By Sharon Schnakenburg-Hess (Asst. Managing Editor)
A roundup of recent military contract bends and defense industry trends, including: January 2010 chip sales up; Northrop Grumman to get the less-glam job done; KC-130J gets Rolls Royce treatment; NASA’s Orion gets a forward glance; brute force attacks accelerate (obsolete) decryption; and other recent news headlines.
Conduction cooling for modular embedded computers has been used for many years in applications where air cooling is not appropriate. This paper will examine why applications use conduction cooled boards, the concept of the Ruggedizer, and ways to extend thermal performance.
Utilizing a proven commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) approach, Kontron's high performance CompactPCI board and Azimuth Inc's CIES® software give the Stiletto program the full system functionality demanded by the Department of Defense (DoD) in its fight against drug traffickers.
The systems engineering relationship between qualification, ESS, and reliability is often poorly understood. As a consequence, resources are often expended on efforts that degrade inherent hardware reliability and vitiate reliability predictions. James expounds upon this relationship and how proper application enhances inherent reliability and supports credible reliability predictions.
One thing that’s inevitable in military electronics is semiconductor obsolescence. But is there a way to plan for EOL – thereby obsoleting obsolescence and avoiding gray market practices while limiting risk before it’s too late.
Editor’s note: The following ran in DSP-FPGA.com just prior to Intel’s January onslaught of Core Technology processors at CES. With “over 25 processors and chipsets” on tap, COTS vendors have flooded the market with Core i7 and i5 boards that now do general purpose and signal processing in hardware.
VPX’s innate flexibility spawns the need for module and backplane vendors to classify product capabilities in a compatible way to move closer to universal interoperability. And OpenVPX (VITA 65) does just that.
By Sharon Schnakenburg-Hess (Assistant Managing Editor)
Assistant Managing Editor Sharon Schnakenburg-Hess highlights recent military happenings including: U.S. DoD entity turns to social media; “Mighty Mo” returns home; LCMR program continues to backtrack; Secure Internet: Impossible dream or pending reality?; and many other headlines.
Today's military technology contractors are designing portable, generic applications that can easily and rapidly migrate from development to deployed environment. However, this paradigm requires a higher level of service and support from their chosen COTS vendors.
Sometimes the best approach to preserving and extending aging military systems is the addition of modern protocol adapters. Consequently, new hardware and software come together to bring legacy equipment data into the network-centric world.
EDITOR'S NOTE: It doesn’t matter which type of ware is being viewed. The purpose of modeling is always the same: The visionary gets to see the... (continues)
By Bob Sullivan (Hybricon Corp.), Michael Rose (Hybricon Corp.) and Jason Boh (Hybricon Corp.)
A case study for implementing IEEE 802.3ap 10GBASE-KR over a VPX backplane. With 3 different equalization methods available in most 10GBase-KR transceivers, how is one chosen over another?
By Neil Peterson (Hybricon Corp.) and Mark Littlefield (Curtiss Wright Embedded Computing)
MILCOM 2009 Live OpenVPX Small Form Factor Video Featuring Hybricon Corporation & Curtiss Wright Embedded Computing Demonstrating the newest OpenVPX System at MILCOM Boston 2009.
The new generation of ground-based vehicles has moved away from the traditional 28 VDC power generation and distribution systems to high-voltage systems of typically 610 VDC, achieving great savings in space, weight, cost, and efficiency. Although easier to implement on new vehicle designs, high-voltage technology and many of its component parts can also be introduced into existing vehicles to great effect – without the whole scale and potentially disruptive replacement of every 28 VDC powered electromechanical or electronic subsystem. Modernization programs aim to improve the warfighter’s operational effectiveness and survivability.
Many believe that if source code compiles cleanly, with all warnings activated, then it is ready to move on to a verification stage such as test or code review. However, it is dangerous to assume that if the code has compiled cleanly, then any errors present must have resulted from the interpretation of the requirements and not their implementation. Wojciech empirically evaluates this assumption and proves that the range of warnings provided by any compiler is extremely limited when compared to those produced by a dedicated static analysis and Coding Standards Enforcement (CSE) tool.
By Ivan Straznicky (Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing)
Considering the environmentally intense environments faced by modern military electronics, the ability to meet the widest range of ruggedization and operating temperature requirements is an absolute must. And, when traditional Direct Forced Air (DFA) and conduction-cooling techniques are insufficient, designers are turning to more advanced approaches to save the day: Airflow Through (AFT) cooling, spray cooling, and Liquid Flow Through (LFT) cooling.
By André Weimerskirch, Ph.D. (escrypt Inc.) and Kai Schramm, Ph.D. (escrypt Inc.)
Today’s embedded avionics and other security-critical systems increasingly face the requirement for heightened security. Hence, a software downloading/flashing scheme utilizing digital signatures and the Rivest Shamir Adleman (RSA) and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) algorithms is helping to prevent unauthorized access and counterfeiting.
Current threats on our military forces have created a tremendous requirement for mobility as it relates to mission specifications. The development of On Board Vehicle Power (OBVP) systems not only increases warfighter mobility but also enables more effective power supply to current and emerging battlefield electronic systems by providing improved physical characteristics, in addition to more effective power disbursement than traditional “Tactical Quiet Generators,” thanks to new OBVP inverter technology.
Keeping unwanted components and malware out of embedded systems requires monitoring of both the supply chain and systems in operation. The secure anchor point is a solution to the second half of this equation; it offers the capability to monitor systems in operation by becoming the “root of trust” in an embedded system.
The constant flow of information through shared network-based applications such as situational awareness, voice/data communications, and signals intelligence/surveillance is an essential element of today’s sophisticated information-centric warfare environment. To meet the demands for growth, commercial networks employ packet processors to perform a broad range of tasks to manage networks, offload performance-sapping tasks such as encryption, and inspect payload content at 10 Gbps line speeds and more.
In an era when battlefield technology is evolving, warfighters must be equipped with best-of-class, mission-critical technology. But in spite of this need to stay ahead of the technology curve, the DoD's budget cycle can sometimes be out of sync with these objectives. However, there is an answer: application modernization.
For all the power and flexibility FPGAs bring to embedded designs, the additional development process injects new levels of complexity and constraint into the design workflow. Unifying the conventional hardware-FPGA-software design processes to make full use of FPGA reprogrammability is one way forward.
Innovative Integration has developed a high performance baseband B/Q/8PSK demodulator that works at symbol rate up to 1.4MSPS and locks within 50 msec.
By Sharon Schnakenburg-Hess (Assistant Managing Editor)
A roundup of recent military trends and contract bends including: 3U CompactPCI joins U.S. Army ranks; RATS welcome on the battlefield, by way of Android; First OpenVPX contract; C-130E says 'goodbye' ... and 'hello'; and many other headlines.
What is OpenVPX and what does it mean? What are these profiles, expansion fabrics, control planes, and configurations? Bustronic's white paper offers a background and explanation of VPX, OpenVPX, and VITA 65.
The world today is a very large and complex social network. With identity theft and other electronic crime on the rise, an important part of life, for all of us, is knowing 'who to trust'.
If you have watched the History Channel or the Military Channel and seen footage of naval anti-aircraft fire during World War II, you realize just how difficult the problem of tracking an outgoing bullet just might be.
Modern cockpits bombard pilots with tremendous volumes of data, including tactical information, navigation data, system status, and more. Within modern weaponry, computers are used extensively to process, prioritize, and present critical data. On-board systems have evolved into substantial computing platforms that are tightly integrated and continuously share information. This torrent of data within aerospace and military embedded systems presents multifaceted data management requirements, which are increasingly addressed via off-the-shelf embedded database management systems (DBMSs)
By Ian Hodgson (Esterel Technologies) and Matthias Mäke-Kail (TTTech Computertechnik)
X-by-Wire is a generic name given to technologies that seek to replace traditional mechanical control systems with electronic replacements. Pioneered by companies like Airbus in the aerospace domain, the mechanical links that translated the stick or pedal actions of the pilot into movements of the control surfaces were replaced by electrical sensors, computers and servo actuators. The benefits of this transformation of vehicle management apply equally to land- or water-based vehicles as they do to airborne craft.
By Mark Littlefield (Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing), Nauman Arshad (Hybricon) and Bob Sullivan (Hybricon)
On October 18, 2009, Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing partnered with Hybricon to make industry history with the first public demonstration of a live OpenVPX™ (VITA 65) system at MILCOM 2009/Boston.
)
