My girlfriend tells me that I'd light up like a Christmas tree whenever I’d see my friend and former boss, Ron Mastro, retired publisher of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine. How could anyone not? The man had buckets of charisma and when he turned on his high beams, you couldn’t help but smile. The laughs and smiles will stay with me even though I had to say goodbye to him Sunday after he lost his battle with lung and brain…
DAYTON, OH. Air Force officials said they will be increasing their involvement in the Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) Consortium’s work to develop a standard for enabling the re-use of software applications across multiple avionics platforms. They made their comments yesterday at the FACE Air Force Technical Interchange Meeting (TIM) and exhibition near Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
“I do want to see greater Air Force presence and participation in the FACE development,” Air Force Lt. Gen. C.D. Moore II, Commander…
While Hollywood loudly preps every February for its glitzy, blingy Oscar awards, there’s another show on the other side of the world that’s also rife with awards and its own brand of razzle dazzle: the annual Embedded World industry trade show and exhibition, reputed as the world’s largest such event, held earlier this week in Nuremberg, Germany.
Boasting 872 exhibitors and 22,262 visitors last year, this year’s Embedded World hosted 901 exhibitors, who showcased a vast volume of wares in…
FORT LAUDERDALE, FL. It looks like the AUSA Winter Symposium's last visit to Fort Lauderdale is going out with a whimper rather than a roar. Like many other military trade shows in the U.S. this annual gathering near the Florida beaches saw a serious decline in business as the Department of Defense cuts back on travel in anticipation of sequestration and other budget cuts.
LONG BEACH, CA. Speakers at the Embedded Tech Trends (ETT) this week in Long Beach, CA, are touting the benefits of InfiniBand switched fabric for high performance embedded computing (HPEC) applications such as radar and electronic warfare.
LONG BEACH, CA. Sensor technology and the need for greater bandwidth is driving military electronics designs, especially in radar and electronic warfare applications, said Ray Alderman, Executive Director of VITA. During the opening of Embedded Tech Trends (ETT) conference on board the Queen Mary, which is permanently anchored in Long Beach, CA, Alderman also added that sensor development will thrive despite the uncertainty of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) budget.
ROME, Italy. Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) International engineers integrated the MEADS Multifunction Fire Control Radar (MFCR) with a MEADS battle launcher and manager Pratica di Mare Air Force Base near Rome, Italy. This test series is expected to show that the MEADS TOC can control the MEADS MFCR in coordination with the MEADS Launcher. Demonstrated during the tests were functionalities such as 360-degree target acquisition and track through dedicated flights and other air traffic.
MIAMI. Often a rad-hard supplier this week at the Nuclear Space Radiation Effects Conference (NSREC) in Miami would tell me his product is available off-the-shelf, but cringed at the notion that it would ever be considered COTS or commercial-off-the-shelf.
NEW YORK CITY. Last month on Memorial Day retired Marine Brian Gallagher set a goal to run 100 miles around Ground Zero in New York City in less than 30 hours to raise money for wounded warriors and their families. He did it! Gallagher ran the 100 miles in 29 hours and 15 minutes to raise $100,000 dollars for the charities he supports.
WASHINGTON. The single greatest challenge to the U.S. defense industry is the looming threat of sequestration, said Bob Stevens, Chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin in a briefing today in Washington. “Sequestration is a meat axe.”
NEW YORK CITY. This Memorial Day Weekend retired Marine Cpl. Brian Gallagher will be running 100 miles in less than 30 hours over May 26-27 around Ground Zero to raise $100,000 for wounded warriors and their families through three charities.
I recently posted a story to the Military Embedded Systems website covering the U.S. Army’s Future Vertical Lift (FVL) one-aircraft-does-it-all (mostly) concept. (See http://opsy.st/HS01gA)
Thereafter, I mentioned the story on several LinkedIn groups and asked for feedback on the FVL concept, hoping for enlightenment. The comments I received were indeed insightful and reflected a wide array of perspectives, many skeptical, some neutral or hopeful about FVL.
The comments ranged from references to military program hopefuls that tanked (pardon the pun)…
In spite of the U.S. Army’s focus on the modernized Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV), Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Protected (MRAP) vehicles are still expected to report for (some) duty.
While most of the Army’s 20,000 MRAPs are situated in Afghanistan and not going anywhere at the moment, the Letterkenny Army Depot in PA and the Red River Army Depot in TX are receiving from Kuwait other MRAPs, which are slated for suiting up with enhancements created to fit later models.
However, in…
Northrop Grumman and the U.S. Army recently penned a five-year contract for Northrop Grumman’s SCORPION and SCORPION II Unattended Ground Sensor (UGS) persistent surveillance systems. Though the dollar amount of the contract is unspecified on the company’s website, undoubtedly the autonomously gathered actionable intelligence and remote persistent surveillance data will prove both viable and valuable to U.S. Forces and their allies.
Already used in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other locales around the globe, SCORPION’s main missions include remote area monitoring, situational…
While students at the University of Utah gear down from their scholastic regimes this summer, the university’s technologists - along with Raytheon, BAE Systems, FLIR Systems, and NAWCWD - will be gearing up for an important airborne exam to benefit the Navy’s unmanned “robocopter” robotic helicopter dubbed “Fire Scout.”
What brings Fire Scout to the head of its class is the vessel’s ability to autonomously identify a single pirate ship in boat-congested waters. The goal is to relieve already-overburdened sailors…
SAN JOSE, Calif. Last month's Design West show in San Jose, Calif., had steady traffic even on the last day and was a good show for releasing new products and networking. Our coverage of the event included blogs, stories, and tweets from the show floor. Below I've listed the top five most viewed blogs and stories from the show on our website.
SAN JOSE, Calif. Engineers at GrammaTech announced a new tool this week that actually makes code analysis fun. Seriously, their new tool -- which works with their CodeSonar static analysis tool – functions much like Google Earth, but instead of zooming in on your neighbor’s house you’re zooming down to view individual lines of code in systems that contain as much as 20 million lines of code. They released it this week at the Design West conference in San Jose,…
SAN JOSE, Calif. This week at DesignWest in San Jose, Calif., Connect Tech is showcasing a wearable training solution for warfighters from Quantum3D that uses a custom small form factor design from Connect Tech. A company spokesperson is wearing the system at the show this week at booth #1538.
SAN JOSE, CALIF. Tech Source engineers at the AMD booth at DesignWest this week in San Diego are using AMD processing technology on their Condor 3000x board to drive a simulation of honey dripping off a tree trunk on an interactive (touchscreen) display. By touching the screen a user can virtually make it change texture and drip down the trunk.
Last week's Embedded World in Nuremberg, Germany was our first and we made a big splash online, posting more than 20 blogs and news stories from the show floor to the Military Embedded Systems website. Below I've listed the top five most viewed articles from the show on our website. Check them out if you haven't already. Our social networking efforts also were a success with lots of activity on our Facebook and linkedin…
