No military embedded system can function until its software development and testing phases are put through rigorous test and development cycles. Military applications put extreme demands on both. This section is devoted to covering trends in operating systems, ruggedized test and security assurance. Articles here focus on EMI/RFI, shock and vibration testing and mitigation, cooling, HALT/HASS and a host of other hardware and software test-related technologies.
Most Recent
Harsh Environment Testing for Boards and Enclosures
EMI Shielding for Enclosures Calls for Application-Specific Thinking
Joel Young, Engineer, Crenlo
April 2012
Today’s military is more reliant than ever on electronics. Along with that, the need to protect those electronics from potential threats has become all the more vital. One suchRead More...
Past Articles
Harsh Environment Testing for Boards and Enclosures
Signal Integrity and OpenVPX Backplane Architecture Trends
Michael Munroe, Technical Specialist, Elma Electronic
April 2012
New OpenVPX backplane profiles that are defined in Release 2 of VITA 65 provide for more elaborate expansion plane architectures and new clocking schemes to support the anticipatedRead More...
Annual EOL and Component Obsolescence Directory
Many Roads to Keeping Obsolescence Issues in Check
Jeff Child, Editor-in-Chief
March 2012
As commercial and consumer system lifecycles shrink, the components used in those broader markets are facing ever shorter life spans. As result, the problem of obsolescence—alsoRead More...
Annual EOL and Component Obsolescence Directory
Die Extraction Strategy Solves DMSMS Challenges
Brian Shumaker, Marketing Manager, Global Circuit Innovations
March 2012
It’s completely common these days for commercial ICs to be used in long lifetime military systems—with 20- to 30-year life cycles. That coupled with the steady decrease ofRead More...
Secure Embedded Systems
SPARK and MILS Aid Secure Military System Design
Greg Gicca, Director of Safety and Security Product Marketing, AdaCore
February 2012
A modern military system typically consists of multiple components, both hardware and software, that need to provide the necessary functionality as well as meeting performanceRead More...
Secure Embedded Systems
Relay Approach Improves Military Database Replication
Steve Graves, Co-founder and CEO, McObject
February 2012
In defense systems, database replication is usually viewed as a strategy to achieve high availability. Deploying a master database with one or more synchronized copies of that databaseRead More...
10 Gbit Ethernet as Board- and System-Level Data Plane
New Focus for Sensor Data Recording Tech: Scalability
Greg Bolstad, Chief Systems Architect, Critical I/O
January 2012
The defense and intelligence communities face an increasing reliance on high-resolution and high-bandwidth sensors of varying types. Raw data rates in these systems areRead More...
10 Gbit Ethernet as Board- and System-Level Data Plane
10 GbE Digital Recording Feeds Demands from Wideband Sensors
Rodger Hosking, Vice President, Pentek
January 2012
Acquisition and recording of signals from sensors occurs on virtually all commercial, government and military systems for aircraft, ships and manned and unmanned vehicles. SimilarRead More...
VPX and VME Tackle Airborne I/O and Data Storage
VME and VPX Data Storage Solutions Face Airborne Challenges
Tom Bohman Sr. Product Manager Curtiss-Wright Controls Electronic Systems
December 2011
The onslaught of digital devices—from mp3 players to phones to iPads—has created a huge commercial market for flash memory components. As a result, flash memory technology explodedRead More...
JTRS and WIN-T Programs Update
JTRS and WIN-T Technologies Take to the Field
JEFF CHILD, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
November 2011
Advances in the software defined radio market continue to overlap nicely with the DoD’s software radio efforts. For the DoD’s Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) program, many of theRead More...
Training and Simulation Technology
Training and Simulation Systems Advance to New Realism Levels
Jeff Child, Editor-in-Chief
October 2011
Thanks to advanced commercial graphics silicon targeted for PCs and game boxes, military graphics subsystem integrators are able to blend a wealth of graphical and video featuresRead More...
Training and Simulation Technology
Virtual Simulation Enhances Military Maintenance Training
Josie Sutcliffe, Vice President of Marketing, NGRAIN
October 2011
It is an austere time for the Department of Defense—a time of restricted budgets, reduced manpower and limited resources—a time that is compelling the Armed Forces to approachRead More...
Secure Embedded Systems
Solutions Emerge to Meet Secure Embedded System Needs
Jeff Child, Editor-in-Chief
September 2011
Among the more challenging areas of today’s military system development is that of security. Building secure embedded systems is definitely high on the priority list of many programRead More...
