. There’s a lot of work left to do in the SOSA standard that is actively being pursued by all of the good, hardworking people in these working groups.

AUSTIN: I would like to add a quick note, if you don’t mind. Just going back to your question about the rationale for the acquisition. Pentek’s leadership in SOSA and the SOSA-aligned product portfolio was very attractive to Mercury. So in part, our acquisition of Pentek illustrates the company’s commitment to SOSA and open standards in general.

MCHALE: Why is this so different than other standards? It seems there’s so much more enthusiasm behind SOSA. Why does SOSA have so much momentum?

HOSKING: I think part of it is driven from the top. Once the DoD said, “Thou shalt use open standards in all procurements,” which of course, led to SOSA, where the three services joined together and came up with a common standard called SOSA, which will then drive procurement. That’ll be good for each of the services, because now they’ll be able to have a larger, common requirement that will enable different systems to be less expensive and perhaps easier to [acquire]. [It will also enable] shorter lead times and less work for each of the three services as they develop their own specifications and their own RFQs and so forth for programs.

They’ll be able to share across the services, so it’ll be a big benefit for them. Once all of that’s in place, the vendor community is going to look at that and say “If we’re not part of that, we’re going to be left out.” I think that’s really what’s driving a lot of the excitement from the vendor community. It’s really a very synergistic relationship, top-down.

Then, when you look at the participants, which include hundreds of different vendors in the community, you see that many of them are extremely active. [It all] makes sense.

MCHALE: Neal, what has your experience been with SOSA and open architecture initiatives in general in your 30 years in the business?

AUSTIN: So, this goes a little bit to the COTS versus modified COTS mentality.

Mercury has always been an early adopter and driver of open standards. OpenVP – our involvement in that is an example. But, because with mixed-signal – and I’m going to speak for mixed-signals specifically – we have historically been a modified COTS supplier, developing specific products for customers based on reference designs, we weren’t as engaged in [these] activities as we would have liked to have been, just because of prioritizations of products and the program-based business we served.

We were active, we were engaged. But to some degree, we were very selective in the kinds of products we brought to market. In traditional mixed-signal, we did bring the first SOSA aligned E tuner to market. It was a 3U, very fast tuning, embedded tuner for E applications . That was the first of its kind to be SOSA aligned. So, we have been involved, but because of the nature, the modified COTS nature of the business, we weren’t nearly as involved as the Pentek team.

MCHALE: We keep talking about COTS. Rodger, can you believe it’s been about 27 years since then-Secretary of Defense William Perry issued his famous memo instructing the DoD to procure COTS wherever and whenever possible?

HOSKING: No. It really doesn’t seem that long. But it’s been good – it’s really been good for us. And I think it’s been good for the industry – especially I would say, the smaller

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Executive Interview vendors, because they are now able to participate. And this will be true for SOSA, as well. Smaller vendors are encouraged to participate and to add more content to the offerings. So that the primes will go forward with their response, to their bids for the program business.

The bids that have the higher SOSA content are likely to be scored more favorably and of course, that can help lead to a win. The smaller companies will help those larger primes and the tier-two, tier-three companies to get to that point of SOSA content faster, easier, and often much less expensively.

MCHALE: How do your customers – the prime contractors, the DoD – view COTS? Do they look at it the same way you do?

AUSTIN: I’ll take a stab at that. From the traditional, mixed-signal perspective, we’ve been focused on primes primarily.

So, we’ve come up against this quite a bit. The primes like to see technology maturation – or should I say technology introduction – through commercial offthe-shelf offerings. But when it comes down to program needs and what’s actually realized, it’s generally very different than the commercial off-the-shelf product that is put on the bench the first time and exercised. This is because program requirements come into play that aren’t conceptualized during the commercial off-the-shelf, product roadmap definition.

HOSKING: What we often do is offer an open COTS product, like we’ve always traditionally done. We [then] use that to inspire interest from a lot of customers, who need something a little bit different.

This is exactly what Neal described. We will often add a lot of options to different aspects of the product to allow that basic product to be customized or configured specifically for a particular program’s need. Those modifications may include a different style of connector on the front, or even different code for the FPGA, or a different type of protocol installed.

I think both divisions do very similar things. But I think the starting point, in www.militaryembedded.com

our case, is always with a COTS product and then we’ll [explore] some options.

In the Huntsville group, they’ll come up with an idea for a product or start with fulfilling a program re uirement to create that product for the program. It’s a starting point that can be a little bit different, but the engineers that work in both of our facilities really are working on the same kinds of problems. It’s just a different way of getting to the market.

AUSTIN: To that point, reference designs bring additional value, a value that comes with Pentek joining Mercury: Because now we have this family of commercial off-the-shelf products that really are referenced designs and launch points for engagement with the primes.

MCHALE: Let’s talk about a couple of key application areas – radar and EW. What are you both seeing when it comes to design trends and customer requirements in these areas? Do you see funding in these areas continuing to be strong even with the change in presidential administrations?

HOSKING: It’s definitely strong. Everyone sees the growing threat from our adversaries – China, Russia, and others, and we just cannot relax. We’ve got to really pay a lot of attention and look at some resources to counter those efforts because they’re not going away. They’re only going to get stronger. I think that threat will be a strong driver for – specifically – radar, E , and SIGINT signals intelligence].

In terms of what kinds of systems are out there, I see that we’re going to need to re-architect a little bit. Some of the things we’re seeing: more movement towards distributed systems where there are remote sensors and the electronics for acquiring the signals from the sensors. Typically, an antenna will be located right behind the antenna. Instead of cabling down from the antenna, RF signals down to a central acquisition point, it will be distributed.

There’s also a lot of unmanned vehicles that are taking over the roles traditionally filled by warfighters and vehicles. www.militaryembedded.com

Those then will require a smaller, more compact, more powerful, often more intelligent, signal-processing function to do the job.

AUSTIN: I agree with Rodger 100 . Distributed architectures and multifunction RF are the trends of the future. I believe Mercury as a whole, and in particular mixed signal, is making the right investments. The investment in Pentek is one example. To address the change in architecture: We now have RF direct digitization happening at the aperture, FPGA processing, and – by the way – intelligent FPGA processing with AI engines, at the next level. Then radar and EW servers and processors, even further down the chain. So, we’re going to continue to see these trends, as 5th-gen ISA structures really begin to get out there in the market. Multimission apertures are the way of the future.

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PERSPECTIVES

Executive Interview

MCHALE: You both talked about how the DoD and the defense industry need to invest in technologies to stay competitive. Should the defense industrial base also be investing more in recruiting engineering talent? For example, when I’ve attended nonmilitary trade shows, I’ve always seemed to notice there’s a lot less gray hair at those non-military shows than at military technology events, such as the Army’s AUSA show and Navy’s Sea-Air-Space. Do you think the military electronics industry has a talent recruitment challenge on its hands? And if so, how can it be solved?

AUSTIN: It’s an interesting dilemma and one we talk about often. It’s been a challenge, as you’ve said, for a long, long time. So, we’re addressing it through investment in STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics], as an example, investing in programs with our customers, to engage at the community college and local university level. We’ve even recently invested in a STEM program at a children’s museum, called Early Works, in Huntsville, Alabama, where we’re an active sponsor.

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The other place we’re making big investment is in our co-op programs – engaging with local universities and not necessarily talking about the [military] mission, because the mission may not align with everyone you talk to in an engineering program. But what we’ve seen, what does resonate with the kids – especially the kids who are in that top five to 10 of their class – is that they want to solve hard problems. They’re not as concerned about the market space for the problem. They’re more concerned about how hard is the problem, and can I really exercise my knowledge? We’ve been pretty successful there, particularly at University of Alabama in Huntsville and Auburn, down in central Alabama.

MCHALE: So, the key is to appeal to them through the intellectual challenge?

AUSTIN: Yes, exactly. It’s about intellectual challenge. We have recently, I’ll say in the last couple of years, collected some talent who were very early in their college careers who I hope will be with us for the long term.

HOSKING: We’ve also always been challenged to try to find new engineers. A lot of them come out of school without really much hands-on experience, so we have struggled. We’ve worked with our local schools and found some very good people. But one of the things that we are really impressed with is Mercury’s programs, just like the one Neal has described, and the STEM program and intern programs. We are going to be asking for some guidance and help in building that part of the job-search function here for us in Upper Saddle River.

MCHALE: Looking forward, what disruptive technology innovation will be a game-changer in the defense electronics world, maybe five, 10 years from now? Predict the future.

HOSKING: I can certainly start off by saying that AI is definitely going to be a game-changer. We certainly see that as a challenge that’s out there. Like I was talking about before: To do things like identify targets to classify, to compute in real time, countermeasure signals that will – for example – hide an aircraft from www.militaryembedded.com

I’m convinced that military networks, to keep all the forces tied together, will need to transmit a lot more information with much greater bandwidth than ever before, to deliver this fire

we can harness some of the technology that might’ve been inspired, probably was inspired, by commercial markets.

I’m convinced that military networks, to keep all the forces tied together, will need to transmit a lot more information with much greater bandwidth than ever before, to deliver this fire hose of information. That’s going to be gleaned, and processed, and then delivered to the warfighters who need it.

5G is going to be a big part of it, as well. Again, what we’re seeing is the processing load. That will be something that will need to be addressed by increasingly more competent, and I would say, specialized processing elements, right within the node. Maybe within a UAV unmanned aerial vehicle . Maybe behind the antenna. But it’s definitely going to become a major theme going forward. And we’re going to be there. MES

hose of information. the enemy radar or to untangle a very heavily encrypted message or signal that’s vital information for warfighters.

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We’re definitely going to see great interest in new designs that target this challenge. For example, the Versal family, which is the latest generation of Xilinx device that includes AI, and machine learning, and multiprocessing engines, to tackle diverse computational tasks.

This is an ongoing, continuing, evolving challenge to try to keep ahead of the competition. In this case, the enemy – to stay on top and to maintain superiority.

AUSTIN: Rodger and I are quite wellaligned in our vision. The deployment of multifunction apertures that can autonomously transmit and receive radar EW, SIGINT, even communications data, that autonomously decides what they’re looking at is needed. [Another challenge will be] deploying a technique autonomously if needed, for an EW application while continuing to track threats. e’re about to release our first AI Engine FPGA card for embedded processing, which is based on Versal FPGAs. It’s what the DoD has been talking about.

It’s what the primes have been talking about.

HOSKING: I think we can see that, as in many cases, military markets will adopt commercial markets that are useful. AI is a natural extension of the already really huge market for driverless cars, Amazon drone delivery, and other things. Again, www.militaryembedded.com

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SPECIAL REPORT

Automation, digitization, and GaN drive shipboard radar upgrades

By Emma Helfrich, Technology Editor

Threats facing the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps are evolving rapidly, making innovations in early-warning architectures critical. Shipboard radar systems are progressing far quicker than what was previously possible because of the exploitation of modern-day technologies like gallium nitride (GaN) components and continuous software deployment, automated testing, and digitization. To better enable the development of these systems, naval researchers and electronics providers are looking to utilize commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products, open architectures, and e en artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML).

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Shipboard electronics

The USS Howard (DDG 83) is an Arleigh Burke-class U.S. Navy destroyer; the USS Howard is the ship aboard which the Lockheed Martin Aegis Combat System Baseline 9.2.1 was proven during at-sea testing. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Shawn J. Stewart (2010)

Radar and electronic warfare (EW) are prominent components of current naval defense tactics, and it’s no different for adversaries. With the advent of stealthy drones and hypersonic weapons, maritime battle is no longer a matter of merely detecting an enemy ship, plane, or submarine.

Twenty-first-century offensive technologies could be the si e of a seagull, completely silent, or invisible to the human eye all together. As a result, maintaining control over the electromagnetic spectrum with reliable radar and EW systems is paramount in defending domestic seas and oceans.

At the same time, cost is and will always remain a factor in system design.

Production, operation, and maintenance spending can be a debilitating facet of shipboard electronics if they aren’t a consideration from the start of the research and development process all the way through to fielding.

Automation and digitization have played a game-changing role in the production of these shipboard systems, saving manufacturers not only money but time and labor as well. Such modernization examples inclue the SPY families of radars and the Aegis Combat System.

The technologies that are leading the fleet Raytheon’s widely used SPY-6 (Figure 1), or AN/SPY-6 in military nomenclature, is a family of radars designed with several variants for a more tailored performance.

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Engineered with radar module assemblies (RMAs), the SPY-6 radars are built to be scaled to fit larger or smaller shipboard architectures.

SP -6(V)2 and SP -6(V)3, the two variants of the Enterprise Air Surveillance Radar (EASR) recently completed a series of tests at the Navy’s Wallops Island Surface Combat Systems Center, validating anti-air warfare, air traffic control operations, and power system modeling,” says Scott Spence, executive director of the naval radars division at Raytheon (Waltham, Massachusetts).

“The tests are rapidly progressing because Raytheon’s engineers are applying knowledge gained from previous SPY-6(V)1 tests.”

According to Spence, EASR is designed to provide simultaneous anti-air and antisurface warfare capabilities, electronic protection, and air traffic control capabilities for aircraft carriers and amphibious warships. He also claims the SP -6(V)3 is intended to be the heart of the Navy’s new Constellation-class frigates. www.militaryembedded.com

Figure 1 | Raytheon’s SPY-6 radar under test at Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia. Photo courtesy of Raytheon.

“This is a really exciting time for the SPY-6 program with a lot of progress happening,” Spence says. “SPY-6(V)1, also known as the Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR) completed developmental testing back in 2019 and is currently undergoing integration with the Aegis Baseline 10 combat management system, at Navy’s Combat Systems Engineering Development Site (Moorestown, New Jersey). DDG 125, The future USS Jack H. Lucas, has already had its SPY-6(V)1 radar suite installed, and is currently undergoing post-installation testing and grooming.”

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However, SPY-6 isn’t defending the shores alone. In 2015, the Missile Defense Agency awarded Lockheed Martin a contract for a long-range discrimination radar (LRDR) to further propel its layered defense initiative against ballistic missile threats. Designated as SPY-1, the LRDR is still in use today.

“The SPY-1 radar will continue to be the predominant Aegis maritime Integrated Air and Missile Defense radar in the U.S. Navy Surface Fleet well into the future,” says a spokesperson from Lockheed Martin (Bethesda, Maryland). “For reference, greater than 100 Aegis cruisers and destroyers have been outfitted with a variant of the SP -1 radar to date, and by 2040 greater than 0 of the Aegis eet will still have SP -1 radars.

Upgrades of the SPY-1 LRDR have led to the advent of the SPY-7 radar (Figure 2), To further bolster the architecture’s efficacy, Lockheed Martin officials say they plan to integrate SPY-7 with the Aegis Combat System which is currently undergoing modernization.

“In concert with SPY-1 radar improvements, the modernization of the Aegis Weapons System itself also enhances the lethality and survivability of these ships with rapid capability delivery to the Surface Fleet,” says the Lockheed Martin spokesperson.

“Aegis modernizations include software improvements like the implementation of a continuous implementation and continuous deployment software pipeline, automated testing, and a transition to full DevSecOps operations.”

Aegis (Figure 3), a naval weapons system using radar technology to track and destroy enemy targets, has cemented its role in shipboard warning systems through decades of evolution and midlife upgrades. Lockheed Martin says that its evolution

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Figure 2 | Artist’s rendering of the SPY-7 radar aboard a Navy frigate. Image courtesy of Lockheed Martin.

is made possible through utilizing Open Architecture Processors (OAPs) and the latest commercial technologies.

Implementing COTS and open architectures “[OAPs] are higher-density processors designed to optimize computing performance for specific missions, threats and operating environments,” the spokes-

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person from Lockheed Martin says. “OAP is a common processor for multiple sensors and self-defense systems operating on ground, air, and maritime platforms third-party applications have become a routine feature of the Common Source software library in use in Aegis shipboard combat systems.”

The exploitation of COTS [commercial off-the-shelf] technologies in shipboard electronics is pivotal in getting the most out of an open architecture, and Lockheed Martin isn’t new to the trend.

To keep pace with adversaries, COTS electronics have helped the company continue to modernize.

“At Lockheed Martin, we have a long history of applying COTS and open architectures in our shipboard systems, taking Aegis from the purpose-built military specification computing hardware installed in the original cruisers to the latest in available commercial technologies, installing ruggedized commercial servers in new construction ships, and in ships receiving Aegis Modernization via midlife upgrades,” the spokesperson from Lockheed Martin says.

Raytheon is also taking advantage of the benefits of COTS and open architectures in its own shipboard radar systems. The SPY-6 family is known for its upgradable software and hardware building blocks enabled by off-the-shelf technologies and open computing architectures.

“Large portions of our systems come offthe-shelf from our suppliers helping to keep costs low,” Spence says. “An example of where COTS plays a significant role is in our computing architectures.

We combine the latest in CPU [central processing unit], GPU [graphics processing unit , FPGA field programmable gate array], storage, and interconnect fabric technologies to effectively produce super computers. Our architecture is structured such that when a commercial supplier updates a computing device, it can be easily integrated into our platforms.”

Certain industry standards have also played a role in the upgradability of naval www.militaryembedded.com

Figure 3 | An artist’s rendering of the Aegis Weapons System. Courtesy of Lockheed Martin.

radars, namely VPX. However, Spence notes that there are still design constraints that sometimes stand in the way of complete VPX adoption.

“We do leverage VPX in our systems when it makes sense,” Spence says. “The data being streamed and processed by our radars continues to increase with our customers’ needs and demands. Even with VPX’s ability to support switched fabrics, we need to be cautious of potential memory limitations imposed by VPX in our architectures.”

While valiant efforts are being made to reduce cost, increase reliability, and bolster modularity in shipboard systems using COTS and open architectures, other processes have proven just as reputable as manufacturers implement innovative ways produce, maintain, and operate maritime radars.

Automating and digitizing radar production and sustainment “Radar systems continue to evolve to incorporate increasing levels of digitization and software control,” says Michael Walder, superintendent of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL – ashington, D.C.) Radar Division. This increases the ability to maintain and rapidly improve the capabilities of the systems in a more affordable manner. Further, it enables support for multiple functions such as radar, communications, and electronic warfare. One focus of research at the NRL is to develop and exploit highly digitized systems.”

Raytheon and Lockheed Martin are operating right on the edge of this research-driven digitization, incorporating it in both radar system design and during production. These efforts to push for more sophisticated computerization have been catalyzed by AI and ML implementation.

“Our forward-leaning approach creates a digital thread that encompasses the entire Aegis ecosystem, leveraging AI, DevSecOps, and model-based engineering to manage new upgrades and cybersecurity considerations from the beginning of the development cycle through sustainment,” says Brendan Scanlon, Lockheed Martin program director for the digital transformation of Aegis. “We are using [AI and ML] across this Aegis ecosystem to provide improvements in situational awareness, operator decision aides, and enable faster system reaction time.”

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SPECIAL REPORT Besides performance improvements, Lockheed Martin officials claim that automation is also helping maintain its naval radar and combat systems using predictive maintenance. The ML algorithms, intended to maximize operational availability, are designed to determine when parts will need maintenance before a failure actually occurs. Raytheon is applying similar methodologies in their factories.

Shipboard electronics integration and testing, which Spence claims has significantly driven down cost.

Another expenditure-saving product that has emerged from Raytheon’s RDF is gallium nitride (GaN), which has found its place in maritime radar architectures.

GaN’s role in shipboard electronics “SPY-6 Radar Modular Assemblies (RMA) use GaN technology,” Spence says. “Raytheon also manufactures GaN components. This allows our systems to produce more radio frequency (RF) transmit power for a given unit of input

“One area where we employ AI and ML is within the classification and discrimination portions of our products,” Spence says. “Additionally, we have been applying AI and ML techniques in our factories. They are providing improved performance in reducing false negatives in testing, hence improving yields. Advanced, digital technology and automation were also used to design and produce the SPY-6 family of radars.”

Raytheon’s Radar Development Facility (RDF, Figure 4) specializes in automating assembly movements and radar

Figure 4 | Inside Raytheon’s Radar Development Facility in Andover, Massachusetts.

Photo courtesy of Raytheon.

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SPECIAL REPORT prime power than available elsewhere in the industry. This has a significant impact on size, weight, and power (SWaP), making our arrays smaller, lighter, and less power consumptive.”

With SWaP being a priority for radar systems across military platforms, officials at Lockheed Martin are also seeing the GaN benefit Using GaN has allowed the company to configure SP - installations for various power levels.

“Gallium nitride is used in a variety of active electronically scanned radars produced

by Lockheed Martin,” says Chandra Marshall, Radar Systems Sensors vice president and general manager.

“SPY-7, like the LRDR upon which it is based, uses GaN as its material building block, which allows for better cooling of the radar – leading to increased and sustained performance. LRDR has been declared TRL by the U.S. government – which means they are ready for operational deployment.”

Shipboard electronics The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), however, doesn’t plan on letting the utilization of GaN technology stop there. Further research into the revolutionary material is currently being conducted by the NRL in hopes of developing even more sustainable shipboard radar systems.

“Research in GaN continues at NRL in the Electronic Science and Technology Division. Foundational work was performed by NRL in the past 25-plus years, which contributed greatly to the successful development of GaN technology for both the DoD and commercial markets. The NRL was a key member of the DoD team that developed and transitioned the technology to acquisition programs. Research on improved GaN and other semiconductor technologies continues.”

– Michael Walder, NRL Superintendent “Research in GaN continues at NRL in the Electronic Science and Technology Division,” Walder says. “Foundational work was performed by NRL in the past 25-plus years, which contributed greatly to the successful development of GaN technology for both the DoD and commercial markets. The NRL was a key member of the DoD team that developed and transitioned the technology to acquisition programs. Research on improved GaN and other semiconductor technologies continues.” MES

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Strong signals: Improve antenna performance in high-frequency military applications with radome innovations

By Rick Johnson and Eric Trantina

28 September 2021

Shipboard electronics

U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Joshua Scott

High-quality antenna performance protects lives and military assets. However, as defense and aerospace communications systems operate at higher frequencies, optimizing signal quality while also protecting antennas from harsh environmental conditions becomes more difficult he ey to addressing these challenges lies in the radomes that surround and shield antennas. Lowering the dielectric constant of the radome while also making the surround rugged requires a mix of in-depth knowledge of high-frequency communications systems, sophisticated modeling, materials science expertise, and rigorous testing.

From communications systems on ship masts to low-earth-orbit satellites to imaging radar for unmanned vehicles, high-frequency technology applications continue to proliferate in the defense and aerospace arenas. At these higher fre uencies, protecting signal fidelity and ensuring pinpoint accuracy is complex and challenging. As with everything in these mission-critical industries, stakes are high.

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need to scan at angles of plus or minus 60 to 0 degrees. Sending signals through radome material at these off-normal angles can create energy re ection and/or absorption and reduce signal quality.

2. High-fre uency communications The use of high fre uencies (30 GH to 60 GH ) increases data throughput and enhances the military’s communications capabilities. However, the performance of an antenna in a high-frequency application can be degraded by use of conventional radome materials.

3. Environmental conditions: While the radome material must be rugged and durable so it can handle whatever nature throws at it, the materials that help radomes shield antennas from wind and rain can negatively impact signal performance. Further, in some situations, snow and ice can build up on radome structures, thereby degrading signal quality.

The complicating factor here is that the solutions to these challenges often work against each other. Therefore, design engineers face a balancing act as they work to optimize both antenna performance and a radome’s ability to stand up to environmental conditions.

To successfully improve antenna performance in high-frequency applications, it’s important to recognize the complexities of designing radome materials for highfrequency signals versus standard communication bands below 18 GHz. In the latter case, standard, in ection-molded thermoplastic material can be sufficient but those materials don’t work well above 20 GHz. To achieve a dielectric constant of 2 or lower, designers should seek custom-designed solutions instead of traditional, off-the-shelf radome materials. Using such an approach, design engineers will more successfully balance competing considerations and deploy radomes that support the successful operation of antenna systems.

Mission #1: Reduce the dielectric constant To improve the quality of signals passing through radomes, the designer can lower the dielectric constant of radome materials without compromising a radome’s ability to protect antennas from environmental conditions. There are two main categories of radome materials:

Reliable and accurate antenna performance can save lives and military assets and is therefore crucial to mission success.

Radomes are at the center of this challenge. Designed to protect sensitive radar equipment from environmental conditions, the radome plays an important role in antenna signal quality. Let’s start by looking at the three big issues the defense and aerospace industries face today when developing and deploying radomes: 1. High angles of incidence: Antennas used in defense and aerospace applications routinely www.militaryembedded.com

› A-sandwich materials: Foam is created by injecting air into a resin. Silicone resins, urethane resins, and epoxy resins have dielectric constants around 3. Thermoplastics have dielectric constants around 2-3. Adding air, with its dielectric constant of 1, can lower the dielectric constant of the material below 2. So, foam materials address the dielectric constant challenge.

However, as porous, weak materials, foams are ineffective radome materials, which is where protective skins come in. These skins, in turn, must have the lowest possible dielectric constant. Specialty thermoplastic fibers have dielectric constants below 3 and add tough exteriors to protect foams from environmental elements. › Syntactic materials: These types of materials are made by mixing encapsulated air into resins and calendaring (smoothing and coating) these materials into solid sheets without external skins that have dielectric constants ranging from 1.4 to 1.8. To enhance the impact resistance and ruggedness of these sheets, calendar a fabric inside of the sheet. So, unlike a-sandwich radome materials (which consist of a foam “sandwiched” between skins), these syntactic foam materials are homogeneous, solid radome materials with embedded reinforcement.

Both cases result in a material with a known dielectric constant. From there, signal re ection can be reduced – and in some cases, nearly eliminated – by properly si ing the thickness of the materials. However, eliminating re ection becomes more challenging as angles of incidence increase, which is why it’s important to keep the dielectric constant as low as possible. (Figure 1.)

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Shipboard electronics

The calendaring process is key to controlling thicknesses. Another important manufacturing consideration is the process used to manage the amount of air in the material. While air is helpful when it comes to lowering the dielectric constant, it needs to be controlled. High-speed centrifugal vacuum mixers are tools that help engineers manage the amount of air in the material with precision.

In addition to using advanced manufacturing capabilities, it’s important to understand the characteristics of radome materials and performance of those materials under different conditions (environments, frequencies, angles of incidence, etc.) must be considered. There are a number of techniques design engineers can use to measure the properties of their materials. For example, at high frequencies, free-space antennas can measure insertion loss and phase, helping engineers understand the dielectric constant, loss tangent, and overall performance of materials at different angles of incidence.

The last step is to test and verify material performance, with stringent processes that monitor the quality of those products emerging from high-volume production environments.

Figure 1 | This graph shows the performance of a half-wave radome. By adjusting the thickness and properties of the layers, constructive interference and reduced reflection coefficients are accomplished within the radome. In this example, optimal performance was needed at 28 and 39 GHz, so the radome was tuned to 34 GHz to maximize performance at both ends.

Creatively address environmental and signal challenges Radome designers must of course think about rugged materials that can withstand

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Figure 2 | An absorber “skirt” can combat back and sidelobes and improve antenna signals. The red lines in the image above show how signal scatters when unimpeded by an absorber. The black lines show how an absorber skirt reduces back and sidelobes and helps focus the antenna signal.

impact, as described above, but they also must account for weather-related elements like snow and ice. After all, snow and ice have high dielectric constants. Engineers can add thermal conductivity-enhancing chemicals to their radome materials to melt any accumulation of ice and snow on the surface of a radome. Using the radome material to accomplish this dual purpose (dielectric and thermal) simplifies the overall design.

Fair warning: These thermal conductivity-enhancing chemicals raise the dielectric constant, so again – there’s a tradeoff. But by leveraging detailed knowledge of materials and sophisticated modeling and testing capabilities, design engineers can determine the proper mix of materials for the application and successfully reduce the dielectric constant while raising the thermal conductivity of radome materials.

For example, designers at Laird R F Products have created materials with dielectric constants of 1.4-1.6 and thermal conductivities of greater than .1 W/mK [watts per meter thickness].

When it comes to optimizing signal quality, design engineers can creatively use absorbers in their radome designs. It may seem counterintuitive, but the use of microwave absorbers can clear up radar signals and reduce back and sidelobes – especially over high angles of incidence – when used as a skirt along the sides of an antenna and around a radome.

Defense and aerospace design engineers can tackle the multifaceted signal challenges they face, first by recogni ing the need for custom radome solutions. Next step: leverage materials knowledge, advanced modeling, and creative engineering to design and implement those solutions. Final piece: Rigorously test to verify performance. By taking this comprehensive approach to design and deployment, engineers can improve the performance of high-frequency defense radar systems. MES Rick Johnson is the aerospace and defense director at Laird R&F Products, a DuPont business. Laird R&F Products’ operations, testing and manufacturing facilities are located in Carlsbad, California. Readers may contact him at rick. johnson@randf.com. Eric Trantina is product manager for integrated solutions and electromagnetic absorbers at Laird Performance Materials, a DuPont business. Get in touch at eric.trantina@laird.com.

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Complex threats require complex & test solutions

By Sally Cole, Senior Editor Increased U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) funding is targeting radar and electronic warfare (EW) systems to counter complex threats such as electronic counter-countermeasures, to stay ahead of their adversaries. This demand is also driving innovation in the military test and measurement community to add sophistication and efficiency to the test and evaluation process to improve capability.

Meanwhile cognitive EW applications on inspiring new test designs.

The steady advance of electronic countercountermeasures (ECCM) technologies places immense pressure on electronic countermeasures (ECM) to keep pace – or even a few steps ahead – in order to remain effective at protecting military assets.

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Test & measurement trends

Such complexity is fueling increased U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) funding for electronic warfare (EW) and radar systems to detect and counter these threats while deploying them to the battlefield and the warfighter more quickly. The latter demand places pressure on test and measurement system designers to look for innovative methods to enable efficient testing earlier in the design process.

Growth in the DoD’s budget for EW “appears to be contributing to a buoyant market for test and measurement,” says Jeremy Twaits, solutions marketer, Aerospace, Defense, Government Business Unit, for National Instruments (Austin, Texas).

A Frost Sullivan analysis earlier this year forecasts the DoD electronic warfare market will reach 3.6 billion by 2025, up from 3.1 billion in 2021. Research, development, test, and evaluation is the largest area of spending, which also signals significant opportunity for the test and measurement market, he continues. “There’s increased pressure on primes to rapidly develop systems that don’t require multiple iterations in acceptance testing. This has pushed many to do more parallel development, so more testing is performed earlier within the design process. As new government contracts move away from cost-plus with longer delivery times, we’re seeing more cost pressure and more openness toward new exible COTS commercial off-the-shelf solutions.

ECM validation is “a high-priority item in the DoD budget,” says Darren McCarthy, technical marketing manager for Rohde Schwar America (Columbia, Maryland). Bringing more capability out of the chamber or field test and making this available through COTS on the bench helps to reduce cost of test and enables rapid technology insertion.”

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“Emulation of rotary blade modulation (RBM) or jet engine modulation (JEM) are effects that an ECCM might have the ability to detect, and if the ECM does not properly simulate the specific techni ues that the ECCM can distinguish, the ECM will become ineffective,” McCarthy says. (Figure 1.)

Full environmental simulators aren’t cheap – they tend to cost more than 10 million. “The cost of test time and access to the restricted areas these might operate within are all considerations driving the test and evaluation (T E) of ECM validation, McCarthy adds.

One ECM validation trend emerging – due to limited access to ight systems or fully functional radar environment simulators – is customers re uesting more capabilities and sophistication for test and evaluation of ECM to reduce test cost and to speed up assessment.

“The test and evaluation of ECM is a continuous and rapidly evolving life cycle when new capabilities are discovered or suspected within the ECCMs,” McCarthy says.

“With the increasing capabilities of COTS test and measurement equipment, users can now rely on COTS equipment in the integral parts of ECM validation.”

Data sharing To work within the ECM validation life cycle, “they want COTS to have an open application programming interface (API) that can tie into their national database for threats – pulse descriptor words (PD ) and I D , McCarthy adds. They need access to unencrypted data and mass storage of large datasets. Finally, they need to operate with hardware-in-the-loop for both open-loop and closed-loop scenarios.”

ECM validation Simple re ections in a typical ECM, with digital radio-frequency memory (DRFM), now must consider the realistic multipath re exive nature of the target being protected – such as radar crosssection returns from an airplane cockpit, wings, and tail at different time offsets.

National Instruments customers working on early-stage assessment of novel radar and EW capability are increasingly requesting better integration with modeling and simulation tools. “This not only supports digital transformation initiatives, with intellectual property (IP) being shared throughout the development cycle, but also accelerates the process of transitioning a new idea from the whiteboard to a proof of concept,” says Twaits.

These power users also want a greater degree of out-of-the-box functionality for software-defined radio (SDR) devices for faster testbed prototyping. Our customers want to reduce the time spent working on elements of their testbed infrastructure, such as data movement interfaces and synchronization, so they can instead spend their time honing their waveforms or algorithms,” Twaits notes.

Defining more functionality within software As radar and E systems become increasingly software-defined, test and measurement solutions become more complex.

National Instruments gets requests for solutions that enable real-time simulation of radar targets with real-world environment conditions such as clutter, interference, and amming Increasingly, customers need software-defined scalable test systems that can be upgraded as threats and operating scenarios evolve,” Twaits says. “Being able to maintain ownership and control of their test approach is especially important where the waveforms used or threats simulated are based on confidential IP.

Figure 1 | The SMW200A Vector Signal Generator from Rohde & Schwarz can be equipped with a maximum of two internal baseband modules four fading simulator modules. This concept yields two full-featured vector signal generators in a single unit. www.militaryembedded.com

“Providing basic scenarios such as antenna scan patterns, Doppler, multi-emitter, and moving emitter simulations are some of the basic building blocks now offered in COTS test equipment,” McCarthy says. “This allows benchtop validation of the electronic warfare systems to test as they y.’ Additional functionality, such as simulating GPS constellations in the same platform, can also provide test validation of position, navigation, and timing systems associated with the EW devices.”

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Test & measurement trends

A low-latency, closed-loop system configuration of the COTS, such as a radar echo generator configuration, can validate the functional radar performance for things like moving-target indicator (MTI) sensitivity and minimum-detectable signal (MDS),” McCarthy adds.

The industry is constantly evaluating how to take advantage of improvements or advanced processing capability, and Twaits thinks more of the system should be defined within a exible software infrastructure. Traditional electronic warfare test systems can’t model a threat in a true closed-loop way, so software models will need to change significantly, which will impact how we do system test and the hardware that can be used,” he says.

Low-latency, closed-loop requirements are driving more software capability that will reside within test hardware (FPGA), and “while traditionally this has been an expensive test hurdle, we continue to invest in new methods to move ‘test digital signal processor’ (DSP) from general purpose processors (GPP) to more capable test processing hardware,” Twaits continues. “We also expect emerging digital engineering trends to produce significant improvements to the entire test process. Obviously, the majority of the market isn’t at that point yet, but we believe this will drastically affect how software, specifically test, is executed.

(Figure 2.)

Radar and EW systems that can be upgraded as new threats emerge – whether through software updates or machine-learned behavior – are more complex to test, Twaits points out. “And as assessing machine-learning/artificial intelligence (ML/AI) systems’ “software testing’ significantly increases, it to a large degree becomes part of algorithm development,” he notes.

Figure 2 | PXI-based, modular RF instruments from National Instruments provide scalability as new EW testing requirements emerge.

Open architecture trends Demand for more functionality in software and more data sharing typically trends toward more open architecture designs. Open architectures like PXI Express

COGNITIVE EW SYSTEMS One of the emerging trends in the military arena is cognitive electronic warfare (EW) systems. “The traditional approach to testing electronic countermeasures has been to define a number of test cases or scenarios, simulate threat systems within a systems integration lab or open-air range, and to assess how the ECM dealt with those threats, says Jeremy Twaits, solutions marketer, Aerospace, Defense, Government Business Unit, for National Instruments (Austin, Texas).

“This works for a legacy system, since it has a fixed set of capabilities,” he continues. “It’s preprogrammed to deal with a specific set of threats or engagement scenarios, which helps set a boundary on the number of test scenarios. For a novel cognitive electronic warfare system, which learns and adapts its behavior as it encounters new scenarios, there are infinite possible test cases, and it must handle asyet-unknown threats, making it difficult to assess its performance.”

Since we don’t often have access to near-peer adversary systems that will be faced in the field, and cognitive EW systems need to be able to defeat threats they’ve never seen, “the best we can do is test

34 September 2021

against systems that are representative of what could be encountered in the field,” Twaits says.

The EW world can learn from an industry that has been through these issues, he points out, such as advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). “In an ADAS test, a software simulator generates synthetic inputs for the vehicle’s cameras, fooling the electronic control unit (ECU) into thinking it’s driving, forcing it to process the inputs and decide how the vehicle should react, feeding back into the vehicle bus, and controlling the vehicle in simulation,” he says. “ADAS systems must go through thousands of hours of simulated driving before they’ll hit the road.”

Cognitive EW systems will require the same treatment before being deployed. “Rather than a virtual test-drive environment, a virtual battlefield is needed,” Twaits adds. “Automotive sensors in-the-loop are replaced with RF Rx and Tx [receive and transmit] functionality. This approach allows test cases for electronic warfare to be covered in simulation, before reaching the hardware integration lab or open-air range – allowing for greater test coverage at lower cost.”

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provide several benefits to engineers testing radar and E systems – including exibility and scalability, built-in capability, and IP ownership.

As far as exibility and scalability goes, if adoption of new defense assets is slow, it eases the burden of both developing counter systems and test capability,” Twaits says. “Traditional test systems could be open-loop because adversarial systems had much more static behavior, but as new threats with artificial intelligence emerge at a much faster pace it becomes vital for the test system to adapt quickly with appropriate test capability. In a large majority of cases, it’s cumbersome or even impossible to have COTS vendors implement the necessary test capability.

Because of this, open architectures are required to develop the appropriate test in a timely manner.”

In terms of built-in capability, “open architectures typically provide infrastructure benefits that save the engineer from spending time and effort building it themselves,” he explains. “For example, PXI Express uses PCI Express on the backplane for high-throughput data movement, which is critical for shuttling wide bandwidth I/Q data from RF I/O to processing nodes. It also provides triggering and synchronization capability across multiple modules and chassis to allow phase coherence across a radar array.”

Moreover, defense contractors “often need to maintain control of their test systems, not ceding ownership to T M [test and measurement] vendors, especially where classified waveforms or scenarios are involved,” Twaits says. “Open software-defined architectures allow the organization to build on COTS hardware, while keeping control of confidential IP. Open architectures on the embedded side – such as SOSA Sensor Open Systems Architecture] and FACE [Future Airborne Capability Environment – simplify system upgrades by defining common hardware and messaging interfaces,” he notes. This fixed interface simplifies the integration of new processing elements and allows solutions to include a mix of vendor elements focusing on best www.militaryembedded.com

of breed, rather than best of what the system can accommodate. In the world of test and measurement, this is a blessing and a curse. Having a fixed interface simplifies the testing infrastructure required to characterize a system, but that ability to rapidly upgrade can present challenges because required test scenarios may need to evolve with new hardware elements. To meet this challenge of a common infrastructure with ever-evolving capabilities, a exible software-driven test infrastructure is needed.

One of the biggest limitations of open architectures “is the compromise on the availability to get leading-edge performance,” McCarthy says. “Today, some open architectures have standardized on 10 Gb IQ streaming data rates, while advanced COTS can already provide 40 Gb IQ streaming data rates and 1 GHz of bandwidth. The standards driving high-speed interfaces are not driven by the test and measurement community or the radar/electronic warfare test community, but rather the cloud computing and data center markets.” MES

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MIL TECH TRENDS

MOSA provides the flexibility the DoD needs to modernize the battlespace

By Nicholas Borton Faced with operating across an increasingly complex and contested battlespace, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) must innovate at pace to successfully counter emerging threats around the world. Central to the DoD’s multidomain strategy is the Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) – a concept enabling the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force to rapidly integrate best of breed subsystems on board any platform type in any operational environment.

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Test & measurement trends

Stryker vehicles being prepped for a training mission at Forward Operating Base Santa Fe, Fort Irwin, California. Photo by Army National Guard Sgt. Adeline Witherspoon/courtesy U.S. Department of Defense.

Whether engaging violent extremist organizations in the Middle East and North Africa or peer adversaries in Eastern Europe and the Indo-Pacific region, the U.S. military must operate as a truly joint force on land, in the air, in space, and at sea.

In order to ensure mission success and most importantly, the survivability of the warfighter across this multidomain battlespace, the DoD must enable, enhance, and accelerate the deployment of affordable, capable, and interoperable sensor systems to provide the armed services with the tactical advantage over highly capable adversaries.

Central to the DoD’s multidomain strategy is the Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) – a concept enabling the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force to rapidly integrate best of breed subsystems on board any platform type in any operational environment.

MOSA was mandated in Section 805 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 to be a baseline expectation whenever a system requires adaptability. The DoD re-emphasized the MOSA initiative in the 2019 Tri-Service Memorandum, calling the need for rapid evolution of capabilities and technologies using architecture modularity, open systems standards, and appropriate

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to maintain their competitive advantage and helping the DoD use, re-use and repurpose solutions for years to come.

Embracing the change Over the past 15 to 20 years, industry has watched various open architecture (OA) efforts come into being and then disappear cyclically. Various branches of the armed services have contributed to specific OAs in their own way, pushing the OA standards to solve their respective problems.

The pivot from pushing a handful of siloed OAs to the strategic MOSA initiatives marks a fundamental change in the market. But to fully exploit the potential of MOSA, a series of challenges associated with compliance, ualification, and procurement models must also be addressed.

business practices a warfighting imperative. Further, in 2021, the U.S. passed into law the requirement for MOSA to be included in the DoD’s acquisition process.

Today, MOSA is an umbrella for several of the DoD emerging standards. Examples include the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Consortium, an open collaboration between government, industry, and academia members to create an “open system reference architectures targeted towards sensor systems Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE), another cross-collaboration like SOSA focused on safety-critical airborne software reuse the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command’s Hardware Open Systems Technologies (HOST) and the U.S. Army’s C5ISR/E Modular Open Suite of Standards (CMOSS) .

These standards will provide the DoD with various benefits › › › ›

Shortening cycle times to counter emerging threats Reducing integration time and costs Reaching higher technology-readiness levels (TRLs) faster Enabling high-level competition for capabilities and technology

The MOSA has the potential to create a real transformation in the way the defense industry and the DoD interact and develop critical solutions. There will be challenges to overcome, but ultimately the benefits of the MOSA will enable a marketplace where the best modular solutions can be developed at the pace of relevance – enabling warfighters www.militaryembedded.com

Previous attempts to promote adoption of OA standards focused solely on technological advancements and standardization. The inclusion and tight integration of business and industry concerns in the broader MOSA initiative, in contrast, is what helped evolve the OA ecosystem into a larger, more strategic approach, embraced by both government and industry. The realization and vision to focus on the formation of markets, which enables competition while also fostering openness and standardization in technology created something of a double bottom line, which aligned industry and government players and thereby enabled the MOSA initiative to reali e its desired benefits.

Consortia like FACE and SOSA are embracing this new vision of modularity and openness which not only takes the technical problems into account, but also positions business considerations as first-class concerns. Needs such as protection of intellectual property and formation of open markets are examples of those business concerns that the MOSA initiative is tackling that were largely ignored in the past OA cycles.

Additional impacts Additional impacts include the need to distinguish open architecture from MOSA.

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Test & measurement trends

Since MOSA is an approach, it comprises both business and technical aspects, whereas OA is a type of system architecture intended to make it easy to replace or upgrade components. Open architecture in and of itself does not require modularity, but MOSA promotes a modular approach to solution development that is combined with actual OA standards to increase interoperability of those systems.

So how to tell that an OA will work within the MOSA framework? The quickest method is to check the standard against the requirements for modularity and openness. Modularity: Modular entities encapsulate functionality and behaviors with welldefined interfaces that align with DoD procurement needs also, modular entities are “gray boxes” which protect the IP of the entity vendor.

Openness Is it widely available, with published definitions Do all interested parties have the opportunity to shape the standard/architecture? Is there is a governance process for stakeholders to participate in its development and evolution. In addition, a third-party conformance verification and certification process must be in place to ensure adherence and integrity within the market.

For the business aspects of MOSA to properly function, the modularity and openness re uirements must be satisfied. If any pieces are missing, the business portion of MOSA will be greatly hindered and many of the benefits derived from the entirety of the MOSA initiative will not occur or will re uire significant extra effort to achieve.

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industry partners who truly understand the MOSA concept. The DoD envisages an open marketplace in which all relevant subsystems of a capability can be selected as and when necessary, depending upon current and emerging threat assessments.

This situation means that industry partners – who previously might have supplied entire end-to-end solutions to the DoD – could be providing a significantly smaller piece of a wider capability. But where there is change, there is also opportunity as some forms of traditional markets close, other opportunities arise to take their place. Instead of focusing on developing only a few end-to-end systems, now a single company can integrate its best technology, alongside the technology of other companies, into multiple systems across the DoD. Such a collaborative integration effort leads to better, more capable systems that will deliver the best possible technology to the warfighter.

Due to this change, small to mediumsized companies like SRC are taking the MOSA initiative seriously, shifting internal investments and programs to support emerging CMOSS and SOSAaligned systems. Industry is already responding through the development of more software-centric business models, where minimum viable products are supplied to the DoD at the earliest opportunity, with future developments being achieved through a series of incremental software upgrades.

To balance costs, industry is also driving down the cost of hardware development, shifting from ‘boutique’ or custom-developed hardware and where possible, utilizing more commercial offthe-shelf (COTS) hardware solutions.

This decoupling of software, hardware, and systems presents a new challenge for the DoD and industry. Whole systems with comprehensive capabilities will still need to be developed, manufactured, integrated, and sustained. Whereas once the DoD might have worked with a single entity providing a combined software and hardware solution, now it www.militaryembedded.com

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Test & measurement trends

is most certainly going to work with two or more providers, leading integration and collaboration efforts. Consequently, the DoD will need to reinvent its relationship with system-integrator industry partners. The upshot: MOSA provides the opportunity for both the DoD and industry to work together in the systemintegrator role in order to leverage the strengths that both factions bring to the table.

The MOSA shift will also result in many different groups within industry obtaining a more e ual seat at the table – many providers, supplying many pieces to form the whole solution. Not only does this dividing of systems into smaller components enable the “best-of” potential inherent in MOSA, it also simplifies longterm sustainment and facilitates upgradability to ensure warfighters’ access to the best capabilities and technological advancements industry has to offer.

Understanding the tradeoffs and benefits of OA The larger shift towards MOSA provides many benefits – namely, decreased integration times, higher TRLs, and competition in capability development.

But with these benefits come some tradeoffs with adhering to the OA standards in the MOSA space, because adhering to any standard reduces choices. The reduction of choices also reduces the ability to highly optimize a solution for a particular problem. This could mean an end solution that is slightly bigger, slightly heavier, slightly more power hungry, and perhaps with a lower compute performance than a purely custom solution could provide. But none of these “trade spaces” should be seen as deal-breakers. When an appropriate OA is chosen, there is still room for creativity in overcoming these tradeoffs.

Overcoming size, weight, and power (SWaP) plus performance issues is different for each OA: Some OAs are better at optimizing for SWaP or performance than others – choosing the standard that provides the best solutions for the most important considerations is crucial to an optimal solution. In addition, having www.militaryembedded.com

Figure 1 | Shown is the concept for the U.S. Army Terrestrial Layer System Brigade Combat Team (TLS-BCT) system. Artist’s rendering courtesy Lockheed Martin.

heterogeneous compute capabilities can significantly mitigate the OA performance and power tradeoffs.

While the responsibility to produce high-quality, high-performing solutions falls on industry, there is an equally important portion of the MOSA responsibility that falls on the DoD to ensure success.

The DoD responsibilities in the MOSA realm are twofold first is an upfront investment in technology, which is often higher than a specialized custom solution, and second is a long-term commitment to updating the OA solution with the latest technology to reduce SWaP and performance compromises. hile the cost of the initial upfront investment can be difficult to overcome, that investment helps to reduce integration times, achieve a higher initial system TRL, and ultimately encourages competitive procurement for the solution’s initial set of capabilities.

While tradeoffs exist in the MOSA ecosystem, they are not insurmountable. Together, the DoD and industry can take steps to mitigate the trade spaces and develop capable solutions that meet warfighters’ needs.

Path to adapting OA Today, industry partners like SRC are heavily investing time and energy into forging a future for a truly MOSA ecosystem across the DoD. Those efforts can be seen in the success of existing standards like the Army’s CMOSS standard.

Enabled by the integration of low-S aP software-defined radios (SDRs) capable of driving radar, EW, and ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] system upgrades, CMOSS is enabling reconfigurability and reuse of technologies across the Army, in addition to reducing costs and mitigating technical obsolescence.

CMOSS is playing a critical role in the development and integration of systems in larger programs that will bring crucial cyber-electromagnetic activities (CEMA) capabilities to the battlefield. Examples of CMOSS-compliant programs currently in development include the Army’s Terrestrial Layer System Brigade Combat Team (TLS-BCT, Figure 1), Terrestrial Layer System Echelons Above Brigade (TLS-EAB), and

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Multi-Function Electronic Warfare Air Large (MFEW-AL). TLS-BCT will bring integrated signals intelligence, electronic warfare, and cyber capabilities to the brigade level, enabling joint all-domain operations across the force, while EAB is a Division, Corps and Multi-Domain Task Force capability planned as an extended-range, terrestrial sensing, collection, and electromagnetic attack system of systems. MFEW-AL will bring similar electronic sensing and attack capabilities to group 3 and above UAS, helping to supplement TLS capabilities by ying higher and farther down range, while seeing around obstacles into terrain blocked areas.

SRC is developing a family of MOSA/OA SDRs to meet the needs of programs adhering to various MOSA standards. These SDRs combine wideband radio freuency (RF) spectrum, significant signal processing power, and multiple input/output (I/O) interfaces into scalable solutions that are able defend against technologically

Figure 2 | The SRC7778 CMOSS/SOSA aligned DSP payload sports a 3U OpenVPX platform aimed at high-performance DSP applications. SRC Inc. photo.

sophisticated, near-peer adversaries – now, and in the future.

Examples include the SRC5986A Standard and SRC5986E Rugged Micro Transceivers – both small form-factor multi-channel SDR systems currently used to support EW, radar and ISR systems.

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SRC has also designed a series of CMOSS/SOSA Aligned Plug-in-Cards, including the SRC6458 CMOSS SDR, a variant of SRC’s microtransceiver SDR series the SRC 43 3U VP chassis – a seven-slot, modular platform designed to support highly intensive radar signal processing applications and CEMA and the SRC7778 CMOSS/SOSA aligned DSP payload, which comprises a 3U OpenVPX hardware-accelerated processing platform designed for high-performance DSP applications. (Figure 2.)

The large number of programs leveraging the OAs within the MOSA framework demonstrates the DoD’s desire to build these MOSA markets to enhance system interoperability and capability.

As more programs continue to leverage MOSA and help build these markets, a few questions must be considered: › How much OA should be used for this solution or system? › How much “custom solution” is allowable in the system? › Can “custom solutions” be properly separated to facilitate a transition to OA when technology or standards advance? www.militaryembedded.com

› Which OAs should be considered for which areas of the system?

The answers to these questions will have important effects as industry and the DoD work to balance system performance and SWaP constraints with the interoperability, repairability, and modularity provided by adherence to MOSA. These questions also force system designers to choose which OA ecosystem the system will support and draw from. As more systems and solutions consolidate on a smaller number of OA standards that fit their unique needs, the markets around those standards will gain strength. While these markets grow, it is important to realize that each OA will maintain their own individual markets due to technological differences which make them incompatible with each other.

This situation presents a challenge for the DoD and industry partners: To improve OA standards on a regular basis, at pace with technology, while also finding commonality between the various open architectures.

Syncing up standards The SOSA consortium is tackling the problem of commonality and standards evolution head-on. One of SOSA’s guiding architecture principles is to leverage existing standards wherever possible, which has led to SOSA becoming a “best of breed” OA standard with respect to sensor systems.

Companies must identify collaborative efforts in alignment with the DoD to expertly integrate OA-compliant solutions across the full spectrum of capabilities.

Multifunctional companies capable of designing, developing, integrating, testing, and sustaining such solutions will be positioned to solve the DoD’s most challenging problems as it seeks to successfully adopt and roll out the MOSA. MOSA, if correctly implemented, gives the services the opportunity to have a more unified toolbox. Industry partners can develop both specific solutions for niche missions and more universal systems that can easily be modified and repurposed to fit the needs of multiple missions. This approach would increase research and development speed, giving the DoD faster access to the right tools for the job, while simultaneously providing the exibility to re-use and modify those tools as necessary to maintain a ready, efficient, and effective fighting force.

Nicholas Borton is a machine intelligence hardware architect at SRC, Inc. and vice chair of the SOSA Steering Committee. Borton has worked at SRC for more than 17 years and is currently conducting research in edge-machine-learning to maximize the use of size, weight, power, and cost, in addition to furthering open standards adoption at SRC. Borton earned his bachelor’s degrees in both computer engineering and electrical engineering from Clarkson University.

SRC Inc. • https://www.srcinc.com/

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INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT

Managing supply chain, obsolescence, and counterfeit parts

Semiconductor supply-chain challenges

By John McHale, Group Editorial Director Military suppliers, being essential businesses, weathered the pandemic and economic shutdowns admirably thanks to strong defense funding. Yet even this stalwart industry is feeling the ill effects of the global chip shortage and the consequences of its reliance on offshore semiconductor manufacturing. The U.S. government is committed to returning chip production to the States, but whether that move will be enough and in time to save the industry is yet to be determined.

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Much of the world’s supply of semiconductors for use in high-performance computer systems are made outside the U.S., in Asia, specifically in Taiwan. hen COVID-19 spread, the world saw industrial and automotive plants shut down and the fabs that provide the semiconductors and for electronic systems also reduced inventory, fearing reduced demand with folks no longer going to work and huddling indoors in quarantine.

“With the new tech shortages, military electronics suppliers face a perfect storm of multipole factors negatively impacting the supply chain,” says Frank Cavallaro, CEO of A2 Global (St. Petersburg, Florida). Cavallaro points out three main causes: › “There has been consolidation at the brand level and at the back end/ raw material level with silicon fabrication facilities overseas. Visibility and control have gone away and they find it has becomes a pecking order, and they are not at the top of that list.

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It takes time to bring this capacity online and they will not be building today’s technology, but the next generation technology, the next geometry reduction.”

Closures were not even economically forced, but done to protect against spread of infection. “During the pandemic, many auto plants closed to reduce COVID infections among their employees,” says Ray Alderman, chairman of the board of VITA, in his “State of the VITA Technology Industry Report Spring 2021 Edition.” “The carmakers called up the computer chip factories and delayed shipments of their orders.

Production started up in mid-2020, but a shortage of semiconductor chips shuttered those factories yet again in early 2021.”

In short: They stopped making computer chips, then everybody started staying home and wanted new computers and gaming consoles to keep them company.

“With everyone staying home and working from home, the demand for new cellphones, new TVs, computers, and game boxes soared,” he continues. “The semiconductor industry shifted their fabs over to make more complex and more profitable chips for those markets. When the carmakers called up the chip companies and requested their parts, there was no production capacity left to make them.”

The result was lead time that went from two to four weeks to almost a year for some components. Military computer suppliers found it quite frustrating.

This current atmosphere is unique, says Jason Wade, president of ZMicro (San Diego, California). “For some electronic components we are seeing 52-week lead times. Tesla builds factories in less time.”

Not only components have disappeared, but component suppliers have also gone out of business. “Some manufacturers disappeared off the map in the last couple years,” says Michael McCormack, president and CEO of CPU Tech (Prescott, Arizona).

“Capacitors, resistors, and other components have disappeared out of Taiwan and China. Everything got decimated, pushing lead times out and increasing pricing.

› A second cause is the pandemic: Semiconductor manufacturers underestimated the demand for PC chips due to a surge of work-fromhome employees and other reasons. › Restarting the fabs: When the fabs closed due to COVID issues, it wasn’t like ipping a light switch to turn it back on. Generally, it’s an 18- to 25-week lead time before the first product is ready to go.

Depending on manufacturer prowess, that gap could be even longer that’s also before you factor in demand or geopolitical concerns.

“Any time there is a hiccup, you have to start from zero again to get to the ualification process. www.militaryembedded.com

While some of these supply-chain problems existed pre-COVID, the pandemic made them worse. “When the pandemic hit everything changed, so the material supply challenge is just a symptom of that bigger picture,” says Steve Motter, vice president, business development, IEE (Van Nuys, California). “It’s really impacted manufacturing channels, as they don’t have the inventory at the OEM level as in years past. In many cases these inventories have gone from 100 to ero. e are seeing where distributors are going back to factory lead times. That’s an outcome of the push to have less inventory at the OEMs and at the distributors.”

Defense industry impact The military-industrial complex still exists, but it does not have the power to drive the roadmaps and tech investment of semiconductor manufacturing. So that sector is at the mercy of the market just like the rest of the consumer world.

“Historically, the military drove technology innovation in their platforms, which live for decades,” Cavallaro says. “They could drive the roadmaps and lead times of semiconductor manufacturers. Since the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) transitioned to a COTS [commercial off-the-shelf] procurement model in the 1990s, that became less and less the case. Today, the military is more a consumer of technology than a driver and is at the whims of commercial supply chains, especially when it comes to semiconductors.

“The military doesn’t don’t have the capability to fund wafer starts and tech spends and will continue to chase end of life (EOL),” he continues. “Semiconductor life cycles today are measured in 90-day cycles, not years or decades.”

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INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT Military electronics suppliers from printed circuit board (PCB) makers to ruggedcomputing designers to the primes and system integrators are having to pivot from traditional procurement practices and get creative.

“They have caused a refocus on resources to either redesign products or go to the open market to find them, says Maria Gillespie, Director of Product Marketing – Die for Micross (Orlando, Florida). “This of course has a ripple effect and raises a need for other services such as counterfeit risk mitigation and/or component harvesting. In some cases,

Rugged computing & thermal management this shift is delaying production while also depleting any reserve inventory. There continue to be severe supply and demand gaps for industries left out of foundry prioritization. I expect to see an increase in cited DO ratings, and likely more pressure to ensure they are being added and included.”

Dealing with the current shortages is a different animal than managing EOL situations.

“Managing new product or current product supply chains is whole new paradigm,” Cavallaro says. “The military integrators and the DoD are not used to managing their semiconductor supply chain without considerable time and energy spent on it. They are often two or three levels removed from semiconductor purchasing and are more focused on EOL and long tail challenges, which deal with managing shortages of older tech.”

COTS suppliers and roadmaps COTS suppliers are used to dealing with product shortages for components that go EOL and often must deal with managing the short life cycles of commercial components, but that may not necessarily help them with the semiconductor shortage.

DOD TASKS INTEL TO PROVIDE FOUNDRY SERVICES Intel won a contract from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), through the NSTXL consortium-based S2MARTS Other Transaction Authority (OTA), to provide commercial foundry services in the first phase of the DoD’s multiphase Rapid Assured Microelectronics Prototypes – Commercial (RAMP-C) program.

The RAMP-C program was created to boost development of a U.S.-based commercial semiconductor foundry ecosystem to fabricate the custom and integrated circuits and commercial products required for critical DoD systems. Intel Foundry Services, Intel’s dedicated foundry business launched during 2021, will lead the work.

“One of the most profound lessons of the past year is the strategic importance of semiconductors, and the value to the United States of having a strong domestic semiconductor industry,” says Pat Gelsinger, Intel CEO. “Intel is the sole American company both designing and manufacturing logic semiconductors at the leading edge of technology. When we launched Intel Foundry Services earlier this year, we were excited to have the opportunity to make our capabilities available to a wider range of partners, including in the U.S. government, and it is great to see that potential being fulfilled through programs like RAMP-C.” Intel Foundry Services will partner with industry players including IBM, Cadence, Synopsys, and others, to support the U.S. government’s needs for designing and manufacturing assured integrated circuits by establishing and demonstrating a semiconductor IP ecosystem to develop and fabricate test chips on Intel 18A, Intel’s most advanced process technology.

“The RAMP-C program will enable both commercial foundry customers and the Department of Defense to take advantage of Intel’s significant investments in leading-edge process technologies,” said Randhir Thakur, president, Intel Foundry Services (Santa Clara, California).

Intel recently announced plans to become a major provider of U.S.-based capacity for foundry customers, including an investment of approximately $20 billion to build two new factories in Arizona. (Figure 1.) These fabs will provide committed capacity for foundry customers and support expanding requirements for Intel products.

The DoD has recently sought to diversify its approach to securing advanced microprocessors by leveraging commercially available technologies developed by U.S. companies, according to an Intel release.

46 September 2021

Figure 1 | One of the new Intel fabs being built in Arizona intended to provide committed capacity for foundry customers.

Other than Intel, the majority of U.S.-based chip designers are fabless, which means they design and sell integrated circuits that are fabricated by contract manufacturers called foundries.

Today, more than 80 percent of leading-edge manufacturing capacity is concentrated in Asia, leaving the DoD with limited onshore access to foundry technology capable of meeting the country’s long-term needs for secure microelectronics.

In October 2020, DoD launched the RAMP program using the Advanced Commercial Capabilities Project Phase 1 Other Transaction Authority.

RAMP advances and demonstrates commercial leading-edge physical “back-end” assured design methods that transform a high-level chip design into the complex, technology-specific polygon form that is required as input for the wafer fabrication process, according to an Intel release. Intel is a participant in this project.

In 2020, DoD also awarded Intel the second phase of its State-of-the-Art Heterogeneous Integration Prototype (SHIP) program, Intel officials say.

The SHIP program enables the U.S. government to access Intel’s U.S. advanced semiconductor-packaging capabilities with the goal of developing new approaches toward measurably secure, heterogeneous integration and test of advanced packaging solutions. SHIP will develop the capability to use advanced commercial technology to package and test the integrated circuits designed in RAMP and fabricated through RAMP-C.

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“[They] are better suited for typical EOL, long-tail tech sourcing,” Cavallaro says. “The challenge today is that the shortages are not just with EOL products but with current technology. Before the current shortages, they were managing a handful of parts in long tail, but now it’s a mix of long tail and current tech and none are getting attention from the supply chain.”

Developing roadmaps is now even more challenging. “I think the visibility is always difficult when you go past 1 0 or 360 days, Cavallaro says. These folks manage long tail supply issues, but now they are having to focus on supply-chain interruption, which means long tail gets neglected even more. This is becoming an increasing problem for them, for managing DMSMS [diminishing manufacturing sources and material shortages] challenges. There isn’t just one solution, either. It will take a cocktail of supplychain strategies to stay ahead. ou can’t put your finger in the dike and expect to stop the ood a leak will spring somewhere else, Cavallaro says. The problem can’t be solved with one type of methodology.”

There are so many potential bottlenecks – wafers being built at one mega plant, technology being developed at another plant, packaging and test being done somewhere else, he continues. ou can’t point a single finger. In some cases, maybe the most economical solution is not the most efficient.

Managing the inventory for the most critical programs takes constant planning, often at least a year ahead.

“Thanks to tariffs and other delays, even our strongest suppliers have gone from eight weeks to 30 weeks for their delivery timetables, says Marti McCurdy, owner

and CEO of Spirit Electronics (Phoenix, Arizona). “We are trying not to play into any of that. We work to make sure the most critical programs do not get shortchanged on supply by planning 12 months ahead for such situations. Our suppliermanaged inventory program is helping secure the supply chain with projected forecasting and placing orders to secure a solid backlog with our suppliers even though the lead time is long.”

Defense electronics suppliers must ensure that they continue to strategize for the long term even with these shortterm challenges, and that they’re not just reacting to each crisis.

“Although we have in many cases entered a reactive time, the need to understand future demand (forecasting) continues to be key,” Micross’ Gillespie says. “If we are to get out of this at some point we do need to start looking further ahead and asking that of customers.

Utilizing a company like Micross to step

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INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT

Rugged computing & thermal management

in at the die and wafer level and provide packaging, testing, or product continuation solutions to mitigate some of these issues right now can be a potential path forward for suppliers.”

Yet, many of the COTS suppliers feel their experience gives them an advantage that others don’t have. “As a supplier of military systems that leverage commercial components, we are used to managing the supply chain and obsolescence challenges that come with commercial technology,” ZMicro’s Wade says. “That leaves us better prepared than others.”

Geopolitical concerns Geopolitical concerns around semiconductor manufacturing have U.S. government leaders concerned as much as those issues related to the pandemic. Many feel the

U.S. is too dependent on semiconductor foundries located offshore in Taiwan.

While the U.S. is friendly with Taiwan, China still considers Taiwan part of China and they want it back. A potential war over Taiwan’s independence leaves U.S. officials uite concerned.

“Taiwanese contract manufacturers account for two-thirds of global chip sales,” according to an article in the May 1-7 issue of the Economist titled “Living on the Edge.” The largest of these is Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which has pledged to open a foundry in Arizona in 2024. Even with that expansion, though, the company still maintains most of its expertise in its home location, with about 0 of its 56,800 staff … based in Taiwan,” according to the Economist article.

“Many Taiwanese IC suppliers depend on China for their components,” McCormick says. “China has placed tremendous geopolitical pressure on these suppliers, so that if they don’t respond right away to a request their supply chain is cut off.

We made a decision to eliminate our dependency on China and Taiwan [and] moved our supply chain to more U.S. suppliers.”

It’s not just the manufacturing but also the expertise and quality of product these Taiwanese fabs produce that will have to be duplicated on U.S. shores.

“TSMC and Samsung are the only two semiconductor companies to push transistor geometries down to the 7 nm level, and both are moving toward 5 nm processes now. Intel has tried and failed to get past 10 nm for years,” Alderman says.

“All the advanced processor chips today are being made by TSMC and Samsung, which presents a potential supply chain problem for many segments of the U.S. economy if something goes wrong.”

The Wall Street Journal also reported that TSMC also “plans to increase the prices of its most advanced chips by roughly 10 , while less advanced chips used by customers like auto makers will cost about 20 more, in article titled

48 September 2021

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“World’s Largest Chip Maker to Raise Prices, Threatening Costlier Electronics.”

microelectronics,” says Larry Hayden, senior director, sales and business development, Vorago Technologies (Austin, Texas).

These mounting economic and domestic pressures are pushing the U.S. government to return the capability to the U.S., but expensive challenges remain.

“Domestic production is very focused on lower-cost ways to respond to military needs,” says Dave Young, CTO for Cobham Advanced Electronic Solutions (CAES – Arlington, Virginia). Bringing semiconductor manufacturing onshore “means competitiveness from a cost standpoint will be challenging,” he continues. “But it needed a kick-start, as we are seeing lead times taking as long 1 months and need all avenues for our disposal to meet demands.” CAES, which historically has been foundryagnostic, now partners with the SkyWater Technology foundry in Bloomington, Minnesota, for U.S.-based strategic radhard manufacturing, Young adds.

This isn’t the first time there has been a push to increase U.S. semiconductor manufacturing,” he says. “In the past these have been seen as fads, but what is unique this time is the significant investment from a variety of sources – from the U.S. government to Intel to global foundries – into U.S. facilities.

The DoD is increasing funding for domestic microelectronics production and investment is necessary for onshore IC production to succeed. “For, example the Air Force’s FY 2022 budget request calls for $885 million for commercial

Part of the DoD’s plans revolve around the Rapid Assured Microelectronics Prototypes – Commercial (RAMP-C) program. The program was created to facilitate the use of a commercially viable onshore foundry ecosystem that will ensure DoD access to leading-edge technology, while enabling the defense industrial base to leverage the benefits of high-volume semiconductor manufacturing and design infrastructure of commercial partners like Intel, according to an Intel release. For more on RAMP-C and Intel’s plans for chip manufacturing in the U.S., see sidebar on Page 46.

The domestic winner for expanded semiconductor production appears to be the Phoenix area. “TSMC has announced plans to build a new fab in Phoenix. In late March, Intel [also] announced two new fabs for the Phoenix area,” he continues.

“Phoenix is becoming a southwest version of Silicon Valley. Samsung was planning to build a new fab in Austin, Texas, but the winter storm that cut power to that region for days in February 2021 has inspired them to look at other locations like Phoenix.”

Cavallaro says he thinks the DoD’s plans will go through “as our awareness and acuteness of the problem is strong. It also has a broad base of support from the political side. Whether it will be enough is the billion-dollar question. If one does the math on wafer starts, roadmaps, and the sheer number of wafers needed to meet demand, there is a fear we will come up acutely short. et, with the demand profile as dynamic as it is, it’s tough to tell how things will be so far in the future,” he continues. MES

AFTERMARKET SUPPLIERS FACE DIFFERENT SUPPLY-CHAIN CHALLENGES The semiconductor aftermarket suppliers specialize in maintaining product lines for decades after the original manufacturer discontinued them. This is a critical need for military platforms, which can have life spans that range beyond 40 and 50 years in some cases.

“The aftermarket business cycle is typically the opposite from the rest of the defense-electronics market,” says Dale Lillard, president of Lansdale Semiconductor in Phoenix, Arizona. “When the government doesn’t have money to buy new toys, they make sure they maintain the old ones.”

While it’s steady in the long term the military aftermarket does have its peaks and valleys depending on funding trends. One of these is Foreign Military Sales (FMS) as U.S. allies maintain older aircraft that still need the products Lillard’s team provides.

“The military market has been slow this year,” Lillard says. “Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) purchasing has come to a halt. but it will come back – it’s just a question of when. We were also impacted when the Biden administration shut down sales to UAE and Saudi Arabia. Many of their weapon-system platforms made in the 1980s and 1990s still use designs we produce.”

That said, “we are still pretty robust,” Lillard continues. “Commercial product sales are up about 10 percent over last year and the year before.

Thanks in part to a Motorola/Freescale product line we acquired when they got out of wireless market.”

www.militaryembedded.com

Lillard says he expects DLA funding to return for foreign military sales as the older designs are what they sell.

Regarding the semiconductor shortages facing the automotive industry and others, Lillard says it comes down to their business model specifically their “just-in-time inventory practices. They buy it the day before they use it, so they’re on the trailing edge of the semiconductor world.

This is compounded by the fact that they don’t own the production process like contract manufacturers. They shut down purchase orders when they thought the virus would slow down the industry. They didn’t buy far enough ahead and when it kicked back up the semiconductor manufacturers changed capacity to PC processors.

“In the aftermarket world we do the opposite,” he continues. “I deal with life cycle issues; I buy piece parts that in many cases are to hard to get, so when I have a good source I need I buy tons of it and put in inventory.

While the aftermarket doesn’t follow that same model, they still face supply-chain headaches. “My manufacturer for the commercial market, based in Indonesia, was forced to shut down immediately one day,” Lillard says. “When I looked at where to go next, there were not a lot of options and I wanted to avoid China. So, I brought the test part of that business into the U.S. For the assembly, I moved it to Thailand.”

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INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT

Demand for digital is on the rise and military organizations are responding in quick time

By Graham Grose

Despite an uncertain business climate, defense spending in the upcoming years is forecasted to remain in alignment with previous years; in some regions the figure is e en escalating hree specific initiati es ill dri e the future of defense logistics and build that all-important digital backbone for military – live-asset usage data, disconnected or “anywhere” military operations, and sustainability goals.

50 September 2021

Managing supply chain, obsolescence, and counterfeit parts

Recent years have left a number of industries facing instability and uncertainty for the defense sector, however, the experience has been a wake-up call. With budgets relatively unaffected, pressure to change has come from elsewhere.

Investments into advanced technology rather than traditional methods have been essential, as social distancing and remote working have demanded newfound collaboration methods from military organizations.

The accelerated adoption of technology has enabled military organizations and their in-service support partners to accumulate a wealth of useful data throughout their assets, people and software. Underpinned by this data foundation, there are three crucial developments I believe will shape defense logistics and support going forward and that will help build and enhance the essential digital backbone needed to support service delivery.

1. Predictive maintenance – finally AI, machine learning, and predictive analytics is no longer just a theory The possibilities offered by AI artificial intelligence and predictive analytics have been discussed considerably by military, industry, and academic commentators in recent years. But now, we are realistically closer than ever to converting these principles into actual maintenance strategies to revolutionize military-asset readiness.

The U.S. Congressional Research Service recently published a paper (https://fas. org/sgp/crs/natsec/R45178.pdf) summari ing how AI will in uence national security in the future. The paper confirms that progressive research is underway in the fields of intelligence collection and analysis, logistics, cyber and information operations, and in a variety of semi-autonomous and autonomous vehicles. AI has already seen action in military operations in Syria and Iraq, while within the U.K. Ministry of Defense (MOD), a vision for the transformation of the British Army

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for the digital age, predicting humanmachine partnerships would be “commonplace” by 2025 has been shared by General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith, chief of the general staff.

5G is a key facilitator for practical AI for military operations – its connectivity along with other proliferations of technology enables users to have near-realtime data exchange and paves the way for live maintenance updates from military assets such as aircraft or vehicles.

These updates can then be fed back into a logistics system, which will then optimize maintenance personnel on the ground to make seamless scheduled or even unexpected repairs.

Incorporating machine learning is the next step in making maintenance as predictive as possible, bringing the ability to combine this data and use AI to simulate assets in a digital twin environment. Add in pre-set requirements such as number of sortie hours required of individual assets, and AI and machine learning will allow OEMs and military organizations to simulate wear on critical components such as engines in a fully digital environment. These models can then be used to inform decision-making for the physical asset – turning simulated data into an “on the ground” strategic advantage.

2. Disconnected operations become a reality – anywhere, anytime Even in this current digital age, constant connectivity will not always be possible, which means that data analysis in real time will also be unachievable – and these situations will occur nowhere more so than in military operations. Gartner projects that “anywhere operations” is an emerging strategic technology trend of 2021, not just for defense but for all industries. The Gartner report defines anywhere operations as “an IT operating model designed to support customers everywhere, enable employees everywhere, and manage the deployment of business services across distributed infrastructures.”

The military – perhaps the sector with the most pressing strategic need to embrace the idea of so-called anywhere operations – often performs mission-critical disconnected operations in difficult-to-reach locations beyond a forward operating base. Optimizing operations in such a www.militaryembedded.com

disconnected setting means racing data back from these forward operating bases to a main operating base with the connectivity to inform maintenance and repair requirements.

But AI, machine learning, and predictive analytic capabilities cannot enhance maintenance cycles without data to work with – so this is where data connectivity is essential.

Therefore, in the upcoming period we can expect to see greater focus on supporting always-on software that collects data in the field then uploads, syncs, and acts on that information when an asset returns to base.

3. The strategic objective – sustainable operations Due to the nature of the defense sector, militaries and their in-service support partners may have felt immune from the area of sustainability, but times are changing, and sustainability will be subject to increased focus and examination in the future.

In August 2020, a joint U.K. MoD/industry white paper (https://www.kbr.com/en/insightsevents/thought-leadership/roadmap-sustainable-defence-support) was released, called Roadmap for Sustainable Defence Support the paper outlined the MOD drive to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. For their parts, the Swedish armed forces is committed to making changes based on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of the UN Agenda 2030, while the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has published a comprehensive sustainability report and implementation plan to fully outline a comprehensive approach to sustainability.

Logistics and support will play a core role in introducing sustainable operations and will be a force-wide undertaking. For this reason, Lieutenant General Richard Wardlaw, Chief of Defense Logistics and Support at the U.K. MOD, has gone on record with the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership – and at an interim briefing as part of the Defense Information Defense Sustainability Conference – to outline the strategic implications of climate change for the British army.

Assessing sustainability efforts from a logistics perspective also keys into the increasingly data-driven environment military organi ations are introducing First, more efficient asset management in terms of predictive maintenance will vastly reduce the logistics footprint associated with supporting complex equipment such as aircraft and vehicles. Next, the same software components that use data streams to help track asset performance and assess financial costs can track environmental costs as well.

Environmental impacts can be assigned to each asset and rolled up into a reporting structure to detail the overall environmental impacts of military operations.

Three developments – one common theme The effects of COVID-19 have varied by industry, but for the military, it has fast-tracked digital transformation. Now, the priority for military organizations and defense inservice support providers is consolidating their digital initiatives without proper software infrastructure in place, these organizations cannot unlock the full potential of this digital backbone.

There is a recurring digital theme connecting these three developments, despite their varying application – the interdependence on data collection, access, and analysis – to offer front-line soldiers, maintenance personnel, and commanders alike a comprehensive picture of military operations. MES Graham Grose is Vice President and Industry Director, IFS. He has specialized in the supply of logistics IS tools in a variety of senior appointments within Sema, BAeSEMA, BAe, BAE Systems, and IFS since leaving the RAF in 1991, where he was a supply officer ser ing in a ariety of operational and appointments e is also a Fellow of the Institute of Management Accountants and a Member of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply.

IFS • https://www.ifs.com/

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BLOG

Three keys to frictionless zero-trust security

By Mike Epley, Red Hat The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) was already headed toward a completely perimeter-less security environment before COVID-19. The DoD is operating, of necessity, in a wide-open virtual world, and new threats against its work force, tools, supply chains, and operations abound.

The DoD has responded by aiming at zero-trust cybersecurity architectures, but this practice presents its own issues.

The need to constantly reassert user and system identities and enforce authoriation can create enormous friction – defined as any circumstance whereby a primary task is prevented or delayed due to a security re uirement – which encourages use of bypasses or overbroad accesses, neither of which are conducive to a successful defense operation.

With an automated, virtualized infrastructure and user behavior analysis, however, the DoD can maintain a strong zero-trust stance while reducing friction and user frustration.

Automating declarative access Zero trust requires a lot more system checks: Users’ access needs continually change and authentication and authorization procedures need to be constantly updated. Keeping up with these checks and changes using manual intervention can be inefficient and introduce risk.

It’s better to use declarative access controls as opposed to imperative controls.

With a declarative access model, systems are set up to provide access based on the intent and need of the underlying interaction. Typically, encoding the rules matching data to the user’s needs inherently focuses on data-protection attributes: type, source, and dissemination, for example. Conversely, imperative models rely on the relationship of the actors and their actions.

Declarative access controls are more consistent and predictable as actors change or as systems evolve and integrate

52 September 2021

with each other – as is the case while the DoD hurtles towards cloud and edge computing.

The DoD was already moving in this direction, but the pandemic has accelerated the need for attribute-based access control (ABAC) and dynamic role-based access control (RBAC).

ABAC takes into consideration specific user attributes and considers those attributes when making a determination as to whether or not to allow access.

Dynamic RBAC enables access based on traditional attributes like a user’s role or job title, but also limits access to only the capabilities needed for specific tasks. Dynamic RBAC may also factor in subtleties like different experience and certification levels.

Both of these practices require an underlying layer of automation that can immediately convert declarative requests to imperative authorizations, limitations on grants, or blockage of the request entirely. Automatically and safely authorizing access in a seamless manner can enable users to get information they need in real time or use new systems without compromising security.

Virtualizing the security landscape Even if users can access information, there’s still the possibility the systems they’re using aren’t as secure as they once were. Despite the increased prevalence of the cloud, prior to the pandemic the DoD still handled much of its security through physical means. People were using DoD-issued laptops, usually on DoD networks and systems. These systems made it easier for security administrators to tell if users’ machines had the proper virus protection in place and make sound assertions surrounding security.

When everyone went remote, many physical assurances suddenly disappeared. And while military personnel are still working on highly secure devices, many people working from the DoD are relying

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more on personal laptops and smartphones that may not be entirely secure.

Virtualizing security can help teams overcome this challenge. Virtual systems can help administrators regain their agencies’ security postures by providing an abstraction layer between the user and the system they’re accessing.

Administrators can insert safeguards – such as filtering, protocol breaks, and automatic backup and restore, for example – into their virtual infrastructures to protect systems against any malware they might otherwise be exposed to. If these protections fail, virtual environments can work to minimize their potential cybersecurity blast radius.

Layering in user behavioral analysis Completing the no-friction zero-trust picture: User behavioral analysis, in which users are monitored based on behavior patterns. Anomalous behavior could signal that the user may have been compromised.

For example, a user may gain access to a network from their home office in D.C. Moments later, their credentials may be used to obtain access to a different dataset from an IP address outside of the country. Upon detecting this abnormal activity, the system can automatically lower the level of trust associated with the user, and only that user. This action protects the network without having to shut other users out of the system, which enables them to keep working without experiencing any undue disruption.

Zero-trust cybersecurity doesn’t need to be a painful or disruptive experience.

By employing automation, virtualization, and behavioral analysis, administrators can protect networks and support colleagues as they go about their missions.

Mike Epley is a chief architect at Red Hat. Red Hat • https://www.redhat.com/en www.militaryembedded.com

TECHNOLOGY MAKING YOUR HEAD SPIN? WE CAN HELP YOU MAKE SENSE OF IT ALL

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, newsletters, podcasts, webcasts, and print editions provide insight on embedded tools and strategies including technology insertion, obsolescence management, standards adoption, and many other military-specific technical subjects.

Coverage areas include the latest innovative products, technology, and market trends driving military embedded applications such as radar, electronic warfare, unmanned systems, cybersecurity, AI and machine learning, avionics, and more. Each issue is full of the information readers need to stay connected to the pulse of embedded militaryembedded.com technology in the military and aerospace industries.

RESOURCE GUIDE PROFILE INDEX AVIONICS

OPENVPX

VPT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

55

Atrenne. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

82

Annapolis Micro Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83-84

COMMUNICATIONS

TE Connectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

85

Interface Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55-56

CyberRadio Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

86

Orion Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

57

PC/104

CYBERSECURITY Digistor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

RTD Embedded Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86-88 57

POWER ELECTRONICS

EMBEDDED HARDWARE

PowerFilm Solar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

88

Annapolis Micro Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58-59 Apacer Memory America Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

59

POWER SUPPLIES

Atrenne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

60

Dawn VME Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

89

Dawn VME Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

60

W-IE-NE-R, Plein & Baus Corp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

89

Elma Electronic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

61

Galleon Embedded Computing LLC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

62

GMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63-68

REAL-TIME OPERATING SYSTEMS AND TOOLS Lynx Software Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

90

Hartmann Electronic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

69

Holt Integrated Circuits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

69

RF & MICROWAVE

LCR Embedded Systems, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

70

CyberRadio Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

90

MPL AG Elektronik . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

71

Analog Devices, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

91

New Wave Design & Verification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71-72 Opal Kelly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72-73

RUGGED COMPUTING AND DISPLAYS

Phoenix International . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

73

Kontron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

92

Pentek, now part of Mercury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

74

Phoenix International . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

93

Pixus Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

75

RTD Embedded Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

93

Soligen Corporation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

75

SECO USA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

76

SIGNAL PROCESSING

Vector Electronics & Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

77

Interface Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Viking Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

78

Extreme Engineering Solutions (X-ES) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

78

SPACE ELECTRONICS AND SERVICES

Z Microsystems, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

79

Spirit Electronics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

94

Lauterbach, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80-81

Omnetics Connector Corp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

95

Lynx Software Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

82

94

TEST & MEASUREMENT Ellisys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96-97

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MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS with Resource Guide

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VXR Series Hi-Rel COTS DC-DC Converters VPT’s high-reliability VXR Series of DC-DC converters are optimized for a broad range of applications from military ground vehicles to commercial and military aircraft and is intended for harsh environments including severe vibration, shock and temperature cycling.

The VXR Series patented epoxy encapsulated V-SHIELD® packaging is highly resistant to chemical, solvent and salt environments and is fully compatible with high volume manufacturing processes including wave solder, cleaning solvents, high pressure sprays, and aqueous wash processes.

A unique integral six-sided metalized shield improves system EMI compatibility. Dual sided conduction cooling coupled with reduced power dissipation simplifies system thermal design.

FEATURES 7 to 250 Watts Ą Wide input voltage range: 9 V to 60 V Ą Single outputs of 3.3V, 5V, 7V, 12V, 15V, and 18V Ą Rugged epoxy encapsulated V-SHIELD® package Ą Fully compatible with aqueous cleaning processes Ą -55 °C to +105 °C operation Ą Integral EMI shield Ą Dual-sided thermal conduction Ą

Proven Power Conversion Solutions for Mission Critical Applications

VPT’s product designs are based on decades of proven heritage and deliver high-reliability at a reasonable cost.

VPT, Inc.



vptsales@vptpower.com

https://www.linkedin.com/company/vpt-inc-

www.vptpower.com

 425-353-3010

@vptnews

Communications ComEth4000e – 6U VME 1/10/40 Gigabit Ethernet Switch

FEATURES Ą 6U VME (1 or 2 slots)

Ą Managed Layer 2+/3 switch Ą Up to 32 ports

Ą 1000BASE-T, SFP+, QSFP (front) Ą 1000BASE-T (rear)

Ą 10/40 Gigabit Ethernet ports via mezzanine boards

Ą Flexible Ethernet Switch with a full array of configurations

https://www.interfaceconcept.com

INTERFACE CONCEPT

https://www.interfaceconcept.com www.militaryembedded.com

The ComEth4000e is a 6U VME 1/10/40 Gigabit Ethernet Switching board, dedicated to Defense and industrial high-computing applications. It features 10/40 Gigabit Ethernet ports made available via special mezzanine boards, on a 1-slot or 2-slot 6U VME form-factor (air-cooled configuration). The single-slot 6U VME board comes with 12 x 1000BASE-T Ethernet ports while the dual-slot 6U VME board provides up to 24 x 1000BASE-T Ethernet ports on the front panel. Both configurations offer 8 x 1000BASE-T Ethernet ports as an option on the VME P0 connector, and can be equipped with up to 5 mezzanine boards (factory-build) providing10GBASE-T, SFP+ (1G/10G), SFP (100M/1G) or QSFP (40G) ports instead of the 4 front 1000BASE-T ports. This flexible product design allows the user to choose from various Ethernet interface configuration according to its application requirements.

The ComEth4000e managed Layer2/3 Ethernet switch is powered by a highly integrated Marvell System-on-a-Chip (SoC) with programmable packet processors. Its Ethernet switch matrix is managed with an independent Marvell ARMv7 dual-core processor, supporting the Switchware network management application. This high-performance Layer3 switch can be remotely configured by the Switchware web interface, SNMP or CLI interfaces. Moreover, this product offers IPv4/IPv6 routing capabilities. 

info@interfaceconcept.com  510-656-3400 www.linkedin.com/company/interface-concept

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ComEth4590a – VPX 10/40 GbE Layer 3 switch The ComEth4590a is the first and only 3U VPX 10/40 Gigabit Ethernet Layer 3 switch currently on the embedded market which has two separate and independent on-board Ethernet switch matrices – one for the Data Plane and one for the Control Plane. These two separate switch matrices or packet processors are managed by two independent dual core processors.

Each matrix supports separate instances of Interface Concept Switchware network management which allows independent network configuration for features such as network optimization, monitoring and security. In addition to offering the outstanding switching capabilities you’ve come to expect from Interface Concept, this high-performance Layer3 switch can be remotely configured by the Switchware web interface, SNMP or CLI interfaces. It features a total of 41 SerDes or Lanes routed to the rear VPX connectors as 1000Base-KX, 10GBase-KR or even 40GBase-KR4 ports and to the front panel as 10GBase-SR or 1000Base-SX fiber optical ports.

Moreover, the Cometh4590a is fully compatible with the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) required by the most recent high performance VPX systems, and it supports Precision Time Protocol (PTP) IEEE 15888-2008 (v2) for networks requiring sub-microsecond synchronization capabilities throughout the IP network.

INTERFACE CONCEPT

https://www.interfaceconcept.com



FEATURES Ą 3U VPX 10/40 Gigabit Ethernet Layer 3 switch Ą 2*on-board Ethernet switch matrices Ą 2*dual-core processors Ą Switchware network management Ą 41*SerDes or Lanes Ą 1000Base-KX, 10GBase-KR or even 40GBase-KR4 ports

(rear)

Ą 10GBase-SR or 1000Base-SX fiber optical ports (front)

https://www.interfaceconcept.com

info@interfaceconcept.com www.linkedin.com/company/interface-concept

 510-656-3400

Communications IC-INT-VPX6g – 6U VPX Dual Intel Xeon-D and FPGA SBC The IC-INT-VPX6g rugged 6U VPX Single Board Computer is based on two highly integrated Intel® Xeon® D-1500 processors.

The board is ideal for use in radar, Electronic warfare, C4ISR, mission computers, and broadly speaking, all the applications requiring high bandwidth performance. The on-board Intel Xeon 8-core or 12-core processor, based on 14nm Broadwell SoC technology, offers up to 64GB DDR4 memory. The two processors are interconnected via a PCIe Gen3 x4 and a Xilinx Kintex-7 FPGA. IP core functions such as ARINC818, HDLC or SFPDP are added functions developed and provided by Interface Concept, bringing flexibility to the board. Regarding connectivity, the board supports 10 and 40 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces on the data plane, 1 Gigabit Ethernet on the control plane and one 4-lane Gen2/3 PCIe on the expansion plane.

It also features scalable and secured SATA SLC SDD, GPIOs, USB, SATA ports. An optional XMC slot is available for further customization. OS supported include VxWorks® and Linux® LSP (IC SDK, others...). Other OS can be supported on request.

Compliant with VPX VITA 46.0 standard, the board is available in air-cooled and conduction cooled versions.

FEATURES Ą 6U VPX

Ą Dual Intel® Xeon® D-1539/D-1559 processor Ą Up to 128 GB DDR4 with ECC Ą Xilinx Kintex®-7 FPGA

Ą 40 GbE & PCIe Gen3 interfaces Ą XMC slot

INTERFACE CONCEPT

https://www.interfaceconcept.com 56 September 2021

https://www.interfaceconcept.com 

info@interfaceconcept.com  510-656-3400 www.linkedin.com/company/interface-concept

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS with Resource Guide

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OTI85247:Network Data Distribution Unit-Serial (NDDU-Serial) The NDDU-SERIAL is a small form factor, low-cost electronics unit that provides data conversion and distribution between combinations of RS-422 serial ports and Ethernet ports. The NDDU-Serial has sixteen isolated RS422 interfaces and two 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet ports. Several different conversions and translations are configurable by the user. For example, the NDDU-Serial can be configured to read in RS422 serial messages, convert them to encapsulated UDP, and output them onto an Ethernet network (or vice-versa). Users can configure the NDDU-Serial for setup and control via web browser interface over the Ethernet ports.

Within the Industrial Components division of the Phoenix Mecano Group, the three companies Hartmann Electronic, Orion Technologies and Wiener Power Electronics form the sub-division Rugged Computing. All three companies are unified by the common goal to develop and produce solutions for Rugged Computer Solutions.

Orion Technologies

www.oriontechnologies.com



FEATURES Ą 1.91GHz Intel Atom Quad-Core 64b E3845 CPU, 4GB DDR3 SDRAM Ą 32GB onboard storage Ą Sixteen individually isolated RS422 serial interfaces supporting baud rates

of 2400, 4800, 9600, 19200, 38400, 57600, and 115200 bits/sec

Ą Two copper 10/100/1000BASE-TX Ethernet ports Ą Input voltage: 24 VDC, +30%, -20% with EMI filtering to support

MIL-STD-461F

Ą Conduction-cooled with operating temps of 0°C to 55°C in accordance

with MIL-STD-810G

Ą Support for a multitude of Operating Systems

sales@oriontechnologies.com

www.linkedin.com/company/orion-technologies-llc

 407-845-1700

twitter.com/OrionEmbedded Cybersecurity

Citadel™ Encrypted SSD with Pre-Boot Authentication DIGISTOR Citadel™ FIPS-certified self-encrypting SSDs are the only SSDs to offer pre-tested and pre-integrated multi-factor authentication and pre-boot authentication (PBA). This makes Citadel perfect for securing and protecting Data at Rest (DAR) to meet government mandates and cybersecurity requirements for military organizations, Federal agencies, and critical infrastructure.

Powered by CipherDrive™, the built-in PBA unlocks access to the encrypted operating system or virtual machine on the Citadel SSD, including any stored information.

Data secured on Citadel SSDs is hardware-encrypted by NSA-approved Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 256-bit encryption. Once a user authenticates and the device is booted, Citadel SSDs provide hardware-speed access to the SSD, without software overhead, to encrypted data at the full performance of the system.

Citadel SSDs are easily integrated into commonly used laptops, desktops, workstations, tactical servers, and other applications. Citadel SSDs can be deployed in single-SSD or multi-SSD scenarios.

Citadel SSDs are the latest addition to the DIGISTOR lineup of secure, selfencrypting SSDs for meeting many cybersecurity, unclassified, and classified data requirements. Citadel is the most robust of these solutions with its Commercial Solutions for Classified (CSfC) components, and is the most cost-effective method of meeting governmental mandates for multi-factor authentication and encryption of DAR.

DIGISTOR

https://digistor.com www.militaryembedded.com



FEATURES Ą Easily deployed in commonly used laptops, desktops, work-

Ą Ą Ą Ą Ą Ą

sales@digistor.com

stations, and tactical serverseasily deployed and commonly used laptops, desktops, workstations, and tactical servers Available in M.2 NVMe, M.2 SATA, and 2.5-in SATA form factors in capacities up to 2TB Authorization Acquisition (AA) under Common Criteria cPP; FIPS-certified Multi-factor/two-factor authentication support, including CAC/PIV/CIV and SIPRNET cards and tokens Cryptographic Erase (CE) Supports single-drive and multi-drive systems TAA and RoHS Compliant https://digistor.com/citadel/

www.linkedin.com/company/digistor_1007262/

 +1 (360) 816-1800 x2051 @digistor

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Military Embedded Systems Resource Guide

Embedded Hardware

WILDSTAR Boards include optional optical and/or RF (VITA 66/67)

100GbE FPGA Boards are SOSA™-Aligned Annapolis WILDSTAR Boards are the highest-performing OpenVPX COTS FPGA Processing Baseboards on the market, with capability for 100Gb Ethernet over copper on the VPX backplane. Blind mate optical and/or RF (VITA 66/67) is also available. All 100GbE boards are VITA 65-compliant and align with the SOSA standard. ™

High Performance

These high-performance boards utilize the latest Xilinx UltraScale+ FPGAs, MPSoCs, and/or Gen 3 RFSoCs. They enable PCIe Gen-4, 100 Gbps Ethernet, and InfiniBand high-speed bandwidths.

High-performance digitization is via Mezzanine Card(s) connected to WFMC+ I/O site(s), or included in the RFSoC. Gen 3 delivers 8 channels of ADC, 5.0+GSps, at 14 bit resolution, and 8 channels of DAC, 10.0+GSps, at 14 bit resolution. DFE RFSoCs are available later this year.

Rugged

Annapolis rugged FPGA boards are designed from the ground up to perform at the highest levels in the harshest environments. They are designed and tested for reliability, utilizing high performance air, conduction, or air-flow-through cooling for thermal control.

Designed & Manufactured in USA

All Annapolis products are engineered and manufactured under one roof in the United States. This co-location of engineering and manufacturing allows for more aggressive design, and better quality control and production flexibility.

MADE IN

U. S. A.

www.annapmicro.com

PART NUMBER

FORM FACTOR

FPGAs

100Gb ETHERNET

SOSA™ALIGNED

ADC/DAC

WB6XB2

6U VPX

US+ (2x) US+ MPSoC

Yes

Yes

WFMC+ Mezz (2x)

WB3XBP

3U VPX

US+ US+ MPSoC

Yes

Yes

WFMC+ Mezz

WB3XB9

3U VPX

US+ (up to 13P) US+ MPSoC

Yes

Yes

WFMC+ Mezz

WB3XS0

3U VPX

US+ RFSoC

Yes

Yes

Integrated

WB3XR2

3U VPX

US+ RFSoC (2x)

Yes

Yes

Integrated

Ą General Features • Up to three Xilinx® UltraScale+™ FPGAs • A Full Board Support Package for fast and easy Application Development • – BSP options include 40/100GbE IP and both VxWorks 7 and Linux support • Multiple levels of hardware and software security Ą OpenVPX Backplane I/O • Up to 38 HSS I/O lanes to VPX backplane for up to 182 GB/s of full duplex bandwidth • Up to 32 LVDS lines to VPX backplane • RT3 connectors deliver 25Gb/s, for a total of 100Gb per Fat Pipe • Radial Backplane Clock Support for OpenVPX backplane signals AUXCLK and REFCLK, to enable ADC/DAC synchronization Ą Front Panel I/O • WILD FMC+ (WFMC+™) next generation I/O site(s) • – Accepts standard FMC and FMC+ cards • – Supports stacking (2 I/O cards per site) • – Up to 32 HSS and 100 LVDS pairs connections to FPGA Ą Mechanical and Environmental • Air, conduction, or AFT cooled: -55°C to +85°C Operating • Available in extended temperature grades • Optional blind mate optical and/or RF (VITA 66/67) • Hot swappable for air-cooled variants • RTM available for additional I/O

WILDSTAR Boards are cooled via Air, Conduction, or Air-Flow-Through

Annapolis Micro Systems, Inc.

www.annapmicro.com/product-category/fpga-boards-2/ 58 September 2021

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 wfinfo@annapmicro.com  410-841-2514

www.militaryembedded.com

Chassis Manager Optimized for VITA 65/SOSA™

The WILD Chassis Manager includes MIL-STD-1553 support

The VITA 46.11-aligned WILD™ VPX Chassis Manager (WABGM0) WABGM0) enables critical chassis control, maintenance, and security functions, was developed in alignment with the SOSA Technical Standard, and offers commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) availability.

FEATURES Ą Enables chassis control, maintenance, and security functions Ą Supports 3U and 6U OpenVPX backplanes

It is a highly-integrated module. It provides access to plug in card (PIC) JTAG and Maintenance ports, CLK1 usage via on-board Zynq FPGA, network functions, and some optional advanced security functions.

For security, the Chassis Manager implements security MADE IN signal interfaces and a Xilinx UltraScale+ Zynq ZU5EG MPSoC and latest Microsemi PolarFire FPGA, which can be end-user modified with the optional BSP. U. S. A.

Ą Xilinx UltraScale+ ZU5EG MPSoC running Linux for CHmC Ą Supports up to 16 slots for JTAG and maintenance port

aggregation/muxing

Ą Directly attaches to backplane or carrier card

Ą Cabled or backplane interface for I/O functions

Ą Optional BSP enables customization of Zynq PS, PL for security Ą Supports MIL-STD-1553 and VITA 66/67 (optical/RF) Ą Aligns with VITA 46.11 and SOSA Standard

Ą Commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) availability

www.annapmicro.com

Annapolis Micro Systems, Inc.

 wfinfo@annapmicro.com  410-841-2514

www.annapmicro.com/products/wabgm0/

Embedded Hardware Defense Series SSD Apacer has developed the ”DefensePro™“ technology set to meet the multirequirements of defense applications and help customers find the right solutions, further simplifying the implementation process. DefensePro™ is categorized into three levels based on customer requirements.

Level 1 enhances survivability and operational stability even under tough conditions.

Level 2 provides a higher level of protection for operation in extreme environments and increases data security using customized firmware, preventing data leakage and delivering higher reliability.

Level 3 ensures reliability and data security to prevent unexpected data loss or unauthorized access.

FEATURES Ą Available form factors: NVMe PCIe 2280; SATA 2.5", 2280, mSATA Ą Security: ATA Secure Erase, Quick Erase, MIL Erase (NSA9-12),

Ą Ą Ą Ą

APACER MEMORY AMERICA INC.

Instant Keychange, Destroy (SW, HW); Write protect (SW, HW); Signed Firmware, TCG Opal 2.0 Survivability: Conformal Coating, Nano Coating, Wide Temperature, Thermal Throttling, Sidefill, R-SATA, 30µ Gold Finger Data Integrity: DataRAID, End-to-end Data Protection, Smart Read Refresh™ Power Stability: DataDefender™ Longgevity: SLC-liteX

https://industrial.apacer.com/en-ww/Application/Defense www.militaryembedded.com

 408-518-8699



ssdsales@apacerus.com

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Promethean Series Rugged Small Form Factor CPU/GPU System Rugged Reliable Performance: The Promethean series of rugged, compact, and powerful small form factor systems are designed to provide highly flexible and configurable solutions for applications ranging from industrial/commercial, medical, and military. Based on COM Express (Computer-On-Module) architecture, Promethean combines high-end GPUs with the latest generation of x86 processors in a ruggedized small form factor package. Promethean systems can be ordered with a variety of different CPU and GPU engines as required for your application. The system can be configured with various complements of high-performance I/O as required. The architecture also supports the ability for customer-defined memory type and capacities as required.

FEATURES Ą Provides high performance CPUs with the latest generation of

Intel Processors

Ą Order using a building block approach: Mix and match Intel®

CPUs with NVIDIA® GPUs

Ą Highly configurable: Solutions designed to meet customer

Highly Configurable: Systems can be configured depending on the base CPU and GPU configurations selected. Also depending on hardware configuration, differing operating systems can be supported including Linux®, or Windows®, both of which can be ordered pre-installed. The hardware supports a wide range of I/O, details of which can be specified based on the application requirements.

requirements for all aspects of Size, Weight and Power

Ą Input and output connectorization can be configured to your

requirements

Ą Based on the latest UEFI Firmware

Ą Optional extended temperature variants

Wide Range of I/O: The Promethean system supports the latest generation interconnects including – Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0 and 2.0, DisplayPort++, VGA, LVDS, SATA III, GPIO, I2C, mSATA, miniPCIe, PCIe/104 as well as SD Card Expansion.

Atrenne Computing www.atrenne.com



Ą Wide range power input +16V to +48V DC

www.atrenne.com/products/promethean-series

sales@atrenne.com

 774-453-6620

www.linkedin.com/company/atrenne-computing-solutions

@AtrenneOfficial

Embedded Hardware

Fabric Mapping Modules Dawn OpenVPX backplane Fabric Mapping Modules simplify topology customization. Dawn VME Products FABRIC MAPPING MODULES automate optimization of OpenVPX backplane topologies. Newly patented FMM micro-overlays quickly customize off-the-shelf OpenVPX backplanes to mission requirements.

Fabric Mapping Modules allow designers to work with flexible configurations of high speed links. Off-the-shelf backplanes can be quickly customized to mission requirements without the time and expense required for new backplane designs, a critical advantage when schedules are compressed by late system changes.

Dawn engineers have successfully used Fabric Mapping Modules to solve many OpenVPX application problems in the design phase.

FEATURES Ą Off-the-shelf backplanes can be quickly customized to mission

requirements

Ą Optimize the communication topology between slots within a system’s

backplane

Ą Customize inter-slot communications to meet unique system

requirements

Ą Improve signal integrity between system cards beyond requirements of

PCI Express, Serial Rapid I/O and 10Gbit (XAUI) Ethernet standards

Ą Directly connect PCI Express or SerialRapid I/O to multiple cards or

cards and switches

Ą Link SATA from a CPU card to a Solid State Drive (SSD) carrier Ą Enable XMC cards to talk to other XMC cards or other I/O like

PCI Express links

Fabric Mapping Modules provide a natural migratory development environment for moving from the lab to the field with high speed OpenVPX backplanes.

Ą Facilitate rear backplane I/O connections and low profile connector

Dawn VME Products

sales@dawnvme.com  800-258-DAWN (3296)

www.dawnvme.com 60 September 2021

interface systems when normal transition modules do not fit the system application envelope

www.dawnvme.com 

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS with Resource Guide

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510-657-4444

www.militaryembedded.com

VITA 48.4 Liquid Flow-Through (LFT) ATR Platform Increasingly power-hungry OpenVPX modules require a cooling solution guaranteed to keep the mission on course. Elma Electronic’s rugged OpenVPX ATR platform is designed to accommodate 6U boards requiring liquid flow-through (LFT) cooling per the VITA 48.4 standard.

VITA 48.4 establishes the mechanical design interface, outline and mounting requirements for 6U OpenVPX liquid-flow-through cooled plug-in modules within associated sub-racks. While the connector layout remains common with VITA 46, VITA 48.4 standard modules are cooled by liquid flowing through an integral heatsink. Circuit boards and electronic components are cooled more effectively as compared to other more traditional cooling methods such as air or conduction cooling alone. Quick disconnect coupling assemblies allow fluidic coupling to the chassis manifold.

FEATURES Ą 1 ATR tall short with rugged, bolted construction

Ą 6U OpenVPX backplane with 6-slots on 1.2" pitch supports

300W/slot

Ą Configurable front I/O connectors on removable panel

Ą Individual card coolant flow rates are adjustable with selectable

openings

Designed for data rates up to 10 Gbps, the backplane is designed to handle 300 Watts per slot. It features eight 6U slots on a 1.2" pitch. Clockable guide pins are included at each slot to allow for easier keying (angle rotation) without having to deal with the removal of the backplane from chassis.

Ą Supports dual VITA 62 power supplies and option for VITA 46.11

https://bit.ly/VITA-484-ATR

Ą Designed to meet MIL-STD-461, MIL-STD-810, MIL-STD-1275

Elma Electronic Inc.

https://www.elma.com

compliant Shelf Manager

Ą On/off power switch with guard, LED status indicators & filtered

power input connector

 sales@elma.com

 510-656-3400

https://www.linkedin.com/company/elma-electronic

@elma_electronic Embedded Hardware

RF & Optical Backplanes for OpenVPX & SOSA Systems As the leader in backplane designs and manufacturing, our latest OpenVPX designs support optical and RF apertures (VITA 66 and 67) for high performance connectivity modules. Elma engineers developed the industry’s first VPX backplanes and we are the innovation leaders in signal speeds and system complexity. We offer the largest selection of 3U and 6U OpenVPX backplane profiles, in slot counts from 2 to 16, including the newest profiles aligned with the SOSA Technical Standard.

TM

VPX presents design challenges with high layer-count backplanes, and more demanding power and cooling requirements. We tackle these problems with extensive signal integrity testing plus thermal simulation and functional testing to produce the most reliable backplanes and enclosures on the market. That’s why our partners and our customers rely on Elma to address their VPX backplane requirements.

The latest interactive backplane charts are now available on our website – hover over any backplane profile to see the topology for that particular backplane configuration. Don’t see the one you need? Talk to us about a tailored slot configuration. https://bit.ly/VITAbkps

Elma Electronic Inc.

https://www.elma.com www.militaryembedded.com

FEATURES Ą Support for VITA 66.4 optical, 67.1 RF and 67.3 RF/Optical modules Ą Designs support 1000BASE-BX, 1000BASE-KX, 10GBASE-KX4,

10GBASE-KR, or 40GBASE-KR4 connectivity

Ą Radial clock slot for IEEE 1588 precision timing protocol and Ą Ą Ą Ą

 sales@elma.com

network synchronization Support for VITA 62 pluggable power modules Many power and ground designs available standard Designed and manufactured in the US Details on all backplanes aligned to OpenVPX and SOSA, and the interactive charts

 510-656-3400

https://www.linkedin.com/company/elma-electronic

@elma_electronic

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XSR Tactical Secure Server Galleon Embedded Computing is proud to announce their new multi-platform rugged military computer, the XSR Tactical Secure Server. With Sea, Air, and Land-based capabilities, this agile addition to the Galleon product lineup meets the demanding requirements for the most severe environmental conditions without compromising performance, functionality, or reliability.

Equipped with removable storage supported by dual-layer Data-at-rest encryption, the XSR Tactical Secure Server ensures consistent and secure data management. The removable data module (RDM) can be configured as a build option for either highperformance NVME or high-capacity SATA storage using rugged and reliable solid-state storage. Offering industry-leading storage density, SATA RDMs offer up to 80TB of storage and NVME RDMs offer up to 16 TB of storage.

Optional Hardware Full Disk Encryption (HWFDE) is available using the AES-256-bit algorithm implemented in FIPS 140-2 certified devices. Similarly, Software Full Disk Encryption (SWFDE) can provide a separate layer of Data at Rest protection as recommended by the NSA for the Data at Rest Commercial Solutions for Classified (CSfC). Additionally, the XSR-TSS can be configured with most standard operating systems, such as RedHat Enterprise Linux, or hypervisors such as VMWare ESXi.

With the latest 9th generation Intel® Xeon® E and Xeon® D processor options, the XSR-TSS offers up to 16 CPU cores and 128Gb SDRAM with ECC. The XSR-TSS’ flexible architecture can provide the modern warfighter with advanced I/O, cutting-edge processing power, and ultra-high storage density. Housed in a SWaP-optimized design, the XSR Tactical Secure Server is protected by one of the most rugged and demanding mobile platforms available.

Galleon Embedded Computing’s quality management system is certified to Aerospace Standard AS/EN 9100 and ISO 9001.

FEATURES Ą

Xeon E Gen 9 or Xeon D CPU options

Ą

Up to 128GB SDRAM with ECC

Ą

Up to 4 10GbE ports

Ą

Up to 80TB Storage

Ą

SATA or NVME Storage Option

Ą

Data At Rest Encryption

https://galleonec.com/product/xsr-tactical-secure-server/

Galleon Embedded Computing https://galleonec.com/ 62 September 2021

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us_sales@galleonec.com  281-769-8211 @GalleonEmbedded www.linkedin.com/company/galleon-embedded-computing-as/

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“LIGHTNING” X422 The X422 is a GPGPU Co-Processor System that supports GMS’ companion S422 SW Server. Up to two full size GPGPU cards can be installed, either as two independent processing units or they can be intelligently linked together to form one virtual processing unit. In addition to the GPGPU capabilities, “Lightning” offers bus expansion capabilities to virtually any full size, full height PCIe 3.0 card, but is optimized to harness multiple GPGPU systems. The X422 affords the use of commercially available, full size, GPGPU products in a completely sealed and protected, extended temperature fully ruggedized enclosure that utilizes GMS’ patented RuggedCool™ technology.

Owing to the underlying GPGPU architecture with multiple cores and threads, the X422 can accelerate large data processing tasks such as image recognition, digital signal processing, data mining, block chain computation, artificial intelligence, machine vision, image processing, vector processing, and other compute-intensive tasks. PCIe 3.0 bus expansion allows upward-scaling by cascading (daisy chaining) additional GPGPUs as as necessary via additional X422 chassis.

The X422 utilizes GMS’s FlexIO™ flow-through architecture which is based upon wide PCIe 3.0 lanes (x16) operating at 8 Gbps. When connected via x16 PCIe 3.0 to the companion S422 dual Xeon® conductioncooled rugged server, the GPGPUs (or any PCIe cards) appear to be within the same “bus” of the main server. This closely-coupled architecture allows for rapid data passing, RDMA and “atomic” operations, or provides

a fully autonomous GPGPU co-processor where only data is shared asymmetrically from the main CPUs. The onboard intelligent PCIe 3.0 switch provides packet processing and local “routing”, allowing the user to customize a homogeneous or heterogeneous architecture between the local GPGPU resources. For example, the X422 can be partitioned for GPGPU A to operate separately and independently from GPGPU B – or they can pass data between each other via the dual x16 PCIe 3.0 fabric. Separate, GPGPU-specific, and customizable I/O “pipes” are available to the front panel for each PCIe slot. This allows sensor-to-GPGPU processing, down- or up-stream processing, or an additional data path that bypasses the companion S422 dual-Xeon® server.

The X422 is a high performance GPGPU co-processor and bus expansion system designed for use with the S422 SW Server.

The X422 is an ideal forwardly-deployed, vehicle-mounted, high performance GPGPU co-processing system. Applications include computing clusters and parallel computing, digital signal processing, digital image processing, video processing, neural networks, data mining, cryptography, and intrusion detection.

The X422 system is fully compliant to MIL-STD-810G, MIL-STD-1275D, MIL-S-901D, DO-160D, MIL-STD-461E and has ingress protection up to IP64.

FEATURES Ą PCIe-over-cable local bus extension for inter-/intra chassis

expansion for two full-size PCIe co-processors

Ą Supports up to two full size commercially-available

General-Purpose Computing on Graphics Processing Units (GPGPUs) Ą FlexIO™ backplane provides internal/external PCIe Gen 3 at 8 Gbps Ą GPGPU modules support a total of 32 PCIe Gen 3 lanes, 16 lanes of input and 16 lanes of output Ą X422 system daisy chains to multiple Lightning GPGPU co-processor units Ą Software support for NVIDIA™ CUDA proprietary framework and OpenCL open framework Ą PCIe-over-cable bus extension for co-processor cards Ą Up to two full size GPGPUs (dual x16 PCIe 3.0 slots) Ą Size: 12.45" x 11.6" x 2.54" (including fins) Ą MIL-STD-810G, MIL-STD-1275D, MIL-S-901D, MIL-STD-461F, DO-160D, IP64 Ą Temperature: Operates up to extended temp -20° C to +55° C (Optional) http://www.gms4sbc.com/x422

General Micro Systems, Inc. www.gms4sbc.com

www.militaryembedded.com

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sales@gms4sbc.com

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Embedded Hardware

Military Embedded Systems Resource Guide

Embedded Hardware

“PEACOCK III” S1202-XVE The S1202-XVE “Peacock III” is a third-generation, ultra-rugged, small, lightweight workstation computer system with up to two GPU sites for MXM 3.0 graphics expansion or GPGPU algorithm processing. It is designed to provide a rugged system optimized for the lowest cost and weight in a fully sealed case, while providing the highest level of workstation performance possible in a fully ruggedized, conduction-cooled, sealed system, operating up to -40°C to +85°C (0°C to +55°C standard).

This system is designed for applications that require a small enclosure with the highest possible performance per dollar and per watt while utilizing rugged interconnects to provide a fully sealed system. This system can also be equipped with an optional radiator system that can cool the system with front to back air cooling.

Peacock III supports the Kaby Lake Intel® Core™ i7 (E3-1505Mv6) processor with Hyper-Threading for a total of 8 logical cores, each operating at 3.0 GHz with the ability to Turbo Boost up to 4.0 GHz. The CPU is coupled with up to 64 GB of RAM organized in two banks that support error correcting code (ECC).

The S1202-XVE standard configuration supports three 1 GigE and two 10 GigE channels with a TCP/IP offloading engine (TOE),

four USB 2.0 ports with power, four USB 3.0 ports, eight buffered digital I/O lines, one DVI/HDMI and one RGB video port, and full HD audio with a 5 W audio amplifier and mic-in. Additional I/O functions include one expansion I/O site (SAM™) for I/O such as GPS, Video capture, CANbus, MIL-STD-1553, ARINC-429, and more on a PCIe-mini card.

Peacock III also includes the most secure storage subsystem possible. The system supports M.2 as a boot device, removable 2.5" SATA or NVMe SSD, Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0, Secure Erase/Write Protect/Encryption SSDs and discrete triggers for Secure Erase and Write Protect and encryption up to FIPS-140-2.

There are hard-wired status/Secure Erase signals used for total system cyber security.

The graphics subsystem is provided by native Intel Graphics Processing (IGP) plus a separate optional primary GPU. There is one HDMI/DVI output plus one HD analog (VGA) output via IGP, plus dual 4K/UHD outputs via the primary (optional) MXM. A second MXM 3.0 site provides additional graphics outputs or GPGU co-processing with up to 8.7 TFLOPS algorithm capability.

FEATURES Ą

3.0 GHz Intel® Quad Core™ Kaby Lake E3 Processor (E3-1505Mv6)

Ą

Supports max Turbo Boost frequency of up to 4.0 GHz using Intel’s Turbo Boost Technology

Ą

Up to 64 GB of DDR4 memory with ECC

Ą

Up to 1 TB of fixed M.2 SSD (optional)

Ą Ą Ą Ą Ą Ą

Up to 4 TB of removable 2.5" SSD with SATA III or NVMe interface (optional) Removable Drive secured behind EMI/IP-rated door SSD drives support optional Encrypt/Secure Erase/Write Protect Size: 10.0" x 5.38" x 2.6" Weight: 7 lbs.

MIL-STD: MIL-STD 810G, MIL-STD-1275D, MIL-S-901D, DO-160D, MIL-STD 461E and IP66 compliant Temperature: Operates up to extended temp -40°C to +85°C (Optional) http://www.gms4sbc.com

General Micro Systems, Inc. www.gms4sbc.com 64 September 2021

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sales@gms4sbc.com

 800-307-4863

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“SMARTVIEW” SD12/SD17/SD24 The SmartView™ series rugged all-in-one 12", 17" and 24" Smart Panel PCs that integrate the most rugged, crisp displays with Intel’s latest seventh-generation Kaby Lake E3 Xeon® processor resulting in the thinnest, most powerful and robust smart display system on the market today. SmartView™ is designed to provide the highest level of workstation performance possible in a fully ruggedized, conductioncooled, fully sealed system with an ultra-bright display and Night Vision Imaging System (NVIS). This system architecture simplifies applications where a full-featured computer with a rugged display is needed to deliver the best possible stand-alone-system, per dollar and per watt, while utilizing rugged interconnects to provide a fully sealed smart display system that is less than 2.1-inches thick.

SmartView™ is equipped with the latest Intel® Kaby Lake-H workstation processor with Hyper-Threading (also called Intel® Xeon® E3-15xxM v6) for a total of up to four physical cores (eight logical cores) operating up to 3.0GHz and using Intel’s Turbo Boost 2.0 up to 4.0GHz. To harvest this incredible CPU performance, the CPU is coupled with up to 64 GB of DDR4 RAM organized in two banks with ECC support (2-bit error detection and 1-bit error correction). These Kaby Lake Xeon® E3 cores coupled with SmartView’s I/O can be used to create multiple

virtual machines (VMs) allowing a single SmartView™ system to replace up to 8 separate single-processor systems.

The I/O subsystem is designed to support a wide array of standard and custom I/O functions. Standard configuration supports two 1 Gigabit Ethernet ports or an optional two 10Gigabit Ethernet (copper) ports with TCP/IP Offloading Engine (TOE), one USB 3.0 and one USB 2.0 port (two are optional, but lose Audio), two COM ports with RS232/422/485 options, eight buffered digital I/O lines (optional), audio in/out for headset use and DVI output from the CPU or DVI input from an external source, which can be displayed on the SmartView™ screen (bezel key selectable).

Utilizing the two SAM™ sites, additional I/O functions are optionally provided, such as quad video capture, CANbus, MIL-STD-1553, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, FireWire, GPS and many other I/O. SmartView™ also offers the most secure storage subsystem possible.

It supports up to 32MB BIOS Flash with hardware-write protect and secure erase. The onboard fixed mSATA boot device and removable nDrive™ SSD provides optional hardware write-protect, ATA Secure Erase and encryption functions. SmartView™ displays can optionally support FIPS-140-2 and FIPS-197 encryption standards for ultra-secure data storage.

FEATURES Ą

Ą Ą

3.0GHz Intel® Xeon® E3 (Kaby Lake, 7th Generation Core™) processor with 4 cores and Turbo Boost 2.0 up to 4.0GHz; 8MB of Smart Cache (E3-15xxM V6) Up to 64GB of DDR4 memory with ECC Intel® HD Graphics P630 with GT2, 8-bit VP9 8-bit CODEC, 10-bit HEVC (H.265) CODEC

Ą

12"/17"/24" 16:9 aspect ratio (1920x1080 native) HD 1080p

Ą

Full daylight viewable screen greater than 800 nits (typ.)

Ą

Optional Night Vision Imaging System (NVIS) compatible to MIL-STD-3009

Ą

Optional ultra-rugged “boot-kick” glass for a virtually unbreakable screen

Ą

Resistive touchscreen with glove and/or stylus operation with EMI shielding

Ą

Bezel keys for Power, Blackout, Zeroize, Brightness, NVIS, Video Source, and “Shift”

Ą

Operates over -20°C to +80°C (no heater) or over -40°C to +80°C (with optional heater)

Ą

MIL-STD-810G, MIL-STD-1275D, MIL-S-901D, DO-160D, MIL-STD-461F, up to IP66 compliant http://www.gms4sbc.com/smartview

General Micro Systems, Inc. www.gms4sbc.com

www.militaryembedded.com



sales@gms4sbc.com

 800-307-4863

www.linkedin.com/company/general-micro-systems

@gms4sbc

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Embedded Hardware

Military Embedded Systems Resource Guide

Embedded Hardware

“THUNDER” S422 The S422-LC/SW/RT/AI is fan-less fully rugged, low cost Intel® Xeon® E5 server family available in four variants. It is designed to provide the highest level of server-class performance possible in a fully ruggedized, conduction-cooled system, operating up to -40 °C to +85 °C. “Thunder” simplifies local data processing tasks that require an ultra-fast, Xeon®-class server with vast amounts of high-speed, ECC-protected RAM and storage in one ultra-rugged chassis.

Thunder is ideal for the application that requires the horsepower of a high-performance server, enterprise-class multi-port LAN or a NAS subsystem appliance, while deployed into a rugged platform with no fans required. When equipped with the router or intelligent Layer 2/3/4 Ethernet switch, Thunder becomes a rugged compact server, with a dedicated switch or router capabilities to offer maximum network flexibility.

Networking capability starts with three 1 GbE and two 40 GbE fiber ports on the Low Cost (LC) variant and expands to an additional 40 GbE port and twenty 10 GbE ports (in variants SW, RT and AI).

The 10 GbE ports can be configured with a Broadcom® Layer 2/3/4

enterprise class switch (SW) or as segregated and secure port connections each with their own subnet mask to avoid data crossover (RT). In the RT every Ethernet port is directly coupled to the CPU(s), an architecture that is ideal for secure communications or dedicated hypervisor/virtual environments.

Network routing technology includes software-defined networking (SDN) on various operating systems and virtual machine (VM) hypervisor environments. Each of the 10 GbE ports support powerover-Ethernet (POE+) to directly power remote nodes while simplifying wiring requirements, up to 100 W maximum total power sourced.

Integrated support is available for a lower power commercial General-Purpose Graphics Processing Unit (GPGPU), full size and height, for applications where large data processing tasks are required. The integrated GPGPU can “link” with other external GPGPUs, such as the GMS’s companion X422 Co-Processor, via the PCIe 3.0 FlexIO™ bus expansion feature. This bus expansion provides flexibility to upscale computing resources to match application computing requirements.

FEATURES Ą

Intel® Xeon® E5 v4 CPU with up to 22 cores (E5-2699RV4)

Ą

Hyper-Threading on each core for total system with 44 logical cores

Ą

Supports up to 512 GB of DDR4 memory with ECC

Ą Ą Ą Ą

Optional 20 port x 10 GbE ports configured as enterprise switch or segregated subnets Optional x8 PCIe add-in card slot for GPGPU, co-processor, I/O (FHFL size) Optional PCIe-over-cable bus extension for chassis expansion to external PCIe co-processors GMS FlexIO™ x16 PCIe Gen 3.0 8 Gbits/s fabric expansion architecture for inter-chassis co-processor sub-rack (connects to X422 co-processor chassis)

Ą

Dual 40 GbE ports directly coupled to CPU/FlexIO™ PCIe fabric for non-blocking data movement

Ą

Size: 7.75" x 11.60"

Ą

MIL-STD-810G, MIL-STD-1275D, MIL-S-901D, MIL-STD-461F, DO-160D, IP67 compliant

Ą

Temperature: Operates up to extended temp -40°C to +85°C (Optional) http://www.gms4sbc.com/s422

General Micro Systems, Inc. www.gms4sbc.com 66 September 2021

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sales@gms4sbc.com

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“TIGER” S402-SW The S402-SW “Tiger” is a third-generation, fan-less (conductioncooled) fully rugged, low cost Intel® Xeon® E5 server. It is designed to provide the highest level of server-class performance possible in a fully ruggedized, conduction-cooled system, operating up to -40° C to +85° C. Tiger simplifies local data processing tasks that require an ultra-fast, Xeon®-class server with vast amounts of high-speed, ECC-protected RAM and storage in one ultrarugged chassis.

S402-SW is ideal for the application that requires the horsepower of a high-performance server deployed onto a rugged platform with no fans required. When equipped with the Layer 2/3 intelligent ethernet switch, Tiger becomes a rugged compact server, router, switch, NAS subsystem weighing only about 10 pounds. The switch is intentionally segregated from the processor subsystem for cybersecurity purposes; it can be optionally internally connected to provide one 10GbE from the CPU and one 10GbE from the switch.

The Tiger is an 8 to 18-core Xeon® E5 server intended for commercial, industrial, military, defense, and aerospace applications with the greatest SWaP-Efficiency (SWaP-E) on the market due to its compact size and robust computing and I/O performance.

Tiger is an ideal forwardly deployed vehicle-mounted battlefield/ airborne/shipboard server/router/switch/NAS that offers the greatest reliability in the smallest packaging. Tiger can also be used in industrial and commercial platforms since it has serverclass performance, significant networking options, exceptional I/O capabilities and removable storage.

The S402-SW is fully compliant to MIL-STD-810G, MIL-STD1275D, MIL-S-901D, DO-160D, MIL-STD-461F and has ingress protection up to IP67. This system may also be ordered from the factory with operating systems such as Windows® or Linux® pre-installed.

FEATURES Ą

Intel® Xeon® E5 v4 CPU with up to 18 cores

Ą

Hyper-Threading on each core for total of 36 logical cores

Ą

Supports up to 128 GB of DDR4 memory with ECC

Ą

Ą

Optional fixed M.2 or NVMe SSD for OS boot (Optional for I/O) Up to four 10 GbE plus twelve 1 GbE Ethernet ports (two from CPU, two from switch)

Ą

Personal Profile Module™ (PPM) uses SD card authentication

Ą

Optional AMD® Radeon® GPU E8860, up to 768 GFLOPS

Ą

Optional NVIDIA® Quadro® GPU M2200M, up to 1.32 TFLOPS

Ą

Size: 11.75" x 7.75" x 2.0" Weight: 10 lbs.

Ą

MIL-STD-810G, MIL-STD-1275D, MIL-S-901D, MIL-STD-461F, DO-160D, IP67 compliant

Ą

Temperature: Operates up to extended temp -40° C to +85° C (Optional) http://www.gms4sbc.com

General Micro Systems, Inc. www.gms4sbc.com

www.militaryembedded.com



sales@gms4sbc.com

 800-307-4863

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@gms4sbc

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Embedded Hardware

Military Embedded Systems Resource Guide

Embedded Hardware

“TITAN” The rugged “TITAN” 1U and 2U servers are unique expandable standard rackmount servers using Intel’s second-generation Scalable Xeon® processors. Designed for high-reliability aerospace, defense, military and industrial applications, “TITAN” is set apart by extreme density and expandability with air- and conduction-cooling options. It includes more networking I/O, memory, PCIe card add-in options, and removable storage than found anywhere in a in a 1U or 2U rackmount server.

Additionally, “TITAN” is exceptionally rugged and designed for technology refresh and pre-planned product improvement (P3I) in long-life applications. Available in air-cooled and sealed conduction-cooled versions, “TITAN” is like no other server on the market. Air-cooled versions feature either internal fans or external rack-supplied plenum cooling, and either COTS or mil-circular (38999) connectors.

In shock- and vibration-resistant conduction-cooled versions, “TITAN” is equipped with military-style circular 38999 connectors for assured reliability. “TITAN” uses patented internal cold plates and thermal mitigation in a sealed chassis to protect against ingress and EMI. “TITAN” is also expandable from a 1U high, 2S dual-socket version to a 2U high, 4S (four socket) four-way symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) 2U version with exceptionally high-performance inter-processor UPI connections. Alternatively, the system can remain a dual socket server (2S) but grow from 1U to 2U, adding additional storage (up to 18 SSDs total), additional PCIe slots (up to 10 total), and a segregated 20-port managed Ethernet switch. In either 1U or 2U variants, “TITAN” is an exceptionally rugged, densely packed, well-equipped rackmount server with Intel’s very latest server technology.

FEATURES Ą

Ą

Dual or Quad Intel® Scalable Xeon® processors with up to 28 cores (2.50 GHz) and Turbo Boost (3.80 GHz); 38.5 MB of Smart L3 Cache (server-class processors: Platinum and Gold) Air- and conduction-cooled (sealed) versions with commercial (COTS) connectors or mil-circular 38999 connectors for ultimate reliability

Ą

3x UPI (10.4 GT/s) interconnects for HPEC, SMP, NUMA architecture

Ą

Up to 1 TB DDR4 ECC memory (8 DIMMs) per CPU

Ą

Up to 10 PCIe Gen 3 add-in cards (4x in 1U and 10x in 2U; factory-installed)

Ą

Optional 20-port segregated Ethernet switch in TITAN-2U

Ą

Optional 20 port 10GbE switch in TITAN-2U

Ą

AI version > 400 TFLOPs supports up to 4x Nvidia V100 GPGPUs in 2U

Ą

Encryption and security via Intel® AES-NI encryption and Trusted Platform Module 2.0 (TPM)

Ą Ą

Dual-redundant MIL-STD-1275 500 W power supplies (single/three phase; 60-400 Hz 110/220 VAC; 28 VDC), 2x PSU’s in 1U; 4x PSU’s in 2U Optional MIL-STD-704F power supplies with 50 ms hold-up http://www.gms4sbc.com/titan

General Micro Systems, Inc. www.gms4sbc.com 68 September 2021

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B193236460 Hartmann Electronic’s VPX backplanes are designed to allow any COTS or customer spec configuration in either 3U or 6U form factor by providing a wide range of available VPX and OpenVPX profiles. All the Hartmann backplanes support minimum 1 Gbit Ethernet, most of the backplanes can handle 10Gbit Ethernet and the latest backplanes support 100Gbit Ethernet and PCIe Gen. 4. Moreover Hartmann Electronic is currently developing SOSA compliant products and offers a wide range of VPX chassis that are tested according to MIL-STD-810F: 514.5C-1/15 (vibration) and 515.5-10 (shock).

Within the Industrial Components division of the Phoenix Mecano Group, the three companies Hartmann Electronic, Orion Technologies and Wiener Power Electronics form the sub-division Rugged Computing. All three companies are unified by the common goal to develop and produce solutions for Rugged Computer Solutions.

Hartmann Electronic

www.hartmann-electronic.com

FEATURES Ą Compliant to VITA 46.0, to VITA 65 (profile BKP3-DIS05-15.3.2-3) and to

VITA 66.4 (Optical Interconnect On VPX)

Ą 2+3 Slots VPX, 2 Payload Slots, 3 Payload Slots with optical, 5 HP from slot

to slot (25.40 mm)

Ą Full Mesh X4 (4 Fat Pipes) configuration for Data Plane Ą PCB size 128.50mm x 123.85mm x 5.4 mm Ą Flexible keying and alignment mechanism, with geographical address pins,

Reference clock, Auxilary clock, System Reset, With JTAG connector on first slot (JT1), System Management Interface on the backplane (I2CA, I2CB) Ą Operating temperature: -40° - +85°C, Storage temperature: -55°C - +85°C Ą Flammability rating: UL94-V0

 937-324-4422 • +49 711 13 98 90 (German Headquarters)  sales@hartmann-electronic.com www.linkedin.com/company/hartmann-electronic

Embedded Hardware

A One-Stop Source for MIL-STD-1553 Components Holt has been supplying MIL-STD-1553 ICs to the military and aerospace industries since 2001 and is a one-stop source for all MIL-STD-1553 components. In addition to Holt’s proprietary products, Holt offers drop-in replacements for existing competitor industry standard solutions, providing customers with a cost effective alternative, reducing lead times and mitigating future product obsolescence issues. Holt is the recipient of numerous supplier awards and coupled with its unparalleled technical support and customer service, Holt stands out as the number one choice for MIL-STD-1553 components.

Holt’s products cover the entire gamut of MIL-STD-1553 functionality, including protocol ICs, IP cores, transceivers and transformers. Holt specializes in mixed signal IC design, integrating both digital protocol and analog transceiver functions on a single IC. Select products also integrate MIL-STD-1553 transformers, transceivers and protocol in a single package, providing customers with the highest level of integration necessary to minimize size, weight, power and cost (SWaP-C).

FEATURES Ą IP Core Family: HI-6300 Ą Protocol, RAM, dual transceivers and dual transformers in a single

15mm x 15mm package: HI-2130

TM

Ą Protocol ICs with integrated transceivers: HI-6130 and MAMBA Ą Error-correcting code (ECC) RAM or RAM parity with BIST Ą Unparalleled free technical support including plug-and-play

reference designs and software

Ą Drop-in replacements for existing competitor industry-standard

solutions

Ą DO-254 Design Assurance Level A Compliant options

www.holtic.com/AD2021AugC-MilitaryEmbeddedSystemsResourceGuide-MilStd1553.html

Holt Integrated Circuits www.holtic.com

www.militaryembedded.com



sales@holtic.com  +1 949-859-8800 www.linkedin.com/company/holt-integrated-circuits

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Embedded Hardware

AoC3U Series of Air over Conduction Cooled VPX Chassis The AoC3U-400 Series of air-over-conduction cooled ATR chassis from LCR is a packaging solution family intended to address extreme operating temperatures for high power systems supporting 3U VPX and SOSA aligned modules. Each chassis combines forced air with conduction cooling to dramatically increase aggregate heat dissipation up to 100% versus straight passive conduction solutions while leveraging readily available VITA 48.2 plug in modules. The enhanced cooling ensures safe operating temperatures for total dissipated payload power of up to 400W. The AoC3U-410 features 4 payload slots, plus one VITA 62 PSU slot, while the 412 adds dual removable SSD bays. The 400 Series has a precise mechanical design and includes custom backplanes, front I/O boards with applicable connector sets and VITA 62 power supplies. Custom backplane data flow profiles provide for VPX and SOSA aligned slot profiles in combinations that support evolving high speed signal applications. Custom I/O board designs support 10GbE, optical and RF signals with a range of MIL-STD connector options and media conversion for today’s high speed signal processing applications.

Direct connection between the backplane and I/O panel ensures optimal signal integrity, eliminates most internal cabling, improves shock and vibration performance and simplifies maintenance procedures. The chassis is sealed to provide ingress and EMI protection and is designed to meet MIL-STD-810, MILSTD-461 and MIL-S-901D testing methods. The rugged bolt together construction is fabricated out of machined aluminum alloy 6061-T6.

The 400 Series is intended for use in C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) systems that operate in demanding environments across air, land and sea

AoC3U-410

installations. LCR offers customization of its chassis and will work with customers on specific design requirements.

Chassis may be supplied as integrated systems with the designated board set and tested by our experienced team to ensure smooth migration of your specific application. LCR works closely with industry best partners offering the latest VPX and SOSA aligned modules.

The compact and highly efficient design of the 400 Series is intended for space constrained installations in a wide range of defense assets. The base chassis is designed from the ground up with expansion in mind thus avoiding the design compromises that occur with unplanned upgrades.

Expansion modules address the need for removable drive bays, fan banks, added space for cable dressing and thermal management while ensuring that critical performance requirements and the visual appeal of the chassis are maintained.

FEATURES Ą Cooling for up to 400W of total power Ą 4 payload slots and 1 power supply slot Ą Custom backplanes with VPX and SOSA aligned slot profiles Ą Optional removable drive bays Ą Custom I/O panel options for high speed copper, optical or RF signals Ą Media conversion for high speed signal processing applications Ą VITA 62 pluggable power supplies Ą Designed to meet MIL-STD-810, MILSTD-461, and MIL-S-901D Ą Modular design for functional expansion requirements

AoC3U-412

www.lcrembeddedsystems.com/products/chassis-enclosures-rugged-or-lab-grade-any-form-factor/

LCR Embedded Systems

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Rugged Embedded Computers up to 9th Gen. i7 and Xeon Server The PIP Family, CEC, and MXCS Server are powerful, highly integrated, robust and fanless embedded computer solutions. Selection of the components are purely made on the subject for long-term availability and low power consumption. The systems can be expanded in a very modular way and represent a unique solution for today's demanding and flexible defense requirements.

The products are designed to operate under extreme and normal conditions without the need of fans.

MPL solutions are engineered and manufactured in Switzerland to meet MIL STD-810 as well as other MIL standards.

The systems include features like wide DC input, reverse polarity and more. Additional GPGPU, GPS, WLAN, CAN, 1553, ARINC, Sound, and UPS modules are available.

MPL AG Switzerland www.mpl.ch



FEATURES Ą Ą Ą Ą Ą Ą Ą

Soldered CPU Ethernet (up to 10Gbit), USB (3.1/2.0), Serial ports…

PCIe, XMC, mPCIe, PCIe/104, MXM, m.2 expansion Extreme low power consumption Compliance: e.g. DO-160G, MIL-STD-461, -704, -1275 Availability 10+ years (repair 20+ years) Optional -40°C to 85°C environment temperature

T h i n k L o n g - Te r m

info@mpl.ch

www.linkedin.com/companies/mpl-ag

–

Think MPL

 +41 56 483 34 34 www.twitter.com/mpl_ag

Embedded Hardware

V1153 12-Port Rugged XMC FPGA Card

FEATURES

Built for harsh environments, high performance, and sensitive budgets, the V1153 is a VITA 42 XMC, offering VITA 20 conduction cooling meeting VITA 47 ECC4 ruggedization for shock, vibration, and operating temperature of -40° C to +85° C. Purpose-built as a Xilinx FPGA-based device, the V1153 increases bandwidth and provides plenty of FPGA resources for signal processing and data acquisition. The V1153 can be ordered pre-configured with user-desired interface cores as a turnkey unit, ready to use out-of-the-box.

The V1153 offers up to twelve 1Gbs to 25Gbs optical ports via front panel or VITA 66 optical backplane connectors. The V1153 features the Samtec FireFly™ Micro Flyover System™ which uses high-performance optical or copper cable assemblies with the same connector. A 16-port electrical backplane may also be utilized, configurable from 1Gbs to 16Gbs. New Wave DV offers a variety of pre-configured network protocols including Ethernet, Fibre Channel, sFPDP, ARINC 818, and Aurora.

This port-dense V1153 is available air or conduction cooled in numerous alternative form factors including: 3U VPX, 6U VPX, VME, PXIe, PCIe, and CompactPCI. This form factor versatility, combined with the innate power of the V1153, makes it perfect for test and embedded applications of all kinds.

Ą Twelve 1G to 25G optical lanes to MPO front Ą Ą Ą Ą Ą Ą

panel I/O or VITA 66 optical I/O Xilinx Virtex/Kintex UltraScale+ FPGA Supports PCIe Gen3 x 16 and Gen4 x 8 PPS time synchronization with µSec resolution Thermal sensors for monitoring card temperature Advanced APIs that support multi-core and multi-processor architectures Streaming front-end FPGA core for quick sensor integration

https://newwavedv.com/products/fpga-interface-cards/pmc-xmc/v1153-12-port-rugged-xmc-fpga-card/

New Wave DV

https://newwavedv.com www.militaryembedded.com



info@newwavedv.com

 952-224-9201

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Embedded Hardware

V1160 Dual-Port 100G Rugged Ethernet XMC Card The V1160 is designed for high-bandwidth, low-latency interface applications requiring 10/25/40/100Gbs Ethernet. Targeted towards radar, signal intelligence, video, storage, and embedded communications, the XMC form factor and rugged design of the V1160 turns a VPX single board computer into a single-slot sensor processor.

Featuring the NVIDIA® Mellanox® ConnectX®-5 network interface device, the V1160 is the leader in Ethernet. With hardware offloads for UDP, TCP, RoCEv2, DPDK, and other protocol offloads, throughput and latency is unmatched in the V1160.

Optical or electrical Ethernet interfaces are available, as well as front panel or backplane IO. Backplane electrical is provided via Pn6 and backplane optical is provided via VITA 66.

The V1160 is built for rugged and harsh environments. Component selection, thermal design, and electrical design have been completed with the requirements of high performance embedded computing at the forefront. This XMC is designed and tested to VITA 47 environmental standards and provides VITA 20 conduction cooling. Supporting temperature ranges from -40°C to +85°C, each V1160 delivers a reliable solution for rugged embedded needs. With the V1160, get a real time high-bandwidth network interface for next generation sensor, storage, and communications in a rugged and SWAP-C package.

FEATURES Ą Dual 10/25/40/100Gbs Ethernet ports Ą Rugged optical ports via MPO (female) on the front panel or VITA 66

optical backplane. Electrical I/O via Pn6 also available

Ą NVIDIA® Mellanox® ConnectX®-5 Network Interface Ą Device Hardware offloads for UDP, TCP, RoCE v2, DPDK, +more Ą Supports PCIe Gen4 x16, Gen4 x8, Gen3 x16, Gen3 x8 with

on-board embedded PCIe Switch device

Ą Advanced APIs that support multi-core & multi-processor architec-

tures with a wide range of operating system software support Ą Available in air- and conduction-cooled XMC form factors with conformal coating & carrier card options available

https://newwavedv.com/products/fpga-interface-cards/pmc-xmc/v1160-dual-port-100g-rugged-ethernet-xmc-card/

New Wave DV



info@newwavedv.com

 952-224-9201

www.linkedin.com/company/new-wave-design-and-verification

https://newwavedv.com

Embedded Hardware

XEM8350: Xilinx Kintex UltraScale FPGA Development Board The XEM8350 Kintex UltraScale based FPGA module offers a turnkey dual Super-Speed USB 3.0 host interface using Opal Kelly’s FrontPanel SDK. System integrators can build fully-operational prototype and production designs quickly by integrating this device into their product. Manufacturers of high-speed devices such as JESD-204B data acquisition devices can launch fully-functional evaluation systems without the costly design and maintenance of an evaluation platform.

As an industry first, the XEM8350 features two fully-independent SuperSpeed USB 3.0 ports for high-bandwidth applications requiring duplex operation or over 650 MB/s bandwidth. The FrontPanel SDK includes a multi-platform API (Windows, macOS, and Linux) and very low logic utilization on the FPGA. Memory-hungry applications enjoy access to 4 GiB of on-board DDR4 memory with a 64-bit wide data bus and ECC. Typical applications include ultra high-performance data acquisition such as: • LIDAR and RADAR • Remote Sensing • Video / Image Capture • Photonics • Software-Defined Radio (SDR) • Advanced Metrology • 5G Systems • Data Ingestion Acceleration

Opal Kelly Incorporated www.opalkelly.com 72 September 2021



FEATURES Ą Dual SuperSpeed USB 3.0 ports for high-bandwidth data transfer Ą Xilinx Kintex UltraScale XCKU060 or XCKU115 Ą 4 GB DDR4 SDRAM with (64-bit with ECC) Ą Over 330 I/O pins on three Samtec QTH connectors Ą 28 multi-gigabit transceivers Ą Small form-factor: 145mm x 85mm Ą On-board programmable oscillator

sales@opalkelly.com

https://opalkelly.com/products/xem8350/

www.linkedin.com/company/opal-kelly-incorporated

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS with Resource Guide

 217-391-3724

twitter.com/opalkelly www.militaryembedded.com

ECM1900: Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ Edge Compute Module The Opal Kelly ECM1900 Edge Compute Module™ is a highly-integrated, highperformance, compact FPGA development module designed for data acquisition, instrumentation, and analytics workloads including network-intensive applications. The module combines Xilinx’s Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC with two independent 4 GiB ECC DDR4 banks, micro SD storage, a programmable clock generator, and a dual-core ARM CoreTex R5 embedded processing system in a single integrated design complete with a single-input power system.

Three high-density board-to-board connectors provide access to over 200 FPGA I/O, 48 CPU I/O, and 24 gigabit transceiver lanes supporting PCIe Gen 3, ethernet, JESD204, DisplayPort, and more. On-board high efficiency regulators support a single-input (+6V to +15V) power supply for easy application.

FPGA options include a GPU (-7EG) and video CODEC (-7EV). Applications include ultra high-end data acquisition, AI/ML data ingestion and inference, real-time data and video analytics, smart NIC edge applications, and onpremise machine vision processing.

The BRK1900 reference design (sold separately) enables rapid prototype development with four SYZYGY standard peripheral ports, two SYZYGY transceiver ports, two QSFP cages for network interfaces, and USB and ethernet interfaces.

Opal Kelly Incorporated www.opalkelly.com



FEATURES Ą Compact form factor (112mm x 83mm x 13.18mm) Ą Dual-Core ARM CoreTex R5 Ą 8 GiB DDR4 (4 GiB CPU + 4 GiB FPGA) Ą 248 I/O (200 FPGA + 48 CPU) Ą 24 Gigabit Transceivers (up to 16.3 Gb/s) Ą Micro-SD card slot Ą Programmable clock oscillator

https://opalkelly.com/products/ecm1900/

sales@opalkelly.com

 217-391-3724

www.linkedin.com/company/opal-kelly-incorporated

twitter.com/opalkelly Embedded Hardware

VP1-250-eSSDC The VP1-250-eSSDC is a Conduction Cooled (VITA 48) Open VPX NVMe Solid State Disk storage module that delivers extremely high performance via a single fat pipe (PCIe 4x). Designed from the ground up to remove legacy layers of hard drive interfaces such as SATA and SAS, it takes full advantage of the speed and parallelism of solid state nonvolatile memory.

Streamlined efficient queuing protocol combined with an optimized command set register interface enables low latency and high performance.

NVMe is an industry standard registered interface designed to accelerate the performance of nonvolatile PCI Express (PCIe) SSDs. The NVMe protocol was established in collaboration by server industry leaders to standardize a scalable PCIe interface, making it easier for designers to unlock the full potential of PCIe. NVME provides opportunities for increased data throughput and reduced latency all while reducing the number of drives needed – both now and in the future. Adoption of this industry standard is driven by a strong consortium of storage technology providers and a robust ecosystem of drivers across multiple operating systems.

Phoenix International is an AS9100D/ISO 9001-2015 certified, NIST SP 800-171 compliant Small Business.

Phoenix International www.phenxint.com www.militaryembedded.com

FEATURES Ą Storage Capacity to 16TB Ą Sequential 128KB read: 1.2GB/sec, write: 1.2KB/sec Ą Operational Altitude to 80,000 Feet Ą Operational Temperature from -40 degrees to +85 degrees C Ą Streamlined protocol with efficient queuing mechanism to scale

with multi-core CPUs

Ą Optional AES 256/FIPS140-2 Encryption Ą Also Available in Air Cooled Configurations

MADE IN THE USA

www.phenxint.com/portfolio/rugged-open-vpx-nvme-ssd-module/ 

info@phenxint.com

 714-283-4800

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Model 6003 8-Channel A/D & D/A Zynq UltraScale+ RFSoC Gen 3 The Quartz® Model 6003 is a high-performance Quartz eXpress Module (QuartzXM) based on the Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ RFSoC FPGA. The RFSoC FPGA integrates eight RF-class A/D and D/A converters into the Zynq’s multiprocessor architecture, creating a multichannel data conversion and processing solution on a single chip.

The Model 6003 has been designed to bring RFSoC performance to a wide range of different applications by offering the FPGA in a small system-on-module solution measuring only 2.5 by 4 inches. In addition to the RFSoC FPGA, the 6003 includes all of the support circuitry needed to maximize the performance of the RFSoC. The 6003 is available on standard form factor carriers including 3U VPX, SOSA aligned 3U VPX, PCIe, and small form factor enclosures in both commercial and rugged options. In many applications one of Pentek’s carrier configurations can provide a final, deployable turn-key solution.

In situations where only a custom form factor will satisfy the application requirements, the 6003 is supported with a design kit that helps users engineer and build their own custom carrier. As a complete and tested module, the Model 6003 QuartzXM encapsulates best-in-class electrical and mechanical design, eliminating some of the most challenging aspects of embedded circuit design and allowing users to focus on an application-specific carrier design.

Extendable IP Design For applications that require specialized functions, users can install their own custom IP for data processing. The Navigator FPGA Design Kit (FDK) includes the board’s entire FPGA design as a block diagram that can be edited in Xilinx’s Vivado® IP Integrator. In addition to the IP Integrator block diagrams, all source code and complete IP core documentation is included. Developers can integrate their own IP along with the factory-installed functions or use the Navigator kit to completely replace the IP with their own.

The Navigator Board Support Package (BSP), the companion product to the Navigator FDK, provides a complete C-callable library for control of the 6003’s hardware and IP. The Navigator FDK and BSP libraries mirror each other where each IP function is controlled by a matching software function, simplifying the job of keeping IP and software development synchronized.

The Navigator BSP includes support for Xilinx’s PetaLinux running on the ARM Cortex-A53 processors. When running under PetaLinux, the Navigator BSP libraries enable complete control of the 6003 either from applications running locally or on the ARMs, or using the Navigator API control and command from remote system computers.

FEATURES Unique QuartzXM eXpress Module enables deployment in custom form factors Ą Incorporates Xilinx® Zynq® UltraScale+™ Gen 3 RFSoC Ą 6 GB of DDR4 SDRAM Ą LVDS connections to the Zynq UltraScale+ FPGA for custom I/O Ą GTY connections for gigabit serial communication Ą Ruggedized and conduction-cooled versions available Ą Includes a complete suite of IP functions and example applications Ą Navigator® BSP for software development Ą Navigator® FDK for custom IP development Ą Carrier Design Package available to enable custom carrier design Ą Free lifetime applications support Ą

Pentek, Now Part of Mercury www.pentek.com 74 September 2021



sales@pentek.com

www.pentek.com/go/mes6003  201-818-5900

www.linkedin.com/company/mercury-systems/

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS with Resource Guide

@MRCY

www.militaryembedded.com

Latest Innovations for OpenVPX, SOSA™, & SpaceVPX Pixus offers a wealth of creative solutions for your OpenVPX, SOSA/HOST, and SpaceVPX needs. Our high-performance backplanes are available in a wide range of VITA 65 and SOSA™ aligned profiles, with various configurations of VITA 66 (optical) and/or VITA 67 (RF) slot options. The 1U – 4U SlimBox OpenVPX chassis line provides a compact and versatile platform for 3U, 6U and 3U/6U hybrid system requirements. The dual depth open frame enclosure supports standard 160mm OpenVPX boards and 220mm SpaceVPX boards in the same chassis. Both card guides types are available for air-cooled and conduction-cooled boards in each depth. Our Rugged Rackmount OpenVPX chassis line is designed for the harsh environments to meet MIL STD 810, MIL STD 461, & more.

FEATURES Ą Rugged and commercial designs in various sizes & configurations Ą Backplane design expertise to 100GbE speeds, RT3 connector Ą 1U – 4U SlimBox OpenVPX for compact and versatile 3U, 6U, and 3U/6U

hybrid needs

Ą Rugged rackmount and ATR enclosures for advanced OpenVPX/SOSA™

requirements

Ą Dual depth VITA 78 SpaceVPX open frame development enclosure Ą OpenVPX Chassis Managers & specialty OpenVPX products

Contact Pixus to discuss your application today!

Enclosures Cases Subracks Backplanes Chassis Integrated Systems Components

Pixus Technologies

www.pixustechnologies.com



info@pixustechnologies.com

www.pixustechnologies.com  519-885-5775

@pixustech

Embedded Hardware

soligen CORp. Crypto Secure 2.5" SATA III SSD Crypto Secure Solid State Drives have the Federal Information Processing Standard FIPS 140-2 encryption with up to 16TB density and 6Gb/s SATA III speed, making it the industry’s fastest and highest capacity secure SSD. TM

Let Soligen’s engineering team partner with your designers at the earliest stages to develop a solution to fit your needs perfectly.

After qualification, we follow through to production, field testing and full roll out.

Soligen produces a full line of industry-leading rugged SSDs in all standard form factors. We have NVMe PCIe and SATA solutions up to 40TB and 10TB SLC. Also available are OPAL encryption, military data destruction, write-protect and hardware erase options.

FEATURES FIPS 140-2 encryption Ą Up to 16TB density Ą 6 Gb/s SATA III speed Ą Key Management: Session key, permanent key or custom 256-bit pass-phrase authentication Ą Hardware authentication Ą AES encryption with a 256-bit key Ą Purge technology which destroys the key in less than 100 ms Ą Full drive erase in less than 10 seconds Ą

www.SoligenCorp.com

Soligen Corporation

www.SoligenCorp.com www.militaryembedded.com



info@soligencorp.com

 949.877.3144

@SoligenCorp

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SECO USA: Rugged Devices for Military Use SECO USA specializes in the design of embedded processor circuitry and the development of rugged high reliability electronic devices, including rugged tablets, medical devices, and industrial equipment. SECO USA also provides US-based engineering and support services for all SECO products.

COTS Boards and Modified COTS Design Leveraging SECO hardware knowhow, SECO USA offers a wide portfolio of Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) embedded computers in standard system-on-module (SOM) form factors such as SMARC®, Qseven®, COM Express®, and COM-HPC®. SOMs offer reduced time-to-market, high integration flexibility, and a future upgrade path with no hardware redesign.

SECO single board computers (SBCs) are also compliant with popular standards – 3.5", Pico-ITX, and eNUC – and offer complete computer platforms that operate in harsh environments.

All SECO COTS platforms feature leading edge processing technologies from NXP, Intel, Xilinx, Nvidia, or AMD. They also run various operating systems, including Linux, Android, Windows, and real time operating systems (RTOS) such as VxWorks.

Using a SECO SOM or SBC platform – as well as HMIs, tablets, and other devices – as a starting point, SECO USA can modify validated schematics, circuit board artwork, and operating system source code to deliver a Modified COTS design. Modified COTS allows development of use case and technical requirement specific products with minimized cost, time to market, and risk.

SECO USA designs, develops, qualifies, and manufactures rugged electronic systems across a broad range of industries, including military, medical, industrial, and transportation. With design processes that uncover complete use cases and ensure compliance with a broad range of regulatory and industry specifications, resulting electronic devices meet the most demanding applications.

SECO USA rugged tablets leverage SECO commercial off the shelf (COTS) embedded board circuitry to develop a customized embedded computing platform optimized for tablet applications. A full range of standard tablet features – USB, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, 

www.seco-usa.com 76 September 2021

SECO USA tablets are supported by customized operating systems which match hardware-level features and enhance security. ARM tablets feature Linux and Android, with source code available. Other operating systems, such as VxWorks real time operating system (RTOS), are possible.

FEATURES Ą Small-sized, low power COTS devices: variety of SOMs, SBCs, HMIs, and

tablets compliant with widely used standards that reduce time to market

Rugged tablets and rugged device design

SECO USA

brightness and volume control – and specialized interfaces, such as Ethernet, serial, CAN, and GPIO - are combined to provide a flexible platform for real world applications. Ergonomic but rugged enclosures provide militarytough tablet operation. Impact resistant sunlight readable displays and industrial rated components enable reliable operation through extended temperature, severe shock/vibration, drop, liquid submersion, and more.

Ą Modified COTS design to minimize development cost, schedule, and risk Ą Custom designed and manufactured low-power, rugged, high reliability

electronic devices that fulfill unique and difficult use cases and requirements

Ą Operating systems for edge devices: Linux, Android, Windows, and RTOS

such as VxWorks modified to match edge device hardware

Ą US-based engineering and operations for direct support of North America

clients

Ą Support services for integration of SECO’s suite of embedded board, HMI,

and IoT/AI system solutions into client products

sales.us@seco.com

www.linkedin.com/company/secousa/

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS with Resource Guide

 +1 (240) 558-2014

twitter.com/secousa_ www.militaryembedded.com

A FINE TECHNOLOGY GROUP

cPCI, PXI, VME, Custom Packaging Solutions VME and VME64x, CompactPCI, or PXI chassis are available in many configurations from 1U to 12U, 2 to 21 slots, with many power options up to 1,200 watts. Dual hot-swap is available in AC or DC versions. We have in-house design, manufacturing capabilities, and in-process controls. All Vector chassis and backplanes are manufactured in the USA and are available with custom modifications and the shortest lead times in the industry.

Series 2370 chassis offer the lowest profile per slot. Cards are inserted horizontally from the front, and 80mm rear I/O backplane slot configuration is also available. Chassis are available from 1U, 2 slots up to 7U, 12 slots for VME, CompactPCI, or PXI. All chassis are IEEE 1101.10/11 compliant with hot-swap, plug-in AC or DC power options.

Our Series 400 enclosures feature side-filtered air intake and rear exhaust for up to 21 vertical cards. Options include hot-swap, plug-in AC or DC power, and system voltage/temperature monitor.

Embedded power supplies are available up to 1,200 watts.

Series 790 is MIL-STD-461D/E compliant and certified, economical, and lighter weight than most enclosures available today. It is available in 3U, 4U, and 5U models up to 7 horizontal slots.

All Vector chassis are available for custom modification in the shortest time frame. Many factory paint colors are available and can be specified with Federal Standard or RAL numbers.

FEATURES Ą

Most rack accessories ship from stock

Ą

Modified ‘standards’ and customization are our specialty

Ą

Card sizes from 3U x 160mm to 9U x 400mm

Ą

System monitoring option (CMM)

Ą

AC or DC power input

Ą

Power options up to 1,200 watts

Made in the USA Since 1947

For more detailed product information, please visit www.vectorelect.com or call 1-800-423-5659 and discuss your application with a Vector representative.

Vector Electronics & Technology, Inc. www.vectorelect.com www.militaryembedded.com



inquire@vectorelect.com

 800-423-5659

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ParallelCell Multi-Chip Packaged (MCP) Viking Technology ParallelCell Multi-Chip Package (MCP) is part of the extreme density line of DDR4 memory products optimized for the embedded, industrial, and military/aerospace markets. ParallelCell products achieve significantly higher memory performance and density per cubic inch than conventional memory DIMMs. These performance and density milestones will critically change the way future system hardware is designed and deployed.

Viking’s ParallelCell MCP is a powerful, compact and rugged DDR4 memory module designed for SWaP optimized applications.

• Compact and rugged DDR4 memory modules designed for SWaP optimized applications • Full single rank DDR4 memory channel solution in a plastic BGA package (15mmx20mm & 1.92 mm package height) • Data width: x72 (64 data bits plus ECC) • Termination resistors and decoupling capacitors incorporated into package • 391 Ball, 0.8mm pitch

FEATURES Ą Very small footprint: Saves up to 85% board space vs.

Standard DIMM Modules Ą Rugged: Soldered-down – No DIMM connector Ą Very high memory capacity per cu. in. Ą Superior signal integrity Ą Very high memory bandwidth per cu. in. Ą Lower cost motherboard due to easier DDR routing

www.vikingtechnology.com/ddr4-military-mcp/parallelcell-ddr4-mcp

Viking Technology

www.vikingtechnology.com



sales@vikingtechnology.com

 714-913-2200

www.linkedin.com/company/vikingtechnology

@vikinology

Embedded Hardware

XPedite7683 XPedite7683 is a secure, high-performance, 3U OpenVPX™, single board computer based on the Intel® Xeon® D-1500 family of processors. Providing up to 16 Xeon®-class cores, up to 32 GB of DDR4-2133 ECC SDRAM, and XMC support, the XPedite7683 is an optimal choice for computationally heavy applications requiring maximum data and information protection.

XPedite7683 integrates SecureCOTS™ technology with a Microsemi SmartFusion®2 security SoC for hosting custom functions to protect data from being modified or observed, and provides an ideal solution when stringent security capabilities are required. The Microsemi SmartFusion®2 can control, intercept, and monitor the Xeon® D subsystem, implement penalties, and interface to the system through GPIO directly connected to the VPX backplane. Circuit board enhancements and optimized Two-Level Maintenance (2LM) metalwork provide additional protection to the physical hardware.

XPedite7683 maximizes network performance with two 10 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces and two Gigabit Ethernet interfaces. It accommodates up to 32 GB of DDR42133 ECC SDRAM in two channels and up to 256 GB of onboard SATA NAND flash in addition to numerous I/O ports, including USB, SATA, and RS-232/422/485 through the backplane connectors. The XPedite7683 provides additional expansion capabilities with an integrated XMC site, which includes a x8 PCIe connection to the Intel® Xeon® D processor and X12d I/O mapped directly to the VPX backplane connectors.

Extreme Engineering Solutions (X-ES) www.xes-inc.com 78 September 2021



FEATURES Ą Supports Intel® Xeon® D-1500 family processors (formerly

Broadwell-DE)

Ą Up to 16 Xeon®-class cores in a single, power-efficient SoC

Ą Ą Ą Ą Ą

package. 4-, 8-, or 12-core SKUs available with native extended temperature support.

Up to 32 GB of DDR4-2133 ECC SDRAM in two channels Ruggedized Enhanced Design Implementation (REDI) per VITA 48 Designed with SecureCOTS™ technology to support enhanced security and trusted computing Microsemi SmartFusion®2 SoC with 1 GB DDR3-667 ECC SDRAM and 32 MB SPI flash Two 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports and two Gigabit Ethernet ports, four SATA ports, and two USB 2.0 ports

sales@xes-inc.com

www.xes-inc.com/products/sbcs/xpedite7683/

 608-833-1155

www.linkedin.com/company/extreme-engineering-solutions

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS with Resource Guide

@XES_INC

www.militaryembedded.com

ZM3 Mission Computer

FEATURES

Your answer to make it smaller, lighter and faster – the ZM3 Mission Computer offers full computing capability in a small, rugged package. This lightweight powerhouse packs in a 16-Core, Intel® Xeon D™ processor, three PCIe expansion slots, up to two removable NVMe storage drives and double-wide COTS high-end graphics cards making it the most compute dense, rugged computing solution on the market.

IDEAL FOR AIRBORNE ISR APPLICATIONS Weighing less than 10 lbs., the ZM3 Mission Computer was designed specifically to minimize size, weight and power for airborne ISR applications and meets full DO-160 compliance for airborne environments.

COM EXPRESS TYPE 7 BASED SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE The ZM3 utilizes the COM Express Type 7 architecture to create a versatile system that can be configured to fit application requirements. Com Express Type 7 supports up to four 10GbE interfaces and enables 32 PCI Express lanes to support NVMe storage and multiple lanes for PCIe expansion cards.

NVME BASED TRANZPAK 1 REMOVABLE STORAGE Further reducing weight, the ZM3 can house up to two TranzPak 1 rugged storage drives (up to 8TB), which utilize the latest NVMe technology to provide storage read/write speeds up to 3x faster than SATA and only weigh 10oz. each.

Ą Compact size: 4.6"H x 5.6"W x 14.2"D

Ą Lightweight aluminum construction, weighing less

than 10 lbs.

Ą Up to 16TB NVMe based removable storage Ą 2x front access USB 3.0 Ports

Ą MIL-DTL-38999 Locking Power Connector

Ą Up to 16 Core, 1.3GHZ+ Intel® Xeon® D processor Ą DDR4 RAM, up to 96GB

Ą Flexible PCI expansion options: Up to 3 PCIe cards Ą Onboard dual 10GigE and Audio

Ą Configurable dual serial ports supporting RS422

or RS232

Ą 450W, 18-36V DC power input with EMI filter Ą Illuminated power button for system status Ą Field-replaceable dust filter

Introducing the TranzPak 1e Rugged e-Label Storage Drive The TranzPak 1e (TP1e) introduces new innovation to your removable hard-drive by integrating an e-paper display directly into the storage housing. The e-paper display provides a flexible canvas for you to better organize and track your data with custom labeling options.

QUICKLY UPDATE THE E-LABEL DISPLAY Select pre-defined templates or create your own layout with the easy-to-use interface which allows you to quickly edit and update the e-label display from your desktop computer.

FREE UPGRADE – Mention the MES Resource Guide to your regional sales manager to receive a free upgrade to a TranzPak 1e on your next TranzPak 1 order!

ZMicro, Inc.

https://zmicro.com/zm3 www.militaryembedded.com



sales@zmicro.com

www.linkedin.com/company/zmicro

 858-831-7000

@zmicrosystems

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Lauterbach Debugger for Intel x86/x64 Skylake/Kabylake Lauterbach TRACE32 Debugger for Intel x86/x64: In January of this year, Lauterbach introduced the new CombiProbe Whisker MIPI60-Cv2. The TRACE32 CombiProbe and TRACE32 QuadProbe now offer the same debug features for the Converged Intel® MIPI60 connector: • Standard JTAG, Intel® debug hooks with Pmode, and I2C bus • Merged debug ports (two JTAG chains) • Intel® Survivability features (threshold, slew rate, ...)

However, these debug tools have different areas of application. The TRACE32 QuadProbe, which is expressly designed for server processors, is a dedicated debug tool that enables SMP debugging of hundreds of threads on targets with up to four debug connectors.

The TRACE32 CombiProbe with the MIPI60-Cv2 Whisker, designed for client as well as mobile device processors, can capture and evaluate system trace data in addition to its enhanced debugging features.

Trace capabilities include support of one 4-bit and one 8-bit trace port with nominal bandwidth.

The TRACE32 CombiProbe with the DCI OOB Whisker is specially designed for debugging and tracing of form factor devices without debug connectors. If the chip contains a DCI Manager, the target and the debugger can exchange debug and trace messages directly via the USB3 interface. The DCI protocol used to exchange messages supports standard JTAG and Intel® debug hooks as well as trace messages for recording system trace information.

Lauterbach, Inc.

www.lauterbach.com 80 September 2021

FEATURES Ą

Ą Ą

Ą

Ą

CombiProbe MIPI60-Cv2 provides debug and system trace capability Support for standard JTAG, debug HOOKs and I2C bus Support for merged debug ports (two JTAG chains per debug connector) Support for survivability features (threshold, slew rate, etc.)

Support for system trace port with up to 8 trace data channels

Ą

128 MByte of trace memory

Ą

SMP debugging (including hyperthreading)

Ą

AMP debugging with other architectures

Ą

BIOS/UEFI debugging with tailor-made GUI for all UEFI phases

Ą

Linux- and Windows-aware debugging

Ą

Hypervisor debugging

info_us@lauterbach.com  508-303-6812 www.lauterbach.com/pro/pro_core_alt01.php?chip=CORE-I3/I5/I7/I9-9THGEN 

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS with Resource Guide

www.militaryembedded.com

TRACE32 Integration for Wind River Workbench The Lauterbach TRACE32 Debugger now also operates as a TCF agent. This makes it possible to use the Wind River Workbench or the Eclipse debugger as an IDE and a TRACE32 debugger as a debugging back-end tool.

The Target Communication Framework (TCF) was developed by the Eclipse Foundation as a protocol framework with the goal of defining a uniform debugging communication protocol between an IDE and a target system.

TCF defines a series of standard services. At the same time, the framework is open for the definition of proprietary services.

After the TRACE32 software is started as a TCF agent, it provides its services to the Wind River Workbench or the Eclipse debugger via TCP/IP. Using its TCF services, the TRACE32 debugger can now provide an open communication interface for debugging with Eclipse or the WindRiver Workbench for all processor architectures and compilers supported by TRACE32.

Lauterbach, Inc.

www.lauterbach.com

FEATURES Ą TRACE32 operates as TCF agent Ą Support for various launch mechanisms Ą Support for all debug relevant TCF services Ą Synchronized debugging between TRACE32 and TCF C/C++ Debugger

in Wind River Workbenchd

Ą Support for multiple projects (multicore) Ą Applicable for all processor architectures supported by TRACE32 Ą Based on Target Communication Framework (TCF)

info_us@lauterbach.com www.lauterbach.com/intwindriver.html 

 508-303-6812

Embedded Software

Hypervisor Debugging with Lauterbach TRACE32 Debugger Lauterbach provides support for seamless debugging of hypervisor-based systems. The introduction of the unique Lauterbach Machine ID allows the debugger to identify any virtual machine in the system. This gives the debugger full visibility of the context of all active and inactive virtual machines and provides a supporting framework to load OS specific awarenesses for each virtual machine.

The most important objective of the TRACE32 hypervisor-awareness is a seamless debugging of the overall system. This means that when the system has stopped at a breakpoint, one can check and change the current state of every single process, all VMs, plus the current state of the hypervisor and of the real hardware platform.

The TRACE32 hypervisor-awareness provides the debugger with all of the hypervisor’s information running on the hardware platform. After the OS-awareness is loaded for each guest/VM the debugger can display an overview of the overall system.

TRACE32 assigns each VM a number, the machine ID (mid column). The machine ID is a unique identifier that is used by TRACE32 and appears as an address extension; a concept already familiar to TRACE32 users.

The Global Task List represents the heart of the TRACE32 hypervisor-aware debugging. It lists all tasks/processes/threads of the guest OSes and the hypervisor. TRACE32 can visualize the context of any task in its GUI. Just double-click to on the task name.

The TRACE32 CORE List window displays in detail what is currently running on the individual cores of an SMP system.

The TRACE32 GUI visualizes the context of the current core/task by a double-click on the task name in the TRACE32 Global Task List.

TRACE32 allows the visualisation of any task, even if its VM is currently not active.

Since Lauterbach has systematically extended the well known concepts for OS-aware debugging to hypervisor debugging, it will be easy for TRACE32 users to get started with just a little practice.

Lauterbach, Inc.

www.lauterbach.com www.militaryembedded.com

FEATURES Ą Seamless debugging of the total system in stop-mode Ą Hypervisor-awareness as a loadable debug extension is provided

by Lauterbach

Ą Machine ID allows the user to uniquely identify any virtual

machine in the system

Ą Machine ID provides full visibility of context of active and inactive

virtual machines Ą OS-awareness can be loaded for each virtual machine

info_us@lauterbach.com www.lauterbach.com/hypervisor.html 

 508-303-6812

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Military Embedded Systems Resource Guide

Embedded Software

FEATURES

Lynx Simple Applications (LSA) In common with many other functional safety standards, DO-178 helps to minimize development overhead by permitting the separation of a software system into software items with the aim of placing as little of the system as possible into the more critical classes.

The traditional approach to maintaining the separation of aircraft systems was to simply keep them physically separate. Newer system architectures move away from this hardware-centric approach by employing a high-integrity, partitioned environment that hosts multiple avionics functions of different criticalities on a shared computing platform. The established approach of harnessing a separation kernel hypervisor can (immutably) create independent, isolated hardware instances for virtual machines (VMs).

Lynx has built on this foundation to deal with use cases when critical real-time elements of the system demand more complexity. A “Z-app” (short for Z-application) is a collection of separation kernel virtual machines that belong to a common execution group. The Z-app concept addresses the needs of application developers looking to achieve sophisticated, hard real-time behavior complete with function protection and domain separation. Introducing a flexible scheduler provides the required scheduling capability coupled with domain and function protection.

Ą Flexible scheduler that jumps into a separate memory dimension using hypervisor context switch “hypercalls” Ą Functions called according to a scheduling algorithm that is customizable to suit each application Ą Functions able to donate the remainder of a time-slice to another function for improved efficiency Ą Conventional framework for bare-metal applications, modelling a program stack such that a program runtime creates a standard memory layout to organize the execution flow of functions within a main program Ą Delivers the benefit of protection via separation. (example – Global/heap memory and stack memory are allocated and utilized exactly as they would be in a conventional program)

www.lynx.com/embedded-systems-learning-center/introducing-the-z-application

Lynx Software Technologies



inside@lynx.com

 408-979-3900

www.linkedin.com/company/lynxsoftwaretechnologies

www.lynx.com

@lynxsoftware OpenVPX

FEATURES Ą VITA 65 OpenVPX™ compliant backplanes Ą VITA 46/VITA 48 VPX REDI™-compliant with VITA 46.30 compliant RT3

connectors

Ą Multiple backplane profiles available, including backplanes with routed

fabric connections, as well as both 3U and 6U pass-thru backplane versions which can be used with high-speed RTM cables

GEN-4/5 OpenVPX BACKPLANES Atrenne, a Celestica company, offers a wide range of high-performance backplanes, with 6U, 3U and hybrid 3U/6U models available. Our Gen-4/5 OpenVPX backplanes are part of an innovative product family that enables end-to-end solutions for 64/100 Gigabit systems.

Designed to the demanding signal integrity requirements of PCIe Gen4 and 100GbE (100GBASE-KR4), these high-performance Gen-4/5 backplanes offer the highest signal integrity in the industry and are typically used in air-cooled or conduction-cooled development chassis.

Atrenne can also design application-specific configurations to meet your individual requirements.

Atrenne Computing www.atrenne.com 82 September 2021



Ą Provisions for mechanical stops to prevent misinsertion of payload cards Ą Stiffeners placed every other slot to ensure backplane rigidity Ą Designed to stringent Atrenne Gen-4/5 signal integrity design rules;

signal integritycompliant for PCIe Gen4 and 100GBASE-KR4 up to 25 Gbaud with extremely low insertion loss. Innovative signal integrity methods used to minimize return loss, crosstalk, and mode conversion (patented).

Ą Keying and alignment per VITA 65 and VITA 46

www.atrenne.com/products/gen-45-openvpx-backplanes

sales@atrenne.com

 774-453-6620

www.linkedin.com/company/atrenne-computing-solutions

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@AtrenneOfficial www.militaryembedded.com

6E10 features up to 26 40/100Gb Ethernet ports

100GbE VPX Switches are SOSA™-Aligned WILDSTAR™ 6E10 (6U) and 3E10 (3U) are next-generation 100GbE Switches that deliver up to 6.4 Tb/s of switching between backplane slots of multiple channels of 100Gb Ethernet. They have front panel I/O to connect to external data sources, and 6E10 has optional VITA 66.5 optical backplane connectivity. Both are VITA 65-compliant, and align with the SOSA Standard.

FEATURES Ą Switching

• • • •

Supports 1/10/25/40/100 GbE 6.4 Tb/s of switching capability Industry-leading, true cut-through latency Separate Data and Control Plane Switches

These rugged high-performance Switches are readily integrated into any SOSA-aligned VPX system, or deployed within Annapolis’ proven WILD100™ EcoSystem.

Ą I/O

Also available: For InfiniBand support, see WILDSTAR 6B10 6U OpenVPX InfiniBand Switch.

Ą FPGAs

• Optional 40/100GbE optical interfaces to Front Panel • Optional 40/100GbE optical interfaces to VITA 66 (6E10) • 2 Xilinx® Zynq® UltraScale+™ MPSoCs

Ą General

• • • •

Multiple levels of hardware and software security Supports new SOSA/VITA 65 switch profile Air, conduction, air-flow-through, or liquid cooled Hot swappable with air-cooled variants

Ą Optional Board Support Package (BSP)

• Enables user customization of Zynq+ design • Includes HDL reference design for HPEs and PetaLinux project including necessary software source • Includes Ubuntu Linux v18.04 file system and v5.4 kernel with required patches

Ą What Can 100GbE Switches Do for You?

If you require high-performance switching for advanced HPC, ISR, or multi-function EW applications, these turnkey switches with dense, flexible I/O are for you.

The 6E10 Switch ran in an Air Force chassis at TSOA-ID, the first public demonstration of a SOSA-aligned 100GbE switch.

Contact us today to request a block diagram and additional specifications.

MADE IN

U. S. A.

www.annapmicro.com

Annapolis Micro Systems, Inc.

www.annapmicro.com/product-category/switch-boards/ www.militaryembedded.com

 wfinfo@annapmicro.com  410-841-2514

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OpenVPX

100GbE SOSA™-Aligned Development Kit – WS3A01-S1 This next-generation 3U OpenVPX Benchtop Development Platform is both SOSA-aligned and 100Gb Ethernet capable, and is designed from the ground up to economically speed development of 100GbE Systems that are aligned with SOSA 1.0.

The stock Kit includes a 3U Chassis, Backplane, Chassis Manager, FPGA Board with Gen 3 RFSoC Mezz Card, 100GbE Switch, SBC, VITA blocks, and MIL-DTL-38999 cable.

For a virtual or in-person Demo, contact us.

OVERALL SYSTEM FEATURES • Front-loading, air-cooled system with conduction-cooled boards • Seven 3U OpenVPX slots with SOSA-aligned backplane profiles – One 14.6.11 Payload – Three 14.6.11 Empty Payload (for expansion) – One 14.2.16 I/O-intensive SBC – One 14.4.14 100GbE Switch – One VITA 62 Power Supply – 12V-Heavy • 25 Gbps Line Rates on Data and Expansion Planes – 25/40/100Gb Ethernet – SDR/DDR/QDR/EDR InfiniBand – Gen 3/4 PCI Express – Custom protocols up to 25Gbps per lane • VITA 66.5C and VITA 67.3C for payload slots • Four MIL-DTL-38999 SOSA-aligned circular connectors with 19 RF connections, and one MIL-DTL-38999 Cable • Multiple levels of hardware and software security

CHASSIS MANAGER • SOSA-aligned and VITA 46.11 compliant • Enables control, maintenance, and security functions • One Xilinx® Zynq® UltraScale+™ MPSoC (XCZU5EG) • Supports MIL-STD-1553 100Gb ETHERNET SWITCH • 40/100Gb Ethernet Data Plane Switch – 6.4Tb/s switching capacity – Industry-leading, true cut through latency • 1/10/25/40/100Gb Ethernet Control Plane Switch – Layer-2 Wire-Speed Switching Engine • Two Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoCs (XCZU5EG) FPGA PROCESSOR + RFSoC I/O CARD • One Xilinx Virtex® UltraScale+ FPGA (XCVU7P) • One Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC (XCZU7EV) • One Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ Gen 3 RFSoC (ZU47DR) • ADC: 4 Channel, 5.0+GSps Sample Rate, 14 bit Resolution • DAC: 4 Channel, 10.0+GSps Sample Rate, 14 bit Resolution SINGLE BOARD COMPUTER (SBC) • Intel® Xeon® D-1559 • 32G DRAM • 60GB M.2 SSD/Linux – Standard APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT • Standard support delivered with all systems • Optional full Board Support Package – Enables customization of Zynq PS, PL for security – Provides fast and robust HDL-based environment

MADE IN

U. S. A.

www.annapmicro.com

Annapolis Micro Systems

www.AnnapMicro.com/products/WS3A01-S1/ 84 September 2021

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS with Resource Guide

 410-841-2514 

wfinfo@annapmicro.com www.militaryembedded.com

LIGHTER, FASTER, TOUGHER. TE Connectivity’s (TE) MULTIGIG RT 2-S and RT 3 connectors deliver unmatched reliability in embedded computing and OpenVPX systems. The lightest design ever achieved in any comparable backplane connectors, the MULTIGIG RT 2-S and RT 3 connectors owe their strength and performance to durable, weight-saving thermoplastic and copper alloy construction.

These backplane connectors have been rigorously tested and proven in military, avionics, ground defense, missile defense, and space applications. As our warfighters become increasingly dependent on technological innovation, we’re excited to expand our offering of VPX-compliant solutions that support 10G Ethernet, RapidIO, InfiniBand, HyperTransport, and other highspeed protocols.

VITA 67 RF modules from TE are modular systems designed for backplane/daughtercard multi-coax contact mating within a robust platform to withstand the mechanical rigors of military and aerospace applications. They are also fully compatible with VPX packaging to make it easy and convenient to achieve RF connectivity within a well-established architecture.

TE offers SMPM contacts/modules and new higher density NanoRF modules, supporting 2-3 times the density of VITA 67 SMPM RF modules. Half and full-size NanoRF module sizes can

retain up to 12 or 19+ RF contacts, with options for customizing contact count and position.

Visit te.com/sosa to learn more.

FEATURES Ą

VITA 46: MULTIGIG RT 2-S and RT 3 Connectors

Ą

VITA 67 RF Modules

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Enhanced PCB wafer and contact design supports increased bandwidth up to 32+ Gb/s Meets interface requirements for VITA 46 connectors allowing backward compatibility with legacy VPX products Customizable to meet unique application requirements Modular design enables numerous configurations by inter changing higher-speed MULTIGIG RT 3 connectors with the legacy MULTIGIG RT 2 and MULTIGIG RT 2-R connectors Contact design utilizes quad redundant contacts for optimum performance in shock and vibration Modular design fully compatible with VPX packaging permits application specific configuration Available with SPMP contacts/modules and new higher density NanoRF modules Float mounted jack maintains positive RF ground Contacts housed in robust stainless steel or aluminum modules Contacts tolerate generous misalignment to allow blind mating

MULTIGIG RT 3 Connector

TE Connectivity te.com/sosa

www.militaryembedded.com

 800-522-6752

twitter.com/TEConnectivity

www.linkedin.com/company/te-connectivity/

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OpenVPX

NDR374 4 Channel 3U VPX Digital Tuner The NDR374 digital tuner is a 4-channel, superheterodyne downconverter that covers RF signals from 2 MHz to 8 GHz. It is a rugged 3U conduction cooled VPX module, per VITA 46/48/65/67. The NDR374 digital tuner is designed as a 3U open architecture version of the existing NDR358 tuner to include RF performance, command set and multiple DSPbased modes of operation (the NDR374 enables efficient system integration for existing NDR358 users).

FEATURES Ą Ą Ą Ą Ą

4 channel 3U OpenVPX wideband digital tuner Aligned with the SOSA™ Technical Standard 125 MHz BW per channel Fast Scan Control Interface Supports multiple existing NDR358 DSP-based modes of operation (contact for details) https://cyberradiosolutions.com/products/VPX.php

CyberRadio Solutions

www.cyberradiosolutions.com



sales@cyberradiosolutions.com

www.linkedin.com/company/cyber-radio-solutions

 240-421-0754

@CyberRadios

PC/104 Dual 10 Gbit/s Copper Ethernet RTD’s LAN24550 is a dual 10 Gbit/s Copper Ethernet Module utilizing Intel’s X550 10 GbE controller. The X550-AT2 Ethernet controller is a second-generation 10GBASE-T controller with integrated MAC and PHY. It provides backward compatibility with existing 1000BASE-T, simplifying the migration to 10 GbE, and provides iSCSI, FCoE, virtualization, and Flexible Port Partitioning (FPP).

10 Gigabit – using stacked switch configurations – can introduce an increased use of redundancy as Active-Active LACP port teaming. Multiple ports grouped into one logical link improves speed and availability.

FEATURES Ą PCIe/104 and PCI/104-Express stackable bus structures Ą Intel X550 10 Gigabit Ethernet Controller Ą 2 Independent 10 Gb/s Twisted Pair Ethernet Connections

with Integrated MAC and PHY

Ą RJ-45 connectors with integrated magnetics and

Link/Activity indicator LEDs

Ą 10/1 GbE data rate per port: support for vision systems,

network and server virtualization, and LAN and SAN flexibility Ą -20 to +70°C standard operating temperature

www.rtd.com

RTD Embedded Technologies, Inc. www.rtd.com 86 September 2021



sales@rtd.com

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS with Resource Guide

 814-234-8087

www.militaryembedded.com

Intel Atom E3800-based SBC RTD’s Intel Atom E3800-based single board computers are available in PCIe/104 and PCI/104-Epress. These CPUs are exceptionally suited for intelligent systems requiring low power consumption in harsh thermal conditions. Available in quad-core, dual-core, and single-core configurations. Stackable buses allow users to add peripheral modules above and below the CPU. TPM 2.0 support and ECC memory available. All models include 4GB surface-mount single-channel DDR3 SDRAM and a 32GB industrial-grade surface-mount SATA flash drive. Thermal-optimized passive heat sink included.

FEATURES Ą PCIe/104 and PCI/104-Express stackable bus structures Ą Available in modular, rugged enclosures and eBuild systems Ą Intel Atom E3800 Series Processor, Clock Speed: 1.33 GHz, 1.46 GHz, and

1.91 GHz options, Max. Core Temperature: 110°C

Ą 4GB Single-Channel DDR3 SDRAM with ECC (Surface-Mounted) Ą 32GB Surface-mounted industrial-grade SATA flash drive Ą 4 PCIe x1 Links, One SATA Port, 4 Serial Ports, 9 USB ports, Dual Gigabit

Ethernet, Analog VGA, Embedded DisplayPort (eDP) 1.3 with Audio, on-board advanced Digital I/O, TPM encryption Ą -40 to +85°C standard operating temperature www.rtd.com

RTD Embedded Technologies, Inc.



www.rtd.com/atom

sales@rtd.com

 814-234-8087

PC/104

Managed Scalable GigE Switch The LAN35MH08HR is an 8-port 10/100/1000 Managed Ethernet switch. This switch module has a total of 10 ports. Eight ports are provided to I/O connectors, one port is available to the host CPU through a x1 PCI Express GigE controller, and one port is used as a stacking switch expansion port allowing full compatibility with RTD’s managed and unmanaged StackNET™ Ethernet switch family. Additionally, this allows the CPU to use the switch without the need for external cables. The LAN35MH08HR can also be used as an expandable, standalone 8-port Ethernet switch.

The onboard CEServices Carrier Ethernet switching software provides a rich Layer 2 switching solution with Layer 3-aware packet processing.

All of the industry-standard Managed Ethernet Switch features found in an enterprise rackmount switch are provided, such as VLANs, Spanning Tree, QoS, and SNMP. Additionally, the CEServices software provides features for carrier and timing-critical networks such as OAM, Synchronous Ethernet, and IEEE 1588. The switch may be configured via a web GUI interface, or a command-line console via USB, Telnet, or SSH. www.rtd.com

RTD Embedded Technologies, Inc. www.rtdstacknet.com www.militaryembedded.com

FEATURES Ą -40 to +85°C operation, passively cooled Ą PCIe/104 stackable bus structure Ą Eight 1000/100/10 Mbps Ethernet ports plus one host port and one

stacking switch expansion port

Ą Onboard tri-color LED for each Ethernet Port Ą RJ-45 jacks or 10-pin right-angle headers Ą Fully-managed Layer 2 Ethernet Switch with Layer 3-aware packet

processing • Support for all major Enterprise switching features such as VLANs, Spanning Tree, QoS, and SNMP • Manageable via web GUI interface, SSH, Telnet, and Serial Console • Industry-standard CLI interface Ą Onboard PCI Express Ethernet Controller for interface to host cpuModule Ą USB Device Port for Serial Console command-line interface Ą Passive heat sink included • Available in stackable, rugged enclosures



sales@rtd.com

 814-234-8087

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PC/104

Military Embedded Systems Resource Guide

PC/104 GPS Disciplined Oscillator/Timing-Board RTD’s SYNC25104HR is a GPS disciplined oscillator (GPSDO) board which provides high accuracy frequency and time reference signals to PC104 systems and external devices. This board utilizes the u-blox LEA-M8F GPS receiver which locks the output signal of a low-noise, high-precision, oven-controlled crystal oscillator (OCXO) to the GNSS satellites. This product enables time synchronization between distributed systems and can be used for a variety of deployments including Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) applications. Available in PCI/104Express and PCIe/104.

FEATURES Ą -40 to +85°C operation, passively cooled Ą GPS/GNSS disciplined precise frequency (10MHz, or any frequency)

Ą Ą Ą Ą

and low phase noise clock signal generation based on uBlox M8F technology with OCXO Concurrent reception of GPS/QZSS, GLONASS, BeiDou Industry leading acquisition sensitivity and single-satellite timing SBAS (WAAS, EGNOS) can be activated to reach 2.0 m position accuracy Available in modular, rugged enclosures

www.rtd.com

RTD Embedded Technologies, Inc.



www.rtd.com

sales@rtd.com

 814-234-8087

Power Electronics

Solar Development Kits FEATURES Ą High-Performance Thin/Flexible Ą Ą

Ą Ą

Ą Ą

Solar Material BQ25570 High-Efficiency Energy Harvesting PMIC Ultra-Low Power NRF52832 Multiprotocol SoC and CC2650 SimpleLink Wireless MCU Battery-less Energy Harvesting Circuitry Onboard Light Meter, Battery Monitor, and On-Chip Temperature Sensors Open Source Design Files and Accompanying Mobile Applications I/O Breakout Headers and Screw Terminal Connections

PowerFilm Solar

www.powerfilmsolar.com 88 September 2021

Whether indoors or outdoors, light is an abundant energy source that can be used to power a wide variety of applications including the wireless sensors and devices of the emerging IoT industry. PowerFilm’s plug and play solar development kits make it easy to experiment with and explore indoor and outdoor solar.

The AEM-PF-EVK Solar Development Kit with e-peas PMIC (DEV-EPEAS) and Solar Development Kit (DEV-BASIC) are total power management solutions that can be used to directly power external electronics. With energy harvesting, battery charging, and output regulation, they bridge the gap between solar and electronics.

The Solar Development Kit with Nordic BLE (DEV-BLE-NS) is perfect for developers looking to design or add PowerFilm’s highperformance solar to BLE products. It includes an onboard energy harvester/power management IC, nRF52832 BLE circuitry, Solar Panels, and all required components to be plug and play.

The Solar Development Kit with TI BLE (DEV-BLE-TI) is a solar-powered wireless sensing module featuring an onboard light meter, battery monitor, and an on-chip temperature sensor. Use this kit to jumpstart the development of solar-powered BLE devices that use TI’s CC2650 wireless MCU. Both BLE kits include an onboard energy harvester/power management IC, BLE circuitry, Solar Panels and all required components to be plug and play out of the box. Able to operate in dimly lit environments, like warehouses and industrial plants, these kits provide an ideal development platform for any solar-powered BLE project. www.powerfilmsolar.com 

sales@powerfilmsolar.co

www.linkedin.com/company/powerfilm

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS with Resource Guide

 +1-515-292-7606

@PowerFilmSolar

www.militaryembedded.com

PSC-6238 800 Watt 3U OpenVPX Conduction Cooled Power Supply The PSC-6238 is designed to operate in a military environment over a wide range of temperatures at high power levels, is extended shock and vibration compliant per MIL-STD-810F and features an onboard real-time clock with switchable Battleshort and NED (Nuclear Event Detect) functions.

Dawn’s PSC-6238 is a wedge lock conduction cooled module on a 1 inch pitch with an operating temperature of -40°C to +85°C at the wedge lock edge. The up to 800 Watt power output true 6-channel supply provides full Open VPX support and is current/load share compatible with up to 4 PSC-6238 units.

The PSC-6238 front I/O panel includes a 3-color LED status indicator, VBAT battery access and a USB port for status display, access menu control and firmware upgrade.

Dawn’s embedded RuSH™ Rugged System Health Monitor technology provides for intelligent monitoring and control of critical system performance parameters including voltage, current, temperature and control of power sequencing and shutdown of all voltage rails.

FEATURES True 6 Channel supply provides full OpenVPX support Wedge lock conduction cooled module Ą Up to 800 Watts power output with 1 inch pitch form factor Ą Onboard embedded RuSH™ technology actively monitors voltage, current, temperature and provides protective control Ą Factory programmable power sequencing of all voltage rails Ą Shutdown control for each power rail Ą Over Voltage, Over Current and Over Temp protection Ą Ą

www.dawnvme.com  sales@dawnvme.com  800-258-DAWN (3296)

Dawn VME Products www.dawnvme.com

•

510-657-4444

Power Supplies

VPX336 – Flexible Configuration 3U VPX Power Supply 360W W-IE-NE-R VPX power supplies are commercial off-the-shelf (COTS), conduction cooled, single stage converters according to the ANSI/VITA 62.0 specification. They can be used to power a VPX chassis and will fit into the standard envelope defined by VITA 48.0 specifications.

Using state of the art switching power technology, a wide input voltage range as well as high overall efficiency is achieved. Further each individual main converter is oversized for maximum current which allows different VPX336 power supply configurations having either a stronger 12V or a more evenly distributed power over the 3 main output channels.

The VPX power supplies are outfitted with advanced features, such as reverse-input-polarity-protection, EMI filtering, full over/under voltage and surge protection, over current and over temperature protection, and microprocessor with i2C and USB interface. tested. The new VPX336 series is designed in compliance with MIL-STD-461, 704 and 1275 as per VITA 62.

The VPX power supply mechanical dimensions are 3U x 4HP (0.80" slot).

It is outfitted with connectors, keying and alignment mechanism as per VITA 62.

FEATURES Ą Compliant to VITA 62 specification, conduction cooled, 3U x 0.8" size Ą High efficiency up to up to 90%, 87% at full load of 360W

Ą Wide input voltage range: 15 V … 40 V DC, reverse polarity protection Ą Voltage sense controlled, Over Voltage, Under Voltage, Over Current,

Over Temperature protection

Ą Microprocessor controlled, with I2C bus communication for monitor-

ing (status, input and 6 output voltages and currents, temperatures), micro-USB connector for communication and firmware updates Ą No liquid / wet / aluminum electrolytic capacitors Ą MIL-STD-461, MIL-STD-704, MIL-STD-1275 compliance by design (as per VITA 62, par. 3.2.1), Ruggedized to MIL-STD-810 www.wiener-d.com/vpx-power-supply/

W-IE-NE-R Power Electronics www.wiener-d.com www.militaryembedded.com



sales@wiener-d.com

 +1 937 324 2420 or +49 2174 6780

www.linkedin.com/company/51652343

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Real-Time Operating Systems and Tools

LYNX MOSA.ic for Avionics As the complexity of systems increases, costs and time associated with the creation, certification and deployment of mission critical electronics expand. The best path is to harness mixed criticality systems, partitioning the system in a way where the amount of code that needs to be certified is minimized, isolated from other applications, and proven to operate in the intended deterministic, real-time way. LYNX MOSA.ic for Avionics significantly lowers the effort, cost and risk of developing, certifying and maintaining safety-critical avionics applications deployed on multicore processors.

It provides a simpler foundation for hosting safety-critical applications by giving developers the ability to integrate software components, with precise control over how these components are deployed on multicore processors. LYNX MOSA.ic for Avionics is a set of Lynx software packages, 3rd party technologies, and associated tools which Lynx has proven to reliably work together for rapidly building robust avionics systems. Specifically, LYNX MOSA.ic for Avionics includes the following: • Lynx Simple Applications (bare-metal apps) • LynxOS-178® (Safety RTOS) • Certification evidence • Buildroot (Linux) • LynxSecure (Separation kernel) • Tools

FEATURES Ą Fine-grained system control of hardware resources Ą LynxSecure has 20k lines of certifiable source code Ą Key system functions decentralized and distributed Ą Suite of Built-in tests (BITs) on boot and while systems

are operating to ensure system maintains a secure state

Ą POSIX and FACE v2.0 and V3.0 support Ą Reusable Software Component (RSC) certificate from the

FAA for re-usability in DO-178B/C certification projects

Ą System immutability

www.lynx.com/products/lynx-mosaic-for-avionics-systems

Lynx Software Technologies www.lynx.com



inside@lynx.com

 408-979-3900

www.linkedin.com/company/lynxsoftwaretechnologies

@lynxsoftware RF & Microwave

NDR585 3U OpenVPX Wideband Microwave Tuner The NDR585 is a wideband, 4 channel, 3U OpenVPX microwave tuner that provides frequency coverage from 20 MHz to 18 GHz. The NDR585’s industry leading channel density minimizes system level SWaP. Each of the 4 channels provides a 1 GHz analog IF output with a 500 MHz instantaneous bandwidth. The channels can tune both independently and phase coherently and multiple NDR585 units can be synchronized for phase coherent operation.

FEATURES Ą Ą Ą Ą Ą Ą Ą

4 channel 3U OpenVPX wideband microwave tuner Aligned with the SOSA™ Technical Standard 20 MHz to 18 GHz frequency coverage 500 MHz bandwidth 1 GHz analog IF output Industry leading channel density Independent and phase coherent tuning

CyberRadio Solutions

www.cyberradiosolutions.com 90 September 2021

https://cyberradiosolutions.com/products/VPX.php 

sales@cyberradiosolutions.com

www.linkedin.com/company/cyber-radio-solutions

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS with Resource Guide

 240-421-0754

@CyberRadios

www.militaryembedded.com

ADAR3000 & ADAR30001 The electronic content of satellites is expanding exponentially in both traditional GEO satellite signal processing applications and LEO small satellite constellations. One application that is expanding is the need for beamforming antennas. These antennas are used for pointing the electromagnetic signal from the satellite to the appropriate ground terminal and vice versa. Typically these antennas support multiple beams that require dynamic steering and beam hoping. This technology has been strongly adopted by LEO satellites by the very nature of the fact that these satellites are moving over the Earth.

These new ambitious antenna solutions require reduced size, weight, power, and cost. The ADAR3000 and ADAR3001 beamforming ICs (BFICs) provide high levels of integration in a single package with low-power consumption.

The ADAR3000 and ADAR3001 are the first 4 beam/16 channel beamforming ICs that are commercially available. They are a full duplex chipset that serve Ka band SATCOM applications.

The ADAR3000 covers the 17-22 GHz frequency band and the ADAR3001 covers the 27.5-31 GHz frequency band. These BFICs are highly integrated, low power devices that are rich in features.

• • • •

Low power dissipation (<12 mw per channel) 4 beam/16 channel beamforming IC Configurable for transmit or receive operation Programmable time delay and step attenuator for beam steering • Internal memory for storing beam positions • User programmable sequencer for quick and efficient • beam state selection – Update, reset, and mute beam commands issued via pins or SPI – Supports beam hopping and raster scanning

• Integrated ADC for:

– Temperature sensor – General analog inputs

FEATURES Ą 4 beam/16 channel beamforming IC: Being able to steer multiple

beams is critical for LEO satellites. Typically, there may be 12-24 analog beams that are steer which may include additional digital beams thus forming a hybrid beam forming antenna. The ADAR3000/1 are 4 beam/16 channel devices which allow the ability to scale with the number of beams and number of elements.

Ą Low power dissipation (<12 mw per channel) the ADAR3000 &

ADAR3001 offer world class power consumption for beam forming functionality. The low power process that is used allows beamformers to dissipate <12 mw.

Ą Configurable for transmit or receive operation: The ADAR3000/1

• Programmable bias modes • 16 chip parallel addressability over 4-wire SPI interface

are unique as they can be configured for either Tx or Rx depending if they are to be used for terminal applications or satellite applications. www.analog.com/en/products/adar3000.html

Analog Devices Inc www.analog.com

www.militaryembedded.com



beamformer@analog.com

www.linkedin.com/company/analog-devices

 1-978-516-7669

@ADI_News

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Rugged Computing and Displays

COBALT™ S1901 Rugged High Performance Mission Computing Platform.

The COBALT™ S1901 Mission Computing Platform features the latest in Intel high performance processor and is designed to meet the future needs of Defense computing platforms for AI, Deep Leaning and HPEC by providing multiple GPU or Accelerator card options. The compact S1901 is designed for various high speed I/O options such as 10GbE (copper, but fiber is an option), USB 2/3.0, ruggedized connectors for GPS and 1 PPS timing signals, and room for customization options such as Camera Interfaces. Storage capacities are met using M.2 NVME slots, along with high capacity 2.5" SSD slots (fixed or removable). Standard options include WiFi and/or LTE cellular modem, and MIL-STD-1553, CANBus, auxiliary cooling fan assembly, and a safety processor module for autonomous vehicle applications.

FEATURES Dimensions: 13.0"W x 7.0"D x 4"H Processor: COMe-bBL6 (Broadwell) with 32GB of RAM (64 GB available); Other processors such as COMe-bDV7 (Denverton), COMe-bKL6 (Kabylake), or COMe-bSL6 (Skylake) available Ą PCI Express / PCI support: 2x M.2 with x4 PCIe; 1x M.2 with x1 PCIe and USB 3.0; 2x mPCIe with x1 PCIe and USB 2 Ą Ethernet: 1x 10GBASE-T (Switched); 1x 2.5GBASE-T (Switched); 5x 1000BASE-T (Switched); 1x 1000BASE-T (Direct to CPU) Ą USB: Front Panel: 2x USB 2, 2x USB 3.0 Ą Serial: Front Panel: 2x RS232 (tx/rx); 2x [RS232 (rx/tx/cts/rts) or RS485/422] Ą Special Features: GPS and 1 PPS input/output; 6x GPI, 4x GPO, 6 x GPIO; 4x CANBus (Option); Safety Processor (Option); IEEE 802.3-2012 Power-over-Ethernet (Option); 2x 2.5" removable Solid State Drive bays (SSDs sold separately) Ą Wireless Connectivity: (Option) Cellular (M.2) connectivity | WiFi (mPCIe) connectivity Ą Power Consumption: +28 VDC (+18 VDC to +36 VDC) power input; Power Consumption: up to 350W (configuration dependent) Ą Cooling: Passive air/conduction cooled. Auxiliary IP67 fan kit available as a build option Ą Operating System: Linux Ubuntu 20.04, LTS, 64-Bit (installed). Other operating systems available on demand Ą Ą

www.kontron.com/cobalt-s1901

Kontron



www.kontron.com 92 September 2021

sales@us.kontron.com

www.linkedin.com/company/kontron-north-america

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS with Resource Guide

 888-294-4558

@kontron www.militaryembedded.com

RPC24-NAS Rugged All Flash Storage Array The RPC24-NAS is a rugged, resilient all SSD storage array designed for high performance, high-capacity tactical edge data capture applications. Its rapidly removable SSD magazines enable a full magazine to be swapped out for a fresh magazine to store and move data from emerging edge environments quickly and without any tools. The RPC24 targets Mobile (Air-Sea-Ground) and Fixed Expeditionary environments with its MIL-STD-810G and MIL-STD461F certified design.

The RPC24-NAS houses two removable magazines with up to 12 SSDs each which can be quickly removed to off load data. The magazines can then be moved to separate locations and plugged into another RPC24 on any other network for further analysis. When used in conjunction with a network switch, the RPC24 can communicate with any other network enabled device to store and retrieve data. This eliminates the need for separate direct attached storage devices for each computer or workstation in a network centric environment.

Data security is a key component to any edge storage system and the RPC24-NAS addresses this with optional support for AES-256 hardware and file level encryption, FIPS140-2 validation and hardware and/or software triggered Secure Erase and Data Elimination.

FEATURES Ą Two each 12 drive (24 drives total) Removable

Storage Magazines

Ą Two GbE and two copper 10GbE networks

ports standard. Copper and optical interfaces up to 100GbE available Ą 12Gb SAS JBOD Configuration with optional split bus Ą TCG Compliant and FIPS 140-2 Certified Encryption Ą Secure Erase/Data Elimination Ą MIL-STD-810G, and MIL-STD-461E Certified

MADE IN THE USA

https://www.phenxint.com/phoenix-international-announces-high-capacity-edge-data-storage-solution/

Phoenix International



info@phenxint.com

 714-283-4800

www.linkedin.com/company/phoenix-int-systems

www.phenxint.com

Rugged Computing and Displays

RTD Off-the-Shelf Mission Computer RTD’s standard HiDANplus® embedded computer system provides a robust Commercial-Off-the-Shelf (COTS) solution enabling rapid uptime for mission-critical applications. The system includes a rugged single board computer, power supply, mSATA card carrier, and room for an additional peripheral module. Without increasing the enclosure size, functional upgrades can include high-performance data acquisition, versatile networking options, or enhanced capabilities from a variety of special-purpose add-in modules. Additional configuration options include a removable SATA drawer.

The milled aluminum enclosure with advanced heat sinking delivers passively-cooled performance from -40 to +85°C. Integrated tongue-and-groove architecture with EMI gaskets create a watertight solution with excellent environmental isolation. Keyed cylindrical connectors offer easy cable connections while maintaining the integrity of the environmental seal.

RTD Embedded Technologies, Inc. www.rtdstacknet.com/iot www.militaryembedded.com

FEATURES Ą -40 to +85°C standard operating temperature Ą Designed for high ingress protection in harsh environments Ą Milled aluminum enclosure with integrated heat sinks and heat fins Ą Rugged Intel and AMD-based Single Board Computers Ą High-performance, synchronized power supply Ą mSATA card carrier and optional 2.5" removable drive Ą Designed to include an additional PCIe/104, PCI/104-Express or

PCI-104 peripheral module without increasing overall enclosure size www.rtd.com



sales@rtd.com

 814-234-8087

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Signal Processing IC-FEP-VPX3f – VITA 66.5 compliant 3U VPX Kintex® UltraScale™ FPGA board Based on the Xilinx Kintex® UltraScale™ technology, this high-speed 3U VPX FPGA board is designed for the signal-processing-intensive applications of high-performance embedded computing (HPEC) systems.

The IC-FEP-VPX3f board is VITA 66.5 compliant and enhances VPX capabilities by offering 12 full-duplex optical lanes on the board’s backplane connectors. The board integrates a user-programmable Xilinx Kintex® UltraScale™ FPGA (KU060, KU85 or KU115), 8GB of 64-bit wide DDR4, two 128 MB of QSPI Flash for bit streams storage, one 128 MB of QSPI Flash for user data storage and one Xilinx Artix®-7 transceiver optimized FPGA. The IC-FEP-VPX3f is delivered with host drivers and an example design including hardware IP Resources (VHDL code) that can be used to implement PCI Express Gen2/Gen3 links, 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports (XAUI, 10GBase-KR) and Xilinx Aurora. The board is compatible with the Xilinx development tools (Vivado, platform cable) and supports a VITA 57.4 compliant FMC+ slot.

FEATURES Ą 3U VPX – VITA 66.5

Ą 1*Kintex® UltraScale™ FPGA

Ą 2* DDR4 banks (up to 4GB each)

The board is available in standard, air-cooled and conductioncooled grades (85°C).

Ą 1*FMC+ site (VITA 57.4)

https://www.interfaceconcept.com

Ą 1*Artix-7 control node

INTERFACE CONCEPT



https://www.interfaceconcept.com

info@interfaceconcept.com  510-656-3400 www.linkedin.com/company/interface-concept

Space Electronics and Services

Redefined Distribution with Full Turnkey Services Spirit Electronics now offers circuit board assembly along with franchised distribution, BOM management and component and system level test all under one roof. This vertical integration allows us to fill a unique space in the market, taking a product all the way from design, to foundry, to assembly and test, and deliver a qualified product to the customer for military or space applications.

Benefits of the vertically integrated services include cost and schedule reductions, reduced material handling, robust quality oversight, consolidated documentation, streamlined processing and product care, custody and control. We offer unparalleled supply chain security in our industry.

Within our expanded 16,000sf Phoenix, AZ, facility, we have 5,300sf dedicated to board assembly. We've invested more than $3 million in new semiconductor test equipment, environmental chambers and XRF imaging and measurement equipment. The new board assembly services offer the Aerospace and Defense industry the ability to buy individual components and receive a fully assembled and qualified board.

Spirit Electronics

www.spiritelectronics.com

94 September 2021



Spirit’s circuit board assembly capabilities include: Ą A leading-edge, proprietary method of robotic re-ball and solder

exchange to create leaded solutions

Ą Highly accurate and versatile board assembly that can accurately

place an 03015 ultra-tiny chip to the industry’s largest FPGA components onto a customer’s board Ą SMT/SMD, through-hole and mixed technology PCB assemblies and the ability to trace a part all the way down to the reference designator on the board Ą PCB sizes from 50mm x 50mm (2" x 2") to 810mm L x 480mm W Ą Heavy copper inlay PCBs that provide superior heat dissipation, improving product performance and lifespan

info@spiritelectronics.com

www.linkedin.com/company/spirit-electronics/

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS with Resource Guide

 480-998-1533 @SpiritDisti

www.militaryembedded.com

The impressive Nano-D Connector NEW STANDARD Omnetics’ Nano-D connectors serve mainly in military and aerospace applications. These devices and the modern chip technology that makes them possible impact circuit board designs as well as connector and cable selections. They are fueling the demand for miniaturization at lower voltages and current levels. Our Nano-D connectors serve design engineers well in this new era.

HIGH RELIABILITY Nano-D connectors are designed to perform at military specification levels for high reliability and to remain working in both portable applications and extreme environments. Most Nano-D connectors evolved rather directly from the older Micro-D connectors and follow similar specifications. As speeds go up, the wavelength of each signal is shorter, and at lower voltages, vibration and circuit noise could confuse the signal. Nano-D connector resistance is kept as low as 12 to 15 milliohms with a capacitance of 2.0pf to 2.4pf, which is ideal for most circuits with low current flow and low voltage.

Omnetics Connector Corporation www.omnetics.com www.militaryembedded.com



APPLICATION-SPECIFIC Portable high-speed digital signal processing devices are expanding the demand for small, lightweight cable and connectors.

Nano-D connectors are especially well suited for these ruggedized, environmentally sensitive applications. When specified, cable, signal-speed capability, and formats are designed to match the ultra-small Nano-D connectors. Designs include IEEE 1394 firewire cable and extend to USB 3.1 formats and CAT 6a wiring. Many of these formats support a wide range of new designs, ranging from circuitry used in small military unmanned vehicles to soldierworn equipment.

FEATURES Small size Light weight Ą Extreme durability Ą High shock and vibration Ą -55ºC to 125ºC (200ºC with HTE) Ą 1 AMP per contact Ą Ą

Proudly engineered and built in USA

sales@omnetics.com  +1 763-572-065 @omnetics www.linkedin.com/company/omnetics-connector-corporation

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Test & Measurement

Ellisys Bluetooth® Tracker™ Ultra-Portable Bluetooth Low Energy and Wi-Fi Protocol Analyzer The pocket-sized (7.5 x 7.5 x 1.7 cm), bus-powered Bluetooth Tracker supports concurrent capture and analysis of Bluetooth Low Energy and Wi-Fi communications, as well as a wide variety of wired interfaces, including logic signals, host controller interface (HCI) protocols (UART and SPI), Audio I2S, and WCI-2, all visualized over the widely adopted Ellisys software suite.

With its innovative reconfigurable radio, the Ellisys sniffer can be updated by software to support changes in the specification, without any change to the hardware, and even without any interaction from the user. The Tracker comes with free lifetime software updates, so all customers can benefit from these great additions free-of-charge!

The Ellisys Bluetooth Tracker sniffer supports one-click concurrent capture of Bluetooth Low Energy, Wi-Fi 1x1 802.11 a/b/g/n, 2.4 GHz Spectrum, UART HCI and SPI HCI (2 ports), logic signals, and Wireless Coexistence Interface 2 (WCI-2).

Ellisys



www.ellisys.com

FEATURES Ą All-in-One: Concurrent capture of Bluetooth Low Energy, Wi-Fi 1x1, raw

spectrum, HCI and logic, all synchronized to sub-microsecond precision

Ą Wideband Capture: Rock-solid capture of all Bluetooth Low Energy

channels

Ą Reprogrammable Digital Radio: Support for new specifications with a

simple software update, without hardware changes

Ą Wi-Fi: Debug your Wi-Fi a/b/g/n and Bluetooth Low Energy connections

simultaneously, as well as coexistence Ą Raw 2.4 GHz Spectrum Capture: Characterize the wireless environment and visualize interferences Ą Professional Software: Use the acclaimed, widely adopted and highly flexible Ellisys multi-protocol analysis software Ą Logic Analysis: Visualize digital signals such as GPIOs, interrupts, debug ports, etc. Concurrently and perfectly synchronized with your Bluetooth Low Energy and Wi-Fi traffic.

sales.usa@ellisys.com

www.linkedin.com/company/Ellisys

 866-724-9185

@Ellisys1

Test & Measurement

Ellisys Bluetooth® Explorer™ All-in-One Dual-Mode Bluetooth Protocol Analysis System

Industry’s First All-In-One Wideband BR/EDR and Low Energy sniffer with concurrent capture of Wi-Fi 2x2 802.11 a/b/g/n, 2.4 GHz spectrum, HCI (USB, UART, SPI), WCI-2, logic signals, generic I2C/UART/SPI/SWD, and Audio I2S. With its revolutionary wideband Digital Radio, the Bluetooth Explorer lifts protocol capture and analysis to new heights, radically overcoming the drawbacks of legacy approaches to Bluetooth sniffing. The Ellisys all-in-one wideband sniffer robustly records any packet, at any time, from any neighboring piconet, with zeroconfiguration and without being intrusive.

The Bluetooth Explorer can uniquely be updated by software to support changes in the specification, without any change to the hardware, and even without any interaction from the user.

Ellisys



www.ellisys.com 96 September 2021

FEATURES Ą All-in-One: Concurrent capture of BR/EDR, Low Energy, Wi-Fi,

Ą Ą Ą Ą Ą Ą

spectrum, HCI, logic, UART, SPI, I2C, SWD, Audio I2S, and WCI-2, all synchronized to nanoseconds precision Bluetooth Wideband Capture: Easy and rock-solid capture of any traffic, including discovery/connection traffic and SSP pairing Reprogrammable Digital Radio: Support for new specifications without hardware changes Multi-Piconet Support: See multiple piconets and scatternets, without limitations All Protocols and Profiles: Best-of-breed protocol decoding Integrated Audio Analysis: Listen to captured audio over-the-air, including HCI audio and I2S, within the software Spectrum Display: Characterize the wireless environment and visualize coexistence issues

sales.usa@ellisys.com

www.linkedin.com/company/Ellisys

MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS with Resource Guide

 866-724-9185

@Ellisys1

www.militaryembedded.com

Ellisys Bluetooth® Vanguard™ Advanced Wireless Protocol Analysis System The most advanced, most comprehensive Bluetooth protocol analyzer ever made. Building on a legacy of innovation, the Bluetooth Vanguard All-In-One Wireless Protocol Analysis System delivers new advances designed to ease the increasingly complex tasks of Bluetooth developers.

With its revolutionary wideband Digital Radio and integrated Allin-One hardware approach, Ellisys has changed the way Bluetooth protocol capture and analysis is done, by radically overcoming the drawbacks of legacy approaches. The Ellisys wideband capture approach robustly records any packet, at any time, from any neighboring piconet, with zero-configuration and without being intrusive.

Vanguard provides synchronized capture and analysis of BR/EDR, Bluetooth Low Energy, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (3x3), WPAN 802.15.4 (all 16 2.4 GHz channels), raw 2.4 GHz RF spectrum analysis, HCI (USB, UART, SPI), generic SPI/UART/I2C/SWD communications, WCI-2, logic signals, and Audio I2S.

FEATURES Ą Bluetooth Wideband Capture: Easy and rock-solid capture of any

traffic on all channels

Ą Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (3x3) Capture: Extremely accurate and

perfectly synchronized Wi-Fi capture accelerated by Ellisys hardware

Ą WPAN 802.15.4 Wideband Capture: Concurrent capture of all

16 WPAN 2.4 GHz channels for an unmatched coexistence analysis capability Ą Bluetooth tZERO™ Tracking Technology: Proprietary technology to deliver high-fidelity capture of isochronous traffic from the initial instance of isochronous traffic Ą LC3 Auto-Detect: Proprietary technology to detect and decode LC3 traffic even without capture of configuration parameters Ą Mesh Support: Includes full support for Bluetooth Mesh

Ellisys offers a complement of innovative features to support development of emerging Bluetooth LE Audio products, including controllers, stacks, and devices.

These features, available on the company’s industry-leading Bluetooth protocol analysis systems, not only broaden support for the latest Bluetooth LE Audio specifications but deliver unique technical innovations that solve complex issues for developers.

Features released include the new tZERO™ tracking technology for full and accurate capture of isochronous traffic on connected and broadcast links, an innovative autodetection capability built into a test-equipment grade integration of the power-friendly LC3 audio codec, and support for several new audio profiles.

Ellisys

www.ellisys.com www.militaryembedded.com

Ellisys engineers have developed tZERO™, a proprietary technology that delivers high-fidelity capture of Bluetooth LE audio traffic from the initial instance of isochronous traffic, without gaps or any other limitations.

Ellisys is a member of GSA Advantage.

GSA Contract Number: GS07F138GA Schedule Number: 66 DUNS: 019200136



sales.usa@ellisys.com

www.linkedin.com/company/Ellisys

CAGE Code: 5Y0X8 NAICS Code: 334515 PSC Code: 5280

 866-724-9185

@Ellisys1

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CONNECTING WITH MIL EMBEDDED

By Editorial Staff

GIVING BACK | PODCAST | WHITE PAPER | BLOG | VIDEO | SOCIAL MEDIA | WEBCAST GIVING BACK

America’s VetDogs

Each issue, the editorial staff of Military Embedded Systems highlights a different charitable organi ation that benefits the 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 group we showcase on this page.

This issue we are featuring America’s VetDogs, a nonprofit organi ation created by the Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind in 2003 to provide assistance dogs and training to disabled veterans and active service members. Overall, VetDogs trains and places service dogs for those with physical disabilities guide dogs for individuals who are blind or have low vision service dogs to help mitigate the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder and facility dogs as part of the rehabilitation process in military and VA hospitals.

According to the group, the cost of breeding, raising, training, and placing just one assistance dog totals more than $50,000. The organization provides these services at no charge to its clients. Funding comes from donations from individuals, corporations, foundations, businesses, and community organizations. (Editor’s note: America’s VetDogs has earned a score of 100, the highest rating, from Charity Navigator.)

Applicants who join the VetDogs community spend a two-week training program at the organization’s 10-acre campus in Smithtown, New York, with classes kept small to ensure personalized attention for each student and their new dog. During the training, the student and dog bond and learn how to work together as a team, assisted by the VetDogs certified trainers and the training curriculum.

The organization also cooperates with the U.S. military and the Department of Veterans Affairs, providing therapy dogs for those deployed abroad, offering canine training for disabled veterans and service members, and placing physical- and occupationaltherapy dogs in military medical centers including Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

For more information visit https://www.vetdogs.org/.

PODCAST

WEBCAST

Systems for Extreme Military Environments Sponsored by Abaco, Ametek, Annapolis Micro Systems, DFI, and Pentek, now part of Mercury Systems Designers of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) electronics systems take the best of commercial technology – for example, processors and FPGAs field-programmable gate arrays – and enable them to work in extreme military environments. Such a transformation often means the electronics must be ruggedized to protect the state-of-the art integrated circuit and RF components and thermal-management solutions these steps are taken to mitigate the extreme heat modern processors generate while operating.

Due to increased intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) demands on performance and reduced size, weight, and power (SWaP) requirements for designs, ruggedization has become a complex challenge. In this webcast, a panel of industry experts details the challenges involved in ruggedizing COTS systems for military applications and the methods designers can use to overcome them.

Register for this webcast: https //bit.ly/3suwp4P Register for more webcasts: https://militaryembedded.com/webcasts

98 September 2021

ON THE RADAR: Hypersonic weapons, AI, and 5G funding outlined in FY 2022 defense budget request

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has released the official budget re uest for Fiscal ear (F ) 2022, and it’s a big one. Among its hundreds of pages and multiple chapters, those interested can find information and statistics regarding where defense spending and funding may be headed come next year.

Let Military Embedded Systems help with the vast amounts of material: In the second episode of On the Radar, Emma Helfrich and ohn McHale discuss the first three of six total highlights pulled from the Innovation and Modernization chapter of the FY 2022 budget request and explain how they may in uence the tra ectory of military electronics. Topics covered include funding for science and technology research, advanced capability enablers, space-based systems, and the pace of innovation within the DoD. Listen to this podcast: https //bit.ly/3ssSUa4 Listen to more podcasts: https://militaryembedded.com/podcasts

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NAVIGATE ...

THROUGH ALL PARTS OF THE DESIGN PROCESS

TECHNOLOGY, TRENDS, AND PRODUCTS DRIVING THE DESIGN PROCESS 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, newsletters, podcasts, webcasts, and print editions provide insight on embedded tools and strategies including technology insertion, obsolescence management, standards adoption, and many other military-specific technical subjects.

Coverage areas include the latest innovative products, technology, and market trends driving military embedded applications such as radar, electronic warfare, unmanned systems, cybersecurity, AI and machine learning, avionics, and more. Each issue is full of the information readers need to stay connected to the pulse of embedded militaryembedded.com technology in the military and aerospace industries.

Breakthrough Performance…

Weight No More!

Wideband RF Signal Recorders

Rugged ½ ATR Built for SWaP

Designed for harsh environments and weighing only 18 pounds, the new Talon RTX SFF series captures real-time RF bandwidths of a gigahertz or more. Complete with a removable QuickPac™ drive pack holding terabytes of data, these units offer flexible I/O options and sustained real-time recording rates up to 4 GB/sec!

The RTX SFF series is the latest in our COTS Talon recording systems that deliver the industry’s highest levels of performance in the harshest, space-constrained environments. You’ll get high dynamic range, exceptional recording speeds and ample storage capacity for extended missions—all in this compact solution.

• Sealed, rugged, ½ ATR chassis for MIL-STD 810 and 461 • Multi-channel recording, A/Ds from 200 MS/s to 6.4 GS/s

Model RTX 2589 with removable QuickPac drive

• Easily removable 61 TB SSD QuickPac drive pack • Ideal for UAVs, military vehicles, aircraft pods and more • Operating temperature from -40°C to +60°C • sFPDP and Ethernet models available

Download the FREE Development Tactics & Techniques for SFF Recorders White Paper www.pentek.com/go/messff

All this plus FREE lifetime applications support!

Pentek, Inc., One Park Way, Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 Phone: 201-818-5900 • Fax: 201-818-5904 • email: info@pentek.com • www.pentek.com Worldwide Distribution & Support, Copyright © 2019 Pentek, Inc. Pentek, Talon and QuickPac are trademarks of Pentek, Inc. Other trademarks are properties of their respective owners.