Adlink
AdvantechAvionics means "aviation electronics". It comprises electronic systems for use on aircraft, artificial satellites and spacecraft, comprising communications, navigation and the display and management of multiple systems. It also includes the hundreds of systems that are fitted to aircraft to meet individual roles, these can be as simple as a search light for a police helicopter or as complicated as the tactical system for an Airborne Early Warning platform.
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Technology Focus: Rugged Box-Level Systems Roundup
Small Core Duo Box Has PC/104 I/O Expansion The concept of the “stand-alone rugged” box has infiltrated the military embedded market in a big way. The latest example is ACCES I/ORead More...
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Case Study: Box-Level System Undergoes MIL-STD-901D Shipboard Test
Over the last few decades, embedded computers based on desktop PC electronics have penetrated the defense market. Interest is now building for shipboard PCs that can withstandRead More...
Stand-Alone Rugged Boxes Fine-Tune their Feature Sets
A trend has been building in the past couple of years where traditional embedded board vendors are adding stand-alone rugged box-level systems to their military market offerings. TheseRead More...
The Inside Track
Wind River Tapped for X-47B Navy-UCAS Control/Mission System Northrop Grumman Corporation has selected Wind River VxWorks 653 as the device software platform for its X-47BRead More...
COTS Products
Video Processor Card Gains Image Fusion Capabilities It’s no easy trick to combine images from multiple sensors and cameras and assimilate and interpret that data. Providing theRead More...
The Inside Track
Parvus Awarded Follow-on Contracts for USMC EFV Subsystems Parvus has received new contracts from General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) in support of the U.S. Marine Corps’Read More...
System, Board and Panel Innovations Fuel Rugged Display Demands
Leveraging cutting-edge graphics chips developed for the demanding gaming market, military graphics subsystems are now able to offer complex video and graphics functionality in highlyRead More...
VME Tech Refresh Programs Abound
Often filling the role as the “cash cow” of the military embedded computer business, slot-card technology upgrade programs are continuing to do brisk business. That ability to insertRead More...
The Inside Track
Boeing Gets Contract to Add Virtual Radar to Navy T-45 Trainers The Boeing Company received a $28.3 million contract on Jan. 21 for two Virtual Mission Training System (VMTS) retrofitRead More...
UAVs Embrace the Benefits of Direct Spray Cooling
It goes without saying that Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are playing an ever expanding role in today’s military operations. Not only are the numbers of UAVs exploding, but theRead More...
The Inside Track
Rochester Electronics Ramps Up Anti-Counterfeiting Efforts Rochester Electronics is stepping up its efforts to lead the semiconductor industry in the fight against counterfeit andRead More...
End-to-End UAV Messaging over Unreliable Data Links
In the complex software environments of both aircraft and ground station, many applications must communicate. Historically, developers built these as complex independent systems,Read More...
PCI/104-Express, PC/104 and EPIC SBCs Roundup
SBC Provides Right-Sized PC/104 Solution PC/104 has always shined in defense applications that need a modest amount of computer power. Adlink Technology has released the AmproRead More...
Fabric-Based Strategy Doubles Up on UAV Payload Functions
In recent years, the aerospace industry, particularly in the military market, has seen the proliferation of UAV in a variety of end-use applications. The applications now includeRead More...
Direct Spray Cooling Widens Choices in Harsh Airborne Environments
There’s no doubt that demand is on the rise for ever more computing density. Military platforms such as radar and image processing, electronic warfare, signal processing, command andRead More...
Unmanned Systems Face a Changing Market
The future of unmanned systems is here and the market is rapidly changing. The last year has seen the largest influx of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), unmanned ground vehiclesRead More...
Cots Products
20-Inch 2U Chassis for Trenton 32 Gbyte Boards The days when military system developers did everything themselves are long gone. They’d much rather find building blocks to pieceRead More...
The Inside Track
ITT Awarded JTRS Support Contract ITT has been awarded a $22.9 million contract for Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio Systems (SINCGARS) Software In-Service Support (SwISS)Read More...
SSPC Advancements Enhance Vehicle Power System Designs
Developers of electrical power management and distribution systems for current and future force ground vehicles face several challenges. As new applications increase the number andRead More...
DO-178B Provides Certification Safety Net
Safety-critical avionics software has been evolving for decades, providing increased functionality while becoming more complex. In response, regulatory authorities and commercialRead More...
Growing Complexity Drives Need for Emerging DO-178C Standard
The size and complexity of avionics software is projected to grow geometrically. Boeing and Airbus measure the current rate of software growth as 400 percent every two years (FigureRead More...
Rugged Stand-Alone Box System Roundup
Rugged System Features Military Connectors The stand-alone rugged box trend has touched nearly every corner of the military embedded computer market. ADLINK Technology, for its part,Read More...
Five That Push the Computing Envelope
Somehow every year I find it an absolute shock that the month of January falls immediately after December. You'd think my many years in the publishing industry would help me get wiseRead More...
The Inside Track
SMART Modular Tech's SDDs Selected for F/A-18 Upgrade Program Harris has selected SMART Modular Technologies to provide solid-state drives (SSDs) for use in its Mass Storage UnitRead More...
Common Computing Architecture Wins for UAV Programs
The use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in the military has skyrocketed as UAVs have proventheir military worth in Afghanistan and Iraq. UAVs are credited with saving soldiers'Read More...
Small UAV Tap the Rich Variety of Embedded Options
UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) were originally developed to take the soldier out of harm's way and have come a long way since the days of "large" surveillance drones like the PredatorRead More...
Small UAVs Step up to Advanced Comms Capabilities
The brisk investment in UAV development and procurement continues across all branches of the DoD. And that situation isn't expected to change under the current Administration. InRead More...
The Inside Track
Raytheon Completes Design Review for CVN 78's Dual Band Radar Raytheon and the U.S. Navy recently completed a critical design review (CDR) for the Dual Band Radar (DBR), which will beRead More...
FPGA Processing Boards Roundup
PMC Uses Virtex 5 FPGA for Speedy I/O Processing At one time FPGAs served merely as glue logic interfaces. Now they function as complete processing engines. Acromag’s PMC-VFXRead More...
Cluster Computing Suits Up for Aircraft Duty
Surveillance aircraft may represents just a small slice of the overall military defense market, but they exemplify many of the challenges facing the rackmount system designer.Read More...
Onward and Up the Complexity Curve
Here we are at 2010. Here's wishing you a happy and prosperous year ahead. While we may not have flying cars and manned spaceships exploring Saturn's moons quite yet, 2010 certainlyRead More...
Memory Allocation Strategy in Safety-Critical Mil Systems
Developers of embedded software for military and aerospace projects often lack the luxury of knowing the exact amount of memory that program variables will require at runtime. InRead More...
The Inside Track
Northrop Grumman Demos Scalable Agile Beam Radar (SABR) Aboard F-16 Northrop Grumman in conjunction with the U.S. Air Force has successfully completed a series of demonstrationRead More...
The Inside Track
GE Intelligent Platforms Lands Contract for AH-64D Apache Simulator GE Intelligent Platforms has received an order for automatic video trackers valued at approximately $1.7 millionRead More...
Vibration Suppression Approach Boosts Server Reliability
Probably more than in any other industry, networking applications for the military market mandate superior uptime, performance and reliability. That’s pushed manufacturers of serverRead More...
The Inside Track
Curtiss-Wright Awarded Contract for Upgraded Radar Signal Processing Curtiss-Wright has been awarded a $10.5 million contract by Northrop Grumman to provide an upgraded Radar SignalRead More...
Transitions and New Realities Shake Up U.S. Manned Space Program
Here we are again at a crossroads of National manned space policy—the most significant since the transition from the Apollo/Saturn to the Space Shuttle. The Space Shuttle program isRead More...
Ethernet Ascends as 1553 Gets Boxed In
The great dilemma with military I/O technology is accommodating the needs of legacy interface schemes while meeting the performance needs of next-generation computing and electronicRead More...
Pre-Integrated Systems Move Up the Solution Food Chain
The rising trend toward stand-alone rugged box systems continues to pervade the military embedded computing industry. These box-level systems often resemble the end deliverableRead More...
New DoD Goals Boost Preconfigured Subsystem Opportunities
Recent changes in the U.S. military’s mission strategy—following the change of administrations, and reflected in the DoD’s new budget—are shifting the military procurement landscape.Read More...
Modular Approach Eases Avionics Certification Challenges
The promise of greater efficiency by using Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA) systems that reduce Space, Weight and Power (SWaP), is now coming to fruition. Very large, visible projectsRead More...
Another Season, Another Panel
As sure as the seasons come and go, the defense industry can’t go more than five years without taking another crack at that beast called acquisition reform. Numerous panels haveRead More...
The Inside Track
Air Force Reserve Contracts SDS for F-16 Trainer Upgrade SDS International (SDS) has been awarded a multiyear contract to provide a full range of specialized operational and technicalRead More...
Embedded Tech Building Blocks Pave Way for a Net-Centric Future
As the U.S. military transforms itself to Network-Centric operations, every node in the networked military will be affected. Gradually, every vehicle, every aircraft, every ship, everyRead More...
GPU-based Processing Solves Persistent Surveillance Challenges
Persistent surveillance requires highly compute-intensive imaging capabilities because the aerial vehicle must remain (on demand) in an area to detect, locate, characterize,Read More...
Small UAVs Upgrade for New Capabilities
The flight control, mission control and communications gear aboard Small UAVs—like the Raven, Dragon Eye, Shadow and Bat—face some of the most challenging design restrictions.Read More...
Processing Solutions Ease Full Motion Video Challenges
In recent years demand for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities has driven a huge ramp up in data collection capacity. While that shows no signs of slowing,Read More...
Power Supply Card Targets Aircraft and Ground Vehicles
A rugged DC/DC converter card is designed for extended temperature operation (-40° to +85°C), high shock and vibration levels, and demanding voltage transient conditions experienced byRead More...
Major Defense Programs Boost Their Appetite for Electronics
Coming in late December, the U.S. Congress approval of the 2011 Defense Authorization bill puts a budget in place for the DoD allowing the Pentagon to spend $725 billion in fiscalRead More...
Wanted: Technology Warriors
During the Cold War and ever since, we always pushed to be the most technologically capable defense machine in the world. The old guard military leadership has the potential to let usRead More...
The Inside Track
Army Contracts General Dynamics for Battlefield Handheld Computers The U.S. Army has awarded General Dynamics C4 Systems a $2.3 million contract to provide a prototype, handheldRead More...
The Inside Track
Wind River RTOS Flies on First Flight of X-47B UAS The U.S. Navy / Northrop Grumman X-47B unmanned aircraft successfully completed its first flight at Edwards Air Force Base inRead More...
Back to More DoD Budget Drivel
I take one month off from not discussing the DoD budget in some form and I get calls and emails asking why. Talking or thinking about the budget is mind boggling. There are soRead More...
Bridging 1553 to Ethernet Networks Paves Future of Avionics
Modern avionics systems find switched Ethernet the dominant network architecture with MIL-STD-1553 (1553) and ARINC implemented for high reliability and legacy communications.Read More...
Deterministic Version of Ethernet Offers Real-Time Performance at Low Risk
Ethernet enjoys tremendous success in a variety of different commercial and industry applications. It has limitations as a deterministic communication interface when applied to criticalRead More...
