DECEMBER 2019

RELEVANT. TRUSTED.
ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES.

Market
optimism for
the future
Military & Aerospace

Military
Electronics readers list
their most important
technologies,
programs. PAGE 4

cyber security
Military data
storage
Systems designers
search for the latest in
speed, capacity, and
data encryption. PAGE 24

militaryaerospace.com

Military takes lead

role in protecting
trusted computers from
cyber attack. PAGE 16

1912MAEc1-c2.indd 1 12/5/19 3:38 PM

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 DECEMBER 2019
VOL. 30, NO. 12

2 TRENDS

4 NEWS

5
DC-DC Converters
Transformers &
IN BRIEF

Inductors
16 SPECIAL REPORT
COvER STORY

Military cyber security:

threats and solutions
U.S. government and military are taking a lead role
in protecting sensitive computers from cyber attack,
and solutions finally are on the horizon.
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24 TECHNOLOGY FOCUS • MIL/COTS/Industrial Models
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beyond rugged • New High Input Voltages to 900VDC
It’s not just about shielding data drives from shock • AS9100C Facility/US Manufactured
• Military Upgrades and
and vibration; designers also are looking for the lat- Custom Modules

Transformers
est in speed and capacity, and want encryption to
protect data at rest, and security to foil tampering.

30
& Inductors
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• MIL-PRF 27/MIL-PRF 21308
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FACEBOOK .com TWITTER LINKEDIN .com Call Toll Free 800-431-1064
/MilitaryAerospaceElectronics @MilAero /showcase/military-&-aerospace-electronics
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www.militaryaerospace.com MILITARY & AEROSPACE ELECTRONICS  D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 9   1

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 trends BY JOHN KELLER, EDITOR IN CHIEF

Taking the industry’s temperature

as we enter the 2020s
In this, our last print issue of 2019, Mil- Optimism is on the upswing not only lance; and Joint Light Tactical Vehicle
itary & Aerospace Electronics charts for the ability of companies to adapt to (JLTV).
some of the most influential enabling change, but also about company health The most important enabling tech-
technologies, defense applications, and and growth potential over the next 18 nologies for Military & Aerospace
military programs driving the aero- months. Nearly 18 percent said their electronics readers, meanwhile, are
space and defense industry into the company prospects are extremely, very, sensors; embedded computing and
21st century’s third decade. or somewhat strong. Less than 12 per- digital signal processing; software
Those involved in the defense elec- cent said their company prospects are applications and real-time software;
tronics industry — from component slightly or not at all strong, and 3 per- electro-optics; trusted computing and
suppliers to prime systems integrators cent are undecided. cyber security; and RF and microwave
— have been feeling confident in our Make no mistake, there are worries components.
industry for the past couple of years, as well. Political changes in Washing- See page 4 for our in-depth story on
and for good reason. Defense budgets ton; a potential downturn in the U.S. the enabling technologies, military pro-
rarely have been higher, military tech- economy; trade wars with China; revo- grams, and applications that are driv-
nology innovation is on the upswing, lutionary changes in technology; Brexit ing our industry into the 2020s.
and major new systems are ready for or other EU-related issues; regional The 2019 Military & Aerospace Elec-
deployment, with influential new ones conflicts in areas like the Middle East; tronics 2019 Technology Innovation
only a few years away. political gridlock in Washington; a Awards, meanwhile, highlight 29 dif-
With this in mind, the editors of future financial crisis; and a downturn ferent technology solutions aimed at
Military & Aerospace Electronics con- in U.S. military spending are among tackling some of the most important
ducted an online poll of our readers chief concerns of our readers. design challenges our industry faces.
in October and November, and found The most important applications Those product innovations involve
they are feeling better about our indus- among Military & Aerospace Electronics rugged computers, software design
try than they have in years. More than readers are command, control, recon- tools, power electronics, radia-
eight in ten readers feel extremely, very, naissance, and surveillance; unmanned tion-hardened processors, high-res-
or somewhat optimistic of their com- vehicles; secure networking and com- olution aerospace displays, rugged
pany’s ability to adapt successfully to munications; artificial intelligence and connectors and cabling, trusted secure
future changes in technologies, mil- machine learning; and trusted comput- computing and networking, per-
itary priorities, and political changes ing and cyber security. sistent-surveillance sensors, RF test
in Washington. Our readers most important mili- and measurement equipment, embed-
The survey reveals that 39.2 percent tary programs are the GPS III secure ded computing development tools, sin-
of readers are very optimistic about navigation satellite; F-35 joint strike gle-board computers, and data storage.
their abilities to adapt to changes, 26.5 fighters; Terminal High Altitude Area A complete list of the companies
are somewhat optimistic, and 18.6 are Defense (THAAD); Large Unmanned and products recognized this year is in
extremely optimistic, while 15.7 per- Surface Vehicle (LUSV); space-based a news story starting on page 6.
cent are slightly or not at all optimistic. overhead persistent infrared surveil-

2  D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 9   MILITARY & AEROSPACE ELECTRONICSwww.militaryaerospace.com

1912MAE02-03_tre.indd 2 12/5/19 3:38 PM 1911MA

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 news

Surveillance and reconnaissance, arti-

ficial intelligence, and high-performance
embedded computing and digital signal
processing are among the most import-
ant technologies for Military & Aero-
space Electronics readers.

Military & Aerospace Electronics readers optimistic

for the future; list most important technologies
BY John Keller

NASHUA, N.H. — The evolution of aerospace ical changes in Washington. business threats; and ability to adapt
and defense electronics technologies The survey reveals that 39.2 percent to change.
accelerates at a staggering pace, yet of readers are very optimistic about The most important applications
readers of Military & Aerospace Elec- their abilities to adapt to changes, 26.5 among Military & Aerospace Electronics
tronics overwhelmingly are confident are somewhat optimistic, and 18.6 are readers are command, control, recon-
in their abilities to adapt to future extremely optimistic, while 15.7 per- naissance, and surveillance; unmanned
changes in technologies, military pri- cent are slightly or not at all optimistic. vehicles; secure networking and com-
orities, and Washington politics. The survey, conducted in October munications; artificial intelligence and
A year-end survey of Military & and November, polled Military & Aero- machine learning; and trusted comput-
Aerospace Electronics readers finds space Electronics readers on eight core ing and cyber security.
that more than eight in ten readers feel questions: most important electronics Also of interest, although not to the
extremely, very, or somewhat optimis- applications; most important military degree of the top-five applications,
tic of their company’s ability to adapt programs; most important enabling are electronic warfare (EW); high-per-
successfully to future changes in tech- technologies; company future health; formance embedded computing and
nologies, military priorities, and polit- needs from electronics vendors; top digital signal processing; 5G com-

4  D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 9   MILITARY & AEROSPACE ELECTRONICSwww.militaryaerospace.com

1912MAE04-15_nb.indd 4 12/5/19 3:37 PM

 munications for military operations; tro-optics; trusted computing and
hypersonic weapons and aircraft; and cyber security; and RF and microwave Does it make sense logistically
directed-energy technologies like laser components. for military to treat the
weapons and high-power microwaves. Rounding out the most important electromagnetic spectrum
Rounding out the top-15 applica- enabling technologies are test and as its own domain?
tions among readers are strategic and measurement equipment; cabling, con- Military leaders are reluctant to
tactical missile defense; new mili- nectors, and interconnect technologies; treat the electromagnetic spec-
tary helicopter programs; advanced power control and conditioning; radia- trum as a separate domain of war-
manned fighter and bomber aircraft; tion-hardened electronic components; fare as they do with air, land, sea,
countermine warfare; and revitaliza- and data buses and networking. space and cyber, even as the service
tion of the nation’s nuclear arsenal. What do Military & Aerospace Elec- increasingly recognize the impor-
Readers identified their top-18 mil- tronics readers need most from their tance of superiority in this area.
itary programs of importance to their vendors? Readers answered technology At the Association of Old Crows
companies. The top-six programs are development and innovation; contin- conference Oct. 30, representatives
the GPS III secure navigation satellite; ued support and supply of legacy com- from the Army, Navy and Air Force
F-35 joint strike fighters; Terminal High ponents; software development and weighed in on a lingering debate:
Altitude Area Defense (THAAD); Large support; trusted computing and cyber whether the electromagnetic spec-
Unmanned Surface Vehicle (LUSV); security support; manufacturing sup- trum should be considered its own
space-based overhead persistent infra- port; and obsolescence management. domain. While the spectrum can be
red surveillance; and Joint Light Tacti- Asked about the importance of described as a physically distinct
cal Vehicle (JLTV). annual increases to the U.S. defense domain, it does not make sense
Other programs of interest are the budget, 82 percent said budget logistically for the Department of
future B-21 long-range strike bomber; increases are extremely, very, or some- Defense to declare it a separate
Virginia-class fast attack submarines; what important to their companies. domain of warfare, they say.
next-generation land-based inter- Fewer than 18 percent said annual
continental ballistic missile (ICBM), defense budget increases are slightly Army ‘lase-off’ seeks to
or Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent or not at all important. destroy enemy drones with
(GBSD); P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol What about company health and Stryker-fired laser weapon
and surveillance aircraft; F-15EX air-su- growth potential over the next 18 The U.S. Army is preparing to
periority jet fighters; and the FFG(X) months? Nearly 18 percent said their incinerate enemy weapons in an
future Navy frigate. company prospects are extremely, very, upcoming in a “lase-off” with its
Rounding out the top-18 most or somewhat strong. Less than 12 per- emerging Stryker-armed 50-kilo-
important military programs to Mili- cent said their company prospects are watt laser weapon vs. enemy air-
tary & Aerospace Electronics readers slightly or not at all strong, and 3 per- craft and missiles. The Stryker-fired
are the armored multi-purpose vehi- cent are undecided. laser is part of the Army’s Initial
cle; SM-3 Aegis ballistic missile defense So what keeps Military & Aero- Maneuver Short Range Air Defense
weapons; Arleigh Burke-class Flight III space Electronics up at night? Politi- (IM-SHORAD) program designed
destroyers; U.S. Marine Corps CH-53K cal changes in Washington; a potential to bring air-and-missile defense
heavy-lift helicopters; Long-Range downturn in the U.S. economy; trade back to armored vehicles in com-
Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM); and Colum- wars with China; revolutionary changes bat. Northrop Grumman and Ray-
bia-class ballistic missile submarine. in technology; Brexit or other EU-re- theon, are subcontractors in an
At the top of the most important lated issues; and regional conflicts in Other Transaction Authority (OTA)
enabling technologies for Military & areas like the Middle East. agreement between the Army and
Aerospace electronics readers are sen- Other potential worries are political Kord Technologies to create a laser
sors; embedded computing and digital gridlock in Washington; a future finan- weapon to destroy enemy drones,
signal processing; software applica- cial crisis; and a downturn in U.S. mil- an Army report stated.
tions and real-time software; elec- itary spending. 

www.militaryaerospace.com MILITARY & AEROSPACE ELECTRONICS  D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 9   5

1912MAE04-15_nb.indd 5 12/5/19 3:38 PM

 news

2019 Military & Aerospace Technology

Innovators Awards announced for
aerospace and defense achievement
BY Mil & Aero staff

NASHUA, N.H. — Military & Aerospace Electronics and Intelligent bility at frequencies to 18 GHz, while
Aerospace have announced their 2019 Technology Innovators providing shielding effectiveness in
Awards to recognize companies offering challenging aerospace

2019
substantial military, aerospace, and avi- environments.
onics design solutions.– The 1.8-millimeter
Awards are in three tiers — ranging simplex aerospace
from platinum, the highest, to the gold fiber optic cables from
awards, and finally to the silver awards — and are based W. L. Gore & Associates help provide
on the recommendations of an independent panel of industry judges. weight and cost savings over the life
of an aircraft, while meeting the rig-
orous demands of in-flight operation.
These optical fibers deliver signal integ-
The ISL7104xM plastic-packaged, radi- efficiency, and small total size rity for high-speed data transmission
ation-tolerant pulse-width modulator The SGRB series DC-DC converter in a wide range of temperatures, and
(PWM) controller and gallium nitride from VPT Inc. in Blacksburg, Va., is a resist crushing, kinking, and abrasion
(GaN) field-effect transistor (FET) driver commercially available GaN-based, to handle complex routing, mainte-
for new space small satellites from space-qualified line of DC-DC con- nance activities, and repeated flight
Renesas Electronics America Inc. in Mil- verters that is radiation tolerant and conditions. The cables also have a com-
pitas, Calif., are for use in power sup- achieves high efficiency to 95 percent. pact, flexible footprint with installed
plies in satellites operating in low Earth It is for applications facing the harsh robustness that meets size, weight and
orbit. These characteristics include radiation environments of space, and routing constraints as more high-tech
inherent radiation tolerance, plastic includes a fixed-frequency reduced avionics are being installed or retrofit-
packaging, small die size, no parasitic voltage switching topology for low ted into civil aircraft.
p-n diode and fast switching, increased input and output noise. This makes it The Multi-Modal Sensor Pod (MMSP)
well-suited for space-borne telecom- from Logos Technologies LLC in Fair-
munications where high efficiency, fax, Va., combines wide-area motion AN
low noise, and radiation tolerance are
imperative.
imagery (WAMI), hyperspectral, and
high-definition spotter sensors in
TE
The 7 series Microwave and RF one compact, lightweight package. NE
Assemblies from W. L. Gore & Asso-
ciates in Newark, Del., are engineered
The persistent-surveillance sensor
also includes 15-plus times the nor-
EQ
to prevent the ingress of water vapor, mal coverage of hyperspectral imag-
The ISL7104xM plastic-packaged, radia- fuels, oils, chemicals, and other hazard- ing; high-definition spotter; automatic FOR
tion-tolerant pulse-width modulator (PWM) ous contaminants commonly found in cross-cueing between sensors; multi- OF IT
controller and gallium nitride (GaN) field-ef- airborne environments. With their rug- ple, in-flight ground scanning options; FLEX
THE
fect transistor (FET) driver for new space ged, vapor-sealed construction, these a small onboard multi-modal edge
small satellites from Renesas Electronics assemblies maintain low insertion processor with extremely high data
America Inc. loss, low return loss, and phase sta- digestion rates; and the ability to dis-

6  
D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 9   MILITARY & AEROSPACE ELECTRONICSwww.militaryaerospace.com

1912MAE04-15_nb.indd 6 12/5/19 3:38 PM 1912MA

 play different data streams in its user from AirBorne Inc. in Georgetown, ating system, the Helix Platform comes
interface. Texas, is screened for reliability. Com- with Wind River Linux and Simics for
The RFT-3200 microwave downcon- pared to traditional fiber optics or tra- turn-key application development.
verter with dynamically adjustable IF ditional active optical cables, the SAOC The tool follows standard APIs such
from Mercury Systems in Andover, is a rugged solution that can withstand as ARINC 653 APEX API, FACE, POSIX,
Mass., uses a dynamically adjustable g-forces of launch, radiation in space, and VxWorks, and supports unmodi-
IF architecture to enable users to set and quickly can be installed. There are fied guest operating systems, OS-ag-
the IF frequency and bandwidth in no fiber cleaning concerns with Air- nostic virtualization, and separation
real-time to achieve mission-to-mis- Born’s SAOC because the solution uses technology.
sion optimization and compatibility a traditional copper electrical inter- The HUNTR TDL hub and network
with a wide-range of digitizers. The connect. This allows the technology to translator from the Curtiss-Wright
RFT-3200 also offers wide band perfor- quickly be deployed on the battlefield Corp. Defense Solutions division in
mance with RF to 40 GHz and IBW to 2 to bring high speed applications to life. Ashburn, Va., enables joint terminal
GHz for circumstances that require pro- The Helix Virtualization Platform attack controllers (JTACs) and Tactical
cessing emerging threats that exceed from Wind River Systems in Alameda, Air Control Parties (TACPs) to create a
the frequency limitations of standard Calif., is a software-development tool multi-tactical datalink network that
RF hardware. Additionally the RFT-3200 based on a certifiable Type-1 hypervisor supports SADL, Link 16, Cursor on Tar-
supports industry-leading phase noise, that enables applications with differ- get, and VMF Combat Net Radio (CNR)
phase coherent operation, and multi- ent levels of criticality to run simulta- data exchanges among ground forces,
ple configuration options. neously on one multi-core system. In aircraft, ships, and command-and-con-
Space Active Optical Cable (SAOC) addition to the VxWorks real-time oper- trol elements. This software application

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1912MAE04-15_nb.indd 71
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11/7/19 3:38 PM
AM
 news
Orion 32 can consolidate video inputs intelligence, surveillance, and recon-
from as many as five sources and dis- naissance (ISR) applications. It inte-
play streams using Virtual Windows grates an 8th Generation Intel Core i7
that project each video stream to a ded- processor to deliver quad core perfor-
icated window of any size or location or mance with maximum turbo frequency
order on the display. Virtual Windows of 4.20 GHz. It includes the Blackmagic
can switch dynamically to a new size Decklink Duo 2 PCI Express capture
The 1.8-millimeter simplex aerospace fiber and or location. The Orion 32 4K dis- and playback card, and features four
optic cables from W. L. Gore & Associates play offers efficient use of pixels, and independent 3G-SDI connections that
help provide weight and cost savings over its 3840-by-2160-pixel display is equiv- support SDI formats in SD and HD res-
the life of an aircraft alent to four full HD displays. olution as fine as 1080 pixels to provide
The ATS-3100 VRS tactical radio test the flexibility of four separate cards in
improves and simplifies the real-time and measurement set from Astronics one. At the heart of the ZE-VC is the
translation and routing of tactical data Test Systems in Irvine, Calif., is built Intel NUC board, a 4-by-4-inch com-
links, and provides warfighters and on a modular platform, and addresses mercial motherboard that provides the
command and control centers with any tactical radio: legacy, present, and processor, memory, graphics, storage,
real-time access to operational data future. It is a suitable replacement for peripheral interfaces, LAN, and expan-
in the field. the AN/GRM-122. The company’s TPS sion capabilities.
The Connext DDS Secure data-cen- process can help users develop, deploy, The D-Frame OpenVPX develop-
tric connectivity framework enables and maintain the TPS according to ment platform from Elma Electronic
military and aerospace system archi- these supplier prerequisites, includ- in Alameda, Calif., is a development
tects to build secure and scalable sys- ing their individual and proprietary chassis is for OpenVPX and SOSA-
tems of systems. It uses decentralized, best practices for tactical radio test. aligned board and system design. It
peer-to-peer connectivity to support Its open architecture offers long-term helps design systems for use in critical
fine-grained security, high performance sustainability. defense applications. Designed for low-
and reliability requirements, and helps The military-grade high-density slot-count payloads, the D-Frame can
deliver authentication, access control, 16-gigabyte DDR4 from Mercury Sys- be configured to the exact board count
encryption, data tagging, and logging tems in Andover, Mass., is a high den- required. In addition, suppliers have
of security events. These capabilities sity double data rate fourth-generation developed backplane products target-
enable users to choose between non-se- synchronous dynamic random-access ing these lower slot count applications
cured, signed and encrypted topics to memory (DDR4 SDRAM) device that and so off the shelf backplanes may be
meet military and aerospace perfor- comes in a 16-by-23-millimeter ball grid used in the D-Frame without wasting
mance needs. Connext DDS Secure array (BGA) package that offers an 87 space for ten or more unused slots.
applies data security at the software percent circuit board savings compared Secure hatch locking screws ensure a
application level so that it is indepen- to commercial memory. The product tight reliable fit and a carrying handle
dent of the underlying network type was designed using a new advanced completes a clean and professional
and protocol. design technology that doubles the briefcase look.
number of the devices embedded in a The TGA2222 32-to-38 GHz 10-Watt
package without compromising per- GaN amplifier from Qorvo Inc. in
formance or reliability. Conventional Greensboro, N.C., is a wide band power
The Orion 32-inch rugged 4K dis- three-dimensional packaging technol- amplifier monolithic microwave inte-
play from ZMicro in San Diego offers ogies embed multiple memory devices grated circuit (MMIC) that provides 40
the ability to integrate a variety of to meet the processing demands of dBm (10 W) of saturated output power
video sources on one display; small space-constrained military systems. and 16 dB of large signal gain while
size, weight, and power consump- The ZE-VC rugged small-form-fac- achieving better than 22 percent pow-
tion (SWaP); and improved visibility tor embedded video capture computer er-added efficiency. Built on Qorvo’s
in degraded visual environments. The from ZMicro in San Diego is for airborne gallium nitride on silicon carbide (GaN-

8  
D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 9   MILITARY & AEROSPACE ELECTRONICSwww.militaryaerospace.com

1912MAE04-15_nb.indd 8 12/5/19 3:38 PM

 on-SiC) technology, the TGA2222 deliv- tified for MIL-STD-461F, DO-160G, and a highly contested, forward-deployed
ers this extended RF power in a smaller MIL-STD-810G. environment.
die, which reduces size, weight, and The EnsembleSeries HDS6605 Open-
number of components to create a sim- VPX AI processing blade from Mercury
ple but powerful solution for radar and Systems is for artificial intelligence (AI)
electronic warfare (EW) applications. The MACHFORCE D38999-style high- and other compute-intensive gen-
The V3-1703 NXP Layerscape speed 10G data connector from The eral processing workloads in sensor
LS1043A Quad A53 single-board com- Angelus Corp. in Sussex, Wis., is fusion, complex command and con-
puter from Curtiss-Wright Defense designed for rugged aerospace and trol, and deep-learning applications.
Solutions is an Arm-based, safety-cer- defense applications. It offers ten 10G Second-generation Intel Xeon Scal-
tifiable single board computer with an Ethernet ports; anti-decoupling ring able processors feature Intel Deep
NXP Layerscape LS1043A quad-core for easy connect and disconnect with Learning Boost, which extends Intel
processor that delivers Arm’s perfor- a gloved hand; and quick termination Advanced Vector Extensions-512 (AVX-
mance per Watt to optimize perfor- and field repairable with quick access 512) to accelerate inference applica-
mance and SWaP. Arm processors, like to terminated wires. The high-speed tions like speech recognition, image
the V3-1703’s LS1043A, deliver the best module has a unique rectangular pin recognition, language translation, and
power-to-performance ratio compared configuration that maximizes shell object detection, and more. As many as
to Intel and Power Architecture pro- size density and increases the amount four HDS6605 blades can be clustered
cessors, allowing the V3-1703 to bal- of data transmitted per connector. It via Intel’s new ultrapath interconnect
ance performance requirements with offers continuous signal integrity (UPI) for a truly integrated, low-latency
power consumption constraints. Deter- through impedance control and data non-uniform memory access (NUMA)
ministic, non-throttling performance: pair isolation. Its aluminum fins allow server architecture that solves com-
like Power Architecture processors (and for twisted pairs to be packed in closer plex mission compute problems in
unlike Intel processors), the V3-1703’s to maximize shell data density, while real-time.
Arm processor delivers deterministic, protecting signal integrity and proper The Unattended Network Stor-
dependable performance in extreme application performance. The connec- age (UNS) rugged network-attached
temperatures. tor’s optimized electrical performance storage from Curtiss-Wright Defense
The ZX1C 18 - Airborne Server from allows for as many as five disconnects. Solutions helps prevent unauthorized
ZMicro features an 18-inch short-depth The Raven-Strike rugged, embed- access to classified information if the
chassis and weighs less than 13 pounds ded computer from Systel Inc. in Sugar unattended platform is lost or stolen.
to offer a small, light form factor that Land, Texas, is for modern fighting It uses a DAR Type-1 encryptor that is
can accommodate small ISR aircraft vehicles. It is a line replaceable unit planned to be certified for unattended
without compromising server perfor- designed for centralized ingest and operations of classified data Top Secret
mance. The ZX1C 18 uses carbon fiber data fusion of all vehicle sensors. This and below. Designed for high-speed
materials, which are stronger than allows for the ability to collect, pro- data storage, the UNS combines more
steel and a fraction of the weight. It cess, exploit, and disseminate criti-
has a modified 750-Watt DC power sup- cal data seamlessly at near real-time
ply, lightweight support brackets, and speeds. Raven-Strike acts as an auton-
integrates ZMicro’s TranzPak 1 remov- omous-enabling hardware backbone,
able data storage modules which use supporting the use of artificial intel-
M.2 NVMe solid-state drives and are ligence (AI) and deep learning (DL)
much smaller than traditional 2.5-inch to shift the workload from man to
drives and about four times faster than machine and optimize and enable
SATA-3 solutions. The server meets critical combat capabilities. Raven-
full MIL-SPEC compliance for shock, Strike features dual Intel Xeon scal- The Orion 32-inch rugged 4K display from
vibration, temperature, EMI/EMC, able processors and an NVIDIA GPGPU ZMicro offers the ability to integrate a vari-
and altitude specifications. It is cer- for edge computing performance in ety of video sources on one display

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 news
than 2 gigabyte-per-second data trans- scalable Wave Relay MANET that can The RVG-MS1 multi-sensor rugged
fers with 32 terabytes of encrypted keep adding hundreds of nodes with- video gateway from Curtiss-Wright
data storage on a rugged removable out collapsing under the weight of rout- Defense Solutions provides a low
storage module (RSM). The RSMs ease ing protocols. It also doesn’t require latency video processing and distri-
the transport of data-at-rest between external infrastructure or a vulnera- bution system that enables the opera-
unmanned platforms and base sta- ble master node, so it is peer-to-peer tor to select from a range of operational
tions for post-mission analysis. The and doesn’t run into the video trans- views, with the touch of a button, via
encryptor uses Pre-Placed Keys (PPK) mission hiccups or reconfiguration an on-screen graphical user interface
that are filled in Black Key format. demands when nodes join and leave (GUI). This rugged COTS-based video
The use of symmetric PPKs enables the network. The MPU5 offers the abil- management solution is designed to
the same key to be loaded onto mul- ity to tie together multiple, geograph- increase warfighter effectiveness and
tiple encryptors so that data can be ically dispersed MANET bubbles via help drive mission success, The range
encrypted onto an RSM in one location 4G or satellite communications, and of image configuration options include
for decrypting later at another location. has field-swappable RF band mod- flexible picture in picture (PiP) and win-
The TTC nREC-7000 10 Gigabit Eth- ules that allow the MPU5 to switch to dow overlays, while video streaming
ernet airborne network flight test different frequency ranges on the fly, and blending capabilities provide addi-
recorder from Curtiss-Wright Defense giving users unparalleled flexibility. tional end-user functionality. Further-
Solutions is a small data recorder for It is an integrated radio-over-IP (RoIP) more, the RVG-MS1 acts as an Ethernet
aircraft with very limited room to capability, which via a simple tether, gateway, facilitating streaming video
install systems. It captures current and pulls third party legacy radios into the off platforms built to the latest vehicle
future high data rates, and can record Wave Relay network without requir- architectures, such as VICTORY or GVA.
at speeds as fast as 1,800 megabits per ing a non-rugged vocality box, extra The coherent, multi-channel, direct
second. Captured data is stored in dual power, and configuration management digitization system from Mercury Sys-
hot swappable RMM cartridges, sup- overhead. tems supports rapid channel count
porting as much as 12 terabytes of data The Type E37 all-metal dual con- scaling through adoption of the Open-
per recorder unit. It’s compact design centric encoder from Elma Electronic VPX standard at the board level. This
and ability to operate in harsh environ- comes standard with either IP60 or IP68 allows for easy configuration simply
ments makes it suitable for demand- front panel sealing and meets MIL-STD- by selecting the specific COTS mod-
ing applications requiring high speed 202G for electrical, shock, and vibration. ules for a given application. By incor-
recording such as flight test and high- These features provide critical rugged- porating Mercury’s COTS hardware,
speed camera data acquisition. ness for defense applications with a the data rates, bandwidths, and num-
The MPU5 mobile ad hoc network- long life. The dual concentric design ber of channels can be easily optimized
ing (MANET) radio from Persistent takes up the same geography as a sin- for your specific application. Standard
Systems LLC in New York City offers a gle encoder for use in small, crowded features include direct digitization to
or space-limited applications. Available L-band, full coherency, and a scalable
in standard resolutions of with 16 or 32 channel count. In order to provide max-
detents, the outer and inner shafts each imum pulse edge alignment, the sys-
have selectable resolution options and tem uses a proprietary algorithm that
a variety of selectable turning torques. accounts for any hardware-level timing
Push-button torques of up to 14N are variation. The system is also fully com-
standard. Standard rotational life rat- patible with Mercury’s OpenVPX micro-
ings are up to 1M revolutions; vertical wave transceivers to provide spectrum
and horizontal PCB orientations are superiority across the standard elec-
The MACHFORCE D38999-style high-speed standard. Routine applications include tronic warfare bands.
10G data connector from The Angelus Corp. avionics data communications, naviga- The Elma Open System (ELOS) Com-
is designed for rugged aerospace and tion controls, inter/intra aircraft inter- pactPCI Serial system from Elma Elec-
defense applications. com systems and two-way radios. tronic is a small-form-factor modular

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 computing platform for rugged defense ogy roadblocks due to the limited capa- dard, air-cooled card modules. This
and rail transportation applications. bilities of VME and CompactPCI may often means that two sets of boards
The ELOS extensible chassis and inter- now apply their Eurocard architecture must be purchased: one air-cooled set
nal building blocks allow for a range experience in switching to Compact- for lab testing and development, and
of system configurations. Respectable PCI Serial. another set for final deployable unit
data rates of 12 gigabits per second Liquid Flow-Through Test & Devel- testing. Elma’s platform enables test-
serve as a nice performance mid-range opment Platform for 6U OpenVPX cards ing of deployable boards in a lab envi-
solution for many defense applications from Elma Electronic is for increasingly ronment. Elma Electronic’s expertise in
which require higher signal speeds power-hungry 6U OpenVPX modules packaging solutions for extreme envi-
compared to VME and CompactPCI but that require ambitious cooling. Most ronments led to the creation of the
less than that supported by OpenVPX. test and development platforms are VITA 48.4 LFT test and development
System designers faced with technol- designed only to accommodate stan- chassis. 

TSA asks industry for airport security

technologies for future passenger self screening
BY John Keller

WASHINGTON — U.S. airport security at Speed (SaS) program. process by collaborating with passen-
experts are approaching industry for Just like self-checkout at grocery gers and screening authorities to make
new ways of enabling airport passen- stores, self-tagging checked baggage, security lines and X-ray machines a
gers to screen themselves, similarly or ATM machines, many patrons pre- single-step process.
to self-checkout at grocery stores, to fer airport security screening that they DHS experts also want to enable
enhance aviation security, reduce pas- can complete by themselves, at their passengers to receive personalized
senger wait times, and improve the own pace, DHS officials explain. alarms while they are in the security
passenger experience. DHS is exploring ideas to bring simi- line to avoid delays from unexpected
Officials of the U.S. Department of lar concepts to the passenger screening security machine alarms.
Homeland Security (DHS) in Wash-
ington have issued a request for
information (Passenger_Self_Screen-
ing_RFI_2020) for the Passenger Self
Screening Systems for Aviation Check-
point project.
DHS officials envision a passenger
self-check solution to transform the
TSA Pre concept of operations. TSA Pre
enables airline passengers to go through
an extensive screening process once
every five years in exchange for expe-
dited security screening at the airport.
The Passenger Self Screening Sys-
tems for Aviation Checkpoint project is
part of the DHS Science and Technol- The U.S. Transportation Security Administration is looking for technologies to enable
ogy Directorate (S&T) Apex Screening airport passengers to screen as they move through security lines.

www.militaryaerospace.com MILITARY & AEROSPACE ELECTRONICS  D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 9   11

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 news
From industry, DHS wants to learn The goal is to create a passen- in a TSA Pre environment. Solutions
about new technologies to detect ger-friendly, intuitive screening process may consider more advanced screen-
weapons and other threats hidden on while improving security, accelerating ing technologies, such as millimeter
passengers without today’s levels of passenger throughput, and reducing wave sensors.
Transportation Security Officer (TSO) pat-down rates. Companies interested should email
engagement. DHS officials are interested in solu- 10-page white papers no later than 4
Experts would like technology solu- tions that use the natural motion pas- Dec. 2019 to the DHS’s Carolyn Lethert
tions that could be deployed together senger as he or she moves through the at Carolyn.Lethert@hq.dhs.gov. Email
with an X-ray system and an auto- security line to inspect for concealed questions or concerns to Carolyn Leth-
mated screening lane to screen pas- items and provide near real-time feed- ert at Carolyn.Lethert@hq.dhs.gov. 
sengers themselves as they remove back to the passenger if he or she needs
shoes, laptop computers, cell phones, to remove additional items. More information is online at https://www.fbo.
tablet computers, foods, liquids, and If successful, this kind of self-screen- gov/spg/DHS/OCPO/PIADC/Passenger_Self_
thick books from their baggage. ing concept initially may be deployed Screening_RFI_2020/listing.html.

Air Force wants next-gen communications

for tactical airborne networking
BY John Keller

ROME, N.Y. — U.S. Air Force researchers are

embarking on a four-year $50 million

project to develop the next generation of
directional low-probability-of-intercept
networked aerial layer communications.
Officials of the Air Force Research
Laboratory’s Information Directorate in
Rome, N.Y., have issued a broad agency
announcement (FA875020S7003) for the
Next-Generation Airborne Directional
Networking project.
Directional communications enables
airborne transmitters to focus most of
their energy on an intended receiver.
This not only resists interference
and increases link capacity, but also
helps safeguard signals from would-be
eavesdroppers.
Tactical airborne networks often are
different from mobile ad-hoc networks
(MANETs), and some of these differ-
ences lend themselves to design trade-
offs, researchers explain. U.S. Air Force researchers are pushing the state of the art in directional communications
Compared with MANETS, tactical for the next generation of airborne tactical networking.

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 airborne networks are entirely vehi- capable of rapid switching and point- and multi-function RF systems.
cle based systems, which changes ing. Airborne networks also must deal Companies interested should email
power consumption and equipment with different traffic characteristics, white papers to the Air Force’s Richard
constraints otherwise imposed by bat- and diminished worst-case capacity Butler at richard.butler.10@us.af.mil by
tery operated handheld devices. imposed by anti-jam and low observ- 15 Nov. 2019 for 2020 consideration; 5
Although less severe than handheld ability needs. These differences moti- July 2020 for 2021 consideration; 4 July
operation, aircraft still present size, vate a focused assessment of the 2021 for 2022 consideration; and 3 July
weight, power, and cost (SWAP-C) chal- trade space in directional network- 2022 for 2023 consideration. Send clas-
lenges as well as entirely different vibra- ing, researchers say. sified white papers by post to Richard
tion and environmental requirements. Additional example areas of interest Butler care of AFRL/RITF, 525 Brook Rd.,
Different loss characteristics enable are topology management and sched- Rome, NY 13441-4505.
greater range, and allow any partici- uling; network discovery while main- Email technical questions to Richard
pant in the network to connect directly, taining a low probability of detection; Butler at richard.butler.10@us.af.mil,
which increases the threat of interfer- ad-hoc network join and leave; direc- and contractual questions to Amber
ence. Different altitudes and environ- tional routing and media access control; Buckley at Amber.Buckley@us.af.mil. 
mental conditions affect propagation survivable airborne communication
of signals. technologies; modular and open-archi- More information is online at https://
Fast, maneuverable jet fighters tecture systems; intelligent information www.fbo.gov/spg/USAF/AFMC/AFRLRRS/
require apertures and RF electronics services; flexible directional apertures; FA875020S7003/listing.html.

2019 Innovation Awards

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 2019 Innovation Awards

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Enjoy industry insights,

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with a subscription to
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Easy access hinged top for new board designs,
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Untitled-1 1 12/4/19 3:06 PM
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11:51 AM 1 3/20/18 10:56 AM

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 Lightweight, Big Impact – 4K Rugged Short-Depth, Lightweight,
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D38999 Style Repairable Ethernet Military & Aerospace Electronics Innovators

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www.militaryaerospace.com MILITARY & AEROSPACE ELECTRONICS  D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 9   15

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 S PECIA L REPORT

Military cyber security experts are making

sure that avionics systems like those aboard
the B-52 bomber are not tempting targets
of cyber attackers.

Military cyber security:

threats and solutions
U.S. government and military are taking a lead role in protecting sensitive
computers from cyber attack, and solutions finally are on the horizon.

BY J.R. Wilson

The entire world, especially the mili- position, time and navigation - all are disrupt, control or destroy financial
tary, is firmly entrenched in cyberspace. part of the cyber domain. institutions, power grids, computer
Everything from personal messages That domain also encompasses networks, and offensive and defen-
among friends and family to top secret home appliances, office equipment, sive military equipment — perhaps the
military and diplomatic dispatches are children’s toys, medical devices, TV single greatest threat the world faces,
created, transmitted, received, and read sets, unmanned vehicles, baby mon- at all levels, in all nations.
in the “0s” and “1s” of computer code. itors, and espionage. The technology to detect and deter
Power grids, water treatment and In short, it touches nearly every such attacks has improved substan-
distribution facilities, hospitals, traffic aspect of 21st century life. This makes tially in recent years, yet it’s the mod-
control, aviation, railroads, sea trans- cyber attacks — from annoying but ern version of the old armor/anti-armor
port, space-based communications, benign hacking to deadly attempts to loop — create a stronger, more resilient

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1912MAE16-23_sr.indd 16 12/5/19 3:37 PM PasFair

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 S PECIAL REPORT

multiple targets and goals. China, for

example, has an obvious interest in
breeching U.S. military systems, to
gather intelligence and to learn how
to control or compromise them. How-
ever, contemporary reports also show
a Chinese focus on academics, high
technology, insurance, manufacturing,
construction, media, telecommunica-
tions, transportation, and video games.

Military a priority target

The military is high on the list for most
nation-states, compromising another
nation’s military through cyber actions
As U.S. military weapon systems increasingly are linked over tactical networks, the threat that often cannot be traced back to the
of cyber attack extends even to equipment like aviation night-vision goggles. attacker. Financial institutions also are
at the top of the list, as are industri-
armor and someone will create a stron- years that the seriousness of the threat al-control systems for water and power
ger, more potent anti-armor, leading has been fully recognized, leading to networks, because a successful cyber
to yet another new level of armor and the creation of cyber warfare and cyber attack there could have a devastating
more creative anti-armor. security departments in almost every real world impact.
This is not a new problem; it began major entity, military and civilian, For individuals, it’s hit and miss — a
as soon as the first computers appeared and the declaration of cyber as a full lot of those, such as ransomware, are
in war rooms and operations centers domain of war. automated. So individuals always will
and has grown apace with the world’s The sought-after end-result of be at some level of risk due to human
ever-increasing dependence on elec- cyber attacks varies by the source of nature, where people pay ransoms for
tronics. But it is only in the past few the attack, some of which will have things that never happened.
Corporations also are an obvious tar-
get and will remain so, as cyber adver-
saries look for intellectual property
or competition strategies. Too many
organizations still don’t think about
what such an attack could do to their
companies.
Small-to-medium businesses also
are targets because they don’t have
the resources or manpower to lock
down their computer and digital net-
working environments, so an attacker
knows there is a pretty good chance of
compromising them and getting away
with it.
Cyber attacks are very costly and
have a definite impact on the economy
Navy cyber security experts seek to shield crucial digital systems from cyber attacks, and the confidence people have in the
like the combat information centers of U.S. surface warships. ability of companies and the govern-

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 S PECIAL REPORT

ment to protect their information and ing the cyber security of non-military
continue to provide goods and services. entities.
“There will be variations depend- One of the newest federal agencies
ing on the target,” says Shane Liptak, is the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure
vice president for cyber security ser- Security Agency (CISA) in Arlington, Va.,
vices at Gray Analytics in Huntsville, stood up on 16 Nov. 2018 when Pres-
Ala. “With industrial controls and crit- Common Criteria-certified products like the ident Donald Trump signed into law
ical infrastructure, you will see more secure Curtiss-Wright DTS1 network attached the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure
damage. Just turning off the power grid storage secure device, can help ensure that Security Agency Act of 2018, calling for
for a couple of days will overload sys- data is protected from cyber-attack. a coordinated federal effort to combat
tems and shut things down for even cyber attacks.
longer. For example, water filtration rity overall, there’s a lot of stuff that “The heart of CISA’s purpose is to
plants need electricity, which spins out gets put out there very quickly with- mobilize a collective defense of our
to the mass populace as people no lon- out much regard to security. So we’re nation’s critical infrastructure,” states
ger have drinkable water or power,” nowhere near the point where you have the CISA Strategic Intent document,
There’s big money involved, too. to be really sophisticated to pull off released last August. “We lead the
“In general, companies have a loss a cyber attack,” says Steve Edwards, nation’s risk management efforts by
of revenue or capability because they director of secure embedded solutions bringing together diverse stakeholders
can’t make their widgets, which then at the Curtiss-Wright Corp. Defense to collaboratively identify risks, priori-
impacts their customers who need Solutions division in Ashburn, Va. tize them, develop solutions and drive
those widgets to make their own “It’s partly due to ignorance, but those solutions to ensure the stability
products and so on and on,” Liptak mostly because security is not free and of our national critical functions.”
continues. when people weigh that cost versus CISA functions as the nation’s cyber
getting a product out there, security security risk advisor, and partners with
Reputations on the line often gets the short stick.” private industry, researchers, inter-
A company’s long-term reputation also However, the federal government, national governments, emergency
could be in jeopardy. “An organization having created U.S. Cyber Command responders, intelligence, defense, and
that is compromised loses the trust of at Fort Meade, Md., as one of the joint other communities.
its customers and the public, leading to military commands, recently has begun CISA has two goals: addressing cyber
a host of lawsuits and loss of business,” placing greater emphasis on enhanc- risks to national critical functions; and
Liptak says. “And if they are going to
stay in business, they will have to raise
prices, which has a ripple effect. Plus,
once penetrated, you can’t tell for cer-
tain the threat actor actually gets out
of your network if you don’t do a really
thorough check, which many don’t,
and sometime in the future, you’ll get
hit again.”
Even the military continues to use
systems too easily compromised and
the civilian world continues to ignore
recommended “hardening” of their
vital systems due to cost or complex-
ity, too often relying on simple — and
easily breached — protection schemes. Big aerospace and defense companies like Airbus are starting to boost their cyber secu-
“Looking at industry and cyber secu- rity defenses as they become likely targets for hackers.

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1912MAE16-23_sr.indd 19 12/5/19 3:37 PM

 S PECIAL REPORT

or processor is probably impossible.

So while capabilities will continue to
advance, it will never be foolproof.”
As military changes — offensive and
defensive — have come faster, the atti-
tude of those ordering new military
systems has changed dramatically —
far more so, to date, than their oppo-
site numbers in the civilian domain.
“One change in requirements is
from ‘let’s harden this as well as we
can and then we’re done’ to ‘how do
we monitor this throughout its life-
time so we can be assured of having
a hardened system even after it has
been deployed’,” adds Curtiss-Wright’s
U.S. Air Force cyber security experts confront big jobs like safeguarding critical nuclear Sheets.
and conventional weapons systems from malicious attacks and snooping. Awareness of cyber security has
improved considerably in the U.S.
helping organizations manage their bilities than in previous systems.” Department of Defense (DOD), Sheets
own cyber risks. CISA deploys intru- For Curtiss-Wright, “industry” refers adds. “Outside DOD, they still need to
sion-prevention technologies in federal to the military, for which they are a learn some of the lessons and improve
networks, for example, and supports major subcontractor in cyber defense. their security efforts and understand
emergency communications during “Not only is the government paying the risk. DOD has put a lot of inter-
the response to wildfires that threaten more attention, as are the primes, but est into understanding those risks and
lives and critical infrastructure. so are the chip vendors and hardware making those investments up front.”
level providers,” Edwards adds. “They The modern world, especially man-
Built-in cyber security will continue to improve their ability ufacturing, is heavily integrated. Even
Cyber equipment manufacturers are to detect attacks, but you can’t pre- in the military, any given piece of
increasing their investment in built-in vent the ‘unknown’ unknown. These equipment is likely to contain compo-
cyber security, providing multiple lay- systems are complicated, so to do nents from multiple — often foreign —
ers of defense as such components foolproof testing on every line of code sources. This is the case, despite great
are brought together to create new efforts of military officials to ensure
systems. that all elements of essential systems
“Defensive capabilities are improv- are from trusted sources.
ing constantly, but the threat spectrum This opens up yet another major tar-
also is changing all the time,” warns get for cyber attack: The supply chain.
David Sheets, security architect at Cur- Gray Analytics’s Liptak says that is a
tiss-Wright Defense Solutions. “Old complex and constantly evolving area
attacks are continually being employed of concern.
against new systems, so you can’t for-
get about those, and new attacks are Targeting the supply chain
being developed all the time. Industry “For detection, we’re focused on the
overall is becoming a lot more aware supply chain cyber security framework,
the problem and putting more effort The U.S. military services are putting more to aid in the identification of malicious
into addressing it. In the next few years, IT professionals to work these days as defen- software and hardware. Those include
we should be seeing a lot better capa- sive and offensive cyber warfighters. activities inherent in the whole system

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 S PECIAL REPORT

life cycle, from fabrication to shipping

all the way to disposal, to identify and
detect anomalies,” Liptak says.
“An organization might be a U.S.
company with ties to a Chinese joint
venture company, which gives them
access to all the intellectual property
and, typically, majority ownership, so
they can see everything within the
company,” Liptak says. “We deter-
mine if the components required for
all defense systems are safe or have
embedded malicious software or hard-
ware. You can’t really secure the supply
chain without a detection capability.”
In some cases, deterrence may Could U.S. unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) be hacked by terrorists or hostile nation
depend not on the development of states? Air Force cyber security experts are trying to keep that from happening.
secret counter-cyber capabilities, but
on making their existence public, he nesses, and small countries without source of most attacks is embedded
adds. the resources or perceived need for malware that executes once a user
“Deterrence typically is techni- top-of-the-line cyber detection and opens or uses some item. A lot of the
cal and procedural,” Liptak says. “For deterrence. financial-based attacks are individu-
example, say the U.S. develops a new “The barriers to entry are relatively als or small group threat actors, often
automated threat-detection capability low, so a teenager just messing around working in tandem, to exploit as many
we can use to detect ransomware or if can do some things; a nation-state instances as they can to extort money
a threat can decrypt our communica- spending part of its military budget or gain intel.”
tions. We publicly announce that so on exploitation activities can do more,” Sometimes stolen intellectual prop-
threat actors know we have the abil- Gray Analytics’s Liptak points out. “The erty is the culprit. “A lot of the growth
ity to deter their threat, which serves
as a deterrence. If you can advertise
you have effective deterrences, threat
actors are less likely to attack.”
The sources of cyber attacks also
have changed as defensive technolo-
gies have improved. In the early days,
cyber terrorists often were depicted
as bored teenagers working from their
parents’ basement somewhere in East-
ern Europe.
While that group still exists, break-
ing into major corporate, government
or military networks now requires
high-level skills, tools and experience
typically found only in well-funded
government or major criminal orga-
nizations. The “bored teen hacker” is U.S. Army cyber security experts work on an exercise at the Army Cyber Center of Excel-
still a threat to individuals, small busi- lence at Fort Gordon Ga.

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 S PECIAL REPORT

or sea forces, however, a cyber attack is developed and their classification level.
extremely difficult to pinpoint. As technology continues to evolve
“Attribution as a whole is improv- and mature, there will be compo-
ing, but in very small increments,” Gray nents the government can share with
Analytics’s Liptak says. “Mostly that industry. The defense industrial base,
Curtiss-Wright’s CHAMP-XD1S digital signal comes through sharing of source code, a public/private vehicle between gov-
processor module features built-in cyber where you can see the ‘fingerprints’ of ernment and industry, is one way that
security protections offered by the latest specific actors,” he says. Machine learn- such new developments may be shared.
commercial chips such as the Intel Xeon D ing and artificial intelligence (AI) can The question is when, how much, and
and Xilinx MPSoC. help with that, he says. where, which is speculative because it
“When you think of the internet as depends on how something is classi-
in technology of nations hostile to the a whole, you’re talking about hundreds fied. Not sharing new developments
U.S. is due to stolen intellectual prop- of millions of devices and components also may benefit the developer from an
erty because the developers don’t have — and that doesn’t even include hid- intel perspective by not letting adver-
the cyber hygiene they should,” Liptak den tunnels, such as VPNs and the dark saries know about them.
says. “Small criminal organizations are web. All of which make it very difficult “The bigger the organization, the
a big source, but some of the big nation- to track an attack back to its origin — more resources it has that small and
states and criminal organizations have and even if you do, that doesn’t guaran- medium businesses can’t afford, mak-
big budgets, and skilled researchers.” tee the location of the threat identifies ing them more likely to be dependent
that nation as part of the attack.” on the big players to offer to help them
Difficult to pinpoint Given the complexity and speed of — for a price,” Liptak says.
As with any attack on the United States, threat development, the government
determining the source is an important and its contractors generally have Threats to networks
aspect in trying to determine the goal taken the lead in developing cyber Because everything is networked, a
of the attack and against whom any defenses. Some of those may be shared breach at any point could enable pro-
retaliation should be directed. Unlike with non-DOD entities, depending on fessional hackers to work their way
a rocket launch or attack by air, land, the programs under which they are up the food chain to more important
targets that may recognize the system

COMPANY LIST within which malicious software has

been hidden as a trusted source.
“Most cyber attacks normally will go
Abaco Systems Cybersecurity and Lookout
Huntsville, Ala. Infrastructure Security San Francisco to a weak area, then use that exploit
www.abaco.com Agency (CISA) www.lookout.com to maneuver to other areas of the sys-
Arlington, Va.
Carbon Black Mercury Systems tem, with a mixture of exploits using
www.cisa.gov
Waltham, Mass. Andover, Mass.
hardware and software,” notes Cur-
www.carbonblack.com Duo Security Inc. www.mrcy.com
Ann Arbor, Mich. tiss-Wright’s Sheets. “Attacks that
CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. Ping Identity Corp.
https://duo.com employ hardware are typically more
Sunnyvale, Calif. Denver
https://www.crowdstrike.com Gray Analytics www.pingidentity.com difficult, so the majority of cyber
Huntsville, Ala.
Curtiss-Wright Defense Symantec attacks will be completely software.”
www.grayanalytics.com
Solutions Cambridge, Mass.
With attacks constantly coming
Ashburn, Va. KnowBe4 Inc. www.symantec.com
https://www.curtisswrightds. Clearwater, Fla. from all directions, employing ever-in-
United States Cyber
com www.knowbe4.com creasing levels of stealth and sophisti-
Command
Cybereason LogRhythm Inc. Fort Meade, Md. cation, every networked device needs
Boston Boulder, Colo. www.cybercom.mil
www.cybereason.com www.ndm.net/logrhythm some form of cyber protection, from
Webroot Inc.
the purely personal to the highest
Broomfield, Colo.
www.webroot.com level of secured government or mili-
tary systems.

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 S PECIAL REPORT

“Detection is slowly but continually improving, but the But that’s a really difficult area to see improvement unless
threat also is growing,” Gray Analytics’s Liptak says. “By humans stop making mistakes.”
using intel on breech incidents, you can tell what actors While the U.S. is developing whole-of-government efforts
were looking for and what and how they attempted to infil- to deter attacks and the intelligence community is work-
trate. Threat hunting looks for a red team methodology on ing closely to detect or deter foreign operations, experts
how a threat may attempt to get in. Industrial controls and agree just about any nation with the ability to do cyber intel
manufacturing integrity, including supply chain protec- attacks probably will.
tion, allow you to look for another source of supply or use “CISA is necessary because the 21st century brings with
compromise hardware, which can be a problem in itself.” it an array of challenges that are often difficult to grasp and
It’s about the same for deterrence,” Liptak continues. even more difficult to address,” CISA Director Christopher
“While there are new techniques, tactics, and procedures Krebs wrote in his introduction to “CISA Strategic Intent”.
being used, it is such a low barrier for actors to use cyber. “We immediately think of our reliance on networked
It’s extremely difficult to do 100 percent deterrence. For technologies, or perhaps our interdependent supply chain,
every threat actor detected, there are probably hundreds as significant risk factors — how well do we really know
doing the same thing undetected. Even with detection and the things we’re relying on and do we understand what
deterrence systems in place, the threat guys will continue happens when we lose them? Making matters more com-
to try to compromise systems.” plicated, it’s not just human-driven threats; we must also
With the speed at which technology is evolving — includ- plan and prepare for Mother Nature, as well as for the fact
ing the appearance of revolutionary new technologies — it that sometimes technology just fails and bad things hap-
is difficult to forecast what the future holds for cyber secu- pen as a result.” 
rity detection and deterrence.

Improvement on the horizon Designed and Optimized for

Liptak predicts the next five years will see a continual High-Performance Beamforming
improvement on the detection side due to technology evolu- Real-Time Synchronized Digitization, Processing
tion and more sharing of information between government & Storage of Massive Amounts of Data
and industry. But there is a flip side to that “good” news.
“As the technology evolves, it is a tradeoff because as
detection capabilities improve, threat actors will get access
to similar technology and reverse engineer it to find back- 1,000s of Synchronized Channels

doors or weaknesses,” Gray Analytics’s Liptak says. “So

attacks will become more sophisticated. On deterrence,
100GbE Bandwidth
unless there is a significant improvement in technology, it
will probably stay at a similar level to today. We can deter
certain threat actors, but others, especially nation-state
sponsored, will continue.”
The future will see improvements in software and hard-
64 TB Storage
ware for cyber security, Liptak says. “I would say the next
generation of cyber security will focus more on software RF & Optical

and the human element, but hardware also will improve

with new security postures for companies, internal and
external contacts.
“There are efforts to develop hardware and software that
not only detect malicious code, but also protect the hard- www.AnnapMicro.com
ware from attack,” Liptak continues. “A lot of effort also is
being spent on the human element; we have a lot of orga-
nizations being compromised by social engineering efforts.

www.militaryaerospace.com MILITARY & AEROSPACE ELECTRONICS  D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 9   23

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 TECHNOLOGY F CUS

Today’s military data storage goes far beyond rugged

It’s not just about shielding data drives from shock and vibration; designers also are looking for the
latest in speed and capacity, and want encryption to protect data at rest, and security to foil tampering.

BY John Keller

Data storage for military and aerospace NVMe. This approach enables data stor- ers are reluctant to move to revolution-
applications is following similar trends age media such as solid-state drives to ary new technologies — especially as
to the broader embedded computing access processors via the PCI Express they consider the need to upgrade leg-
market: faster speeds, higher perfor- databus. It also enables host hardware acy systems over many years.
mance, ability to handle increasing and software to capitalize on levels of In addition, “the NVMe product
amounts of data, and security to safe- parallelism possible in modern sol- draws a lot of power, and that can
guard sensitive data from prying eyes. id-state drives. hurt you in two ways,” Deacon says.
Of these trends, higher speeds, “It allows the storage device to com- “You have to dissipate the heat, and
capacities, and security are paramount municate directly with the with the that heat can affect drive perfor-
as designers seek to help data storage CPU via the PCI Express bus,” says Amos mance; if you don’t cool it, the drive
keep pace with high-end micropro- Deacon III, president of rugged data will throttle-back.”
cessors, high-speed sensors, fast data storage specialist Phoenix International Other users and manufacturers of
networks, and a never-ending appetite in Orange, Calif. rugged data storage in military and
in aerospace and defense applications NVMe, which is poised to take lead- aerospace applications also are sing-
for information. ership in the aerospace and defense ing the praises of NVMe. “These drives
data storage market from the older enable you to capture data directly
The need for speed SATA bus technology, “lowers latency, from the PCI lane, at very high speeds,”
One technological innovation that and is a high-performance alterna- says Matt Young, business unit director
helps increase read and write speeds tive to SATA, and I see data storage for data solutions at the Curtiss-Wright
to data storage media is Non-Vola- going in that direction,” Deacon says. Corp. Defense Solutions division in
tile Memory Express, better-known as “The majority of military data storage Dayton, Ohio.
applications are moving from SATA
to NVMe.”
Deacon points out that NVMe
increases data read and write speeds
over SATA by at least three times —
sometimes even more. As an example,
he says SATA reaches its upper-speed
limits at about 600 megabytes per sec-
ond, while NVMe can sustain read and
The network-attached storage solution from write performance of more than 3 to
Crystal Group is a cyber security fly-away- 3.5 gigabytes per second. Crystal Group can ruggedize and confor-
kit that brings rugged cutting-edge data NVMe does have its drawbacks, how- mal-coat commercial-grade solid-state
storage, compute capacity, and technology ever. First, it’s a much newer technology drives like the 800-gigabyte device from
to the tactical edge. than SATA, and some systems design- Seagate, shown above.

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1912MAE24-29_tec.indd 24 12/5/19 3:37 PM PastPrIH

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AM
 TECHNOLOGY F CUS

data storage specialist Virtium LLC in

Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif.
“You will hear that NVMe is where
everything is going, because the big
providers are going that way,” Phillips
says. “But it requires newer Windows
The Curtiss-Wright DTS1 is a single-slot and Linux versions, and many military
rugged network-attached file server for and aerospace designers started their
data-at-rest applications that supports two projects years ago, and for them, SATA Curtiss-Wright’s HSR40 CC is a conduc-
layers of full disk encryption in one device. is just fine.” tion-cooled 40 Gigabit Ethernet network-at-
Among SATA’s other advantages tached storage solution for deployable
“Traditionally we have done a lot over NVMe is its relatively low power applications with two multi-core Intel Xeon D
of SATA interface work, but the need consumption,” Phillips continues. processors and two 40 Gigabit Ethernet ports.
for higher speed has pushed us to PCI “Although NVMe has some low-power
Express and NVMe technology,” Young modes, typically military and aerospace tional authorities; the U.S. Department
says. “All our offerings today are in designers are more concerned that the of Defense’s National Security Agency
NVMe and PCI Express.” data drive comes on-line quick. SATA (NSA) at Fort Mead, Md.; and the U.S.
SATA does have enduring niches in also has more ability to be ruggedized Department of Commerce National
aerospace and defense applications and do secure erase a little easier than Institute of Standards and Technol-
— particularly when it comes to lon- NVMe. You can do that with NVMe, but ogy (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Md.
gevity and upgrades over several gen- it takes a special skillset to do it.” Perhaps the most accessible com-
erations of legacy systems. “There are mercial encryption standards are
a lot of legacy SATA systems to sup- The need for security the Security Requirements for Cryp-
port,” Young says. One of the biggest trends in data stor- tographic Modules standard, outlined
Still, demands for increased speeds age is security — not only for safeguard- in Federal Information Processing Stan-
is making moving to NVMe an obvi- ing the data itself, but also for ensuring dard (FIPS) 140-2; and the Advanced
ous choice. “With advanced sensors at the ability to erase data quickly and Encryption Standards (AES), outlined
higher bandwidths, like with multiple securely, and prevent tampering if the in FIPS 197. These commercial-level
cameras and ever-increasing sophis- drive falls into the wrong hands. encryption standards are administered
tication of those sensors, that drives Encryption for data storage comes by NIST.
more data, and that’s why we are see- in several different levels of security, FIPS 140-2 is a U.S. government com-
ing the higher-speed stuff,” Young says. spelled out in standards from interna- puter security standard to coordinate
Don Bizios, senior product line man- the requirements and standards for
ager of secure solid-state drive prod- approving cryptographic modules that
ucts at the Mercury Systems Advanced maintain the confidentiality and integ-
Microelectronics Center in Phoenix, rity of encrypted information.
points out the industry’s migration The AES, meanwhile, specifies a
from SATA to NVMe. “Close to 95 per- FIPS-approved cryptographic algorithm
cent of new designs are using NVMe that is a symmetric block cipher that
now, and we also are moving in that can encrypt and decrypt information.
direction.” It can use cryptographic keys of 128,
There are data storage companies 192, and 256 bits (AES 256) to encrypt
serving aerospace and defense appli- Virtium’s StorFly-XR SATA solid-state drives and decrypt data in blocks of 128 bits.
cations, however, that are not ready come in the industry-standard 2.5-inch form The Opal Storage Specification
to commit wholly to NVMe. “SATA is factor, feature extra-rugged connectors, from the non-profit Trusted Comput-
still very strong,” says Scott Phillips, and screw-down to deliver durability ing Group (TCG) in Beaverton, Ore., is
vice president of marketing at rugged exceeding MIL-STD-810. a set of security specifications to apply

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 TECHNOLOGY F CUS

Another encryption approach is

the Common Criteria for Informa-
tion Technology Security Evaluation,
administered by the NSA’s National
Information Assurance Partnership
(NIAP). Common Criteria is a techni-
cally demanding international set of Virtium’s XR-DIMM memory modules feature
guidelines for security certification rugged connectors and screw-down mounting
recognized by the U.S. and 27 other that deliver durability exceeding the MIL-
Virtium’s StorFly-XR SlimSATA solid-state governments worldwide for protect- STD-810 when combined with BGA underfill.
drives feature a compact form factor and ing sensitive stored data. It provides
ruggedized connectors, screw-down mount- assurance that the process of specifi- applications.
ing, and I-Temp support. cation, implementation, and evalua- CSfC is intended to be a cost-effec-
tion happens in a rigorous, standard, tive way to use layered commercial
hardware-based encryption to storage and repeatable manner. encryption technologies in trusted data
devices. Storage devices that comply Common Criteria certification also storage. The NSA has established the
with TCG Opal can provide enhanced is one of the first steps toward imple- CSfC program as an alternative to the
performance, security, and manage- menting the NSA’s Commercial Solu- agency’s more-stringent and more
ment, compared with software-based tions for Classified (CSfC) two-layer expensive Type 1 encryption.
encryption. All security functions hap- encryption for protecting classified NSA officials developed the CSfC
pen within the device itself. information in aerospace and defense program to deliver secure solutions

RUGGED RELIABLE SECURE DATA STORAGE*

AS 9100D / ISO 9001:2015 CERTIFIED

RPC24 SSD/HDD Magazine Based Disk Array

• 24 SSDs or HDDs in 2U of rack height
• No single point of failure
• MIL-STD-810G and MIL-STD-461E Certified
Open VPX NVM Express (NVMe) Data Storage Module
• Capacities to 14TB per module
• Transfer rates to 3.5GB/s read, 3.1GB/s write
• Streamlined protocol and very low latency
Phalanx II SFF Network Attached Storage (NAS)
• Two SSDs, fixed or removable, to 16TB
• -40⁰ C to +71⁰ C operational temperature
• MIL-STD-810G, 461F, 704F/1275D
Open VPX Serial ATA (SATA) Data Storage Module
• SLC or MLC Solid State Disk
• 80,000 feet operational altitude
• Vita48 REDI conduction cooled

* Supports AES-256 and FIPS140-2 encryption

www.phenxint.com 714-283-4800

www.militaryaerospace.com MILITARY & AEROSPACE ELECTRONICS  D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 9   27

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 TECHNOLOGY F CUS

using commercial encryption to mation properly. Security experts par- storage used in military and aerospace
get trusted data solutions to indus- ticularly are interested in denying an systems have become common over
try quickly. It works on the assump- adversary physical access to data drives the past four or five years.
tion that properly configured, layered if systems fall into the wrong hands. Perhaps the most attractive aspect
solutions can provide adequate pro- Anti-tamper technology is intended of CSfC is its multiple layers of encryp-
tection of classified data in selected to prevent not only unauthorized tion. “The idea is if there is something
applications. access to stored data, but also to keep wrong with one, then there is not with
The most demanding encryption an adversary from reverse-engineer- another,” says Bob Lazaravich, director
available for trusted data storage is ing data drives or storage systems. of secure storage at the Mercury Sys-
NSA Type 1, which is an encryption Anti-tamper mechanisms come in sev- tems Advanced Microelectronics Cen-
device or system certified by the NSA eral different layers. ter in Phoenix. “CSfC is more popular
for use in securing classified military Secure design approaches now, as more and more customers are
or other government information as “One of the things that has really not moving in that direction; CSfC is get-
Type 1-certified encryptors are avail- changed is security,” Mercury’s Bizios ting a lot of traction.”
able only from a handful of certified points out. “AES 256 is something peo- Designers at rugged computer spe-
providers. Type 1 certification is a rig- ple are comfortable with, as is FIPS 140- cialist Crystal Group in Hiawatha, Iowa,
orous process that includes testing and 2. The other area that is very high on are using FIPS 140-2 encryption at the
formal analysis of cryptographic secu- the requirements list is the CSfC. The software level, and TCG Opal at the
rity, functional security, tamper resis- new thing now is mobile data serv- hardware level in their data storage
tance, emissions security, and security ers that will go on Humvees and into systems, says Jim Shaw, executive vice
of the product manufacturing and dis- the field, and requirements for higher president of engineering at Crystal.
tribution process. capacity and security for data at rest In addition, Crystal relies on AES
Secure data storage needs more becomes very critical.” 256 to handle self-encrypting in data
than just encryption to safeguard infor- Requirements for security in data drives that require instant secure erase
for anti-tamper protection.
Curtiss-Wright systems designers
COMPANY LIST rely on the CSfC standard for demand-
ing security in data storage that falls
Aitech Defense Systems DRS Tactical Systems Inc. Mercury Systems
short of the stringent requirements of
Chatsworth, Calif. www.leonardodrs.com/ Andover, Mass.
www.rugged.com products-and-services/ www.mrcy.com NSA Type 1 encryption. “We’ve heard
leonardo-tactical-systems from various armed services who are
Barracuda Networks Pentek Inc.
Campbell, Calif. Elma Electronic Inc. Upper Saddle River, N.J. requiring encryption options in the
www.barracudanetworks.com Fremont, Calif. www.pentek.com
future, and there are options besides
www.elma.com
Cavium Networks Phoenix International
Type 1,” says Steve Petric, senior prod-
San Jose, Calif. Extreme Engineering Orange, Calif.
www.caviumnetworks.com Solutions www.phenxint.com uct manager for data storage solutions
Verona, Wis. at Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions in
CP Technologies LLC Systel Inc.
www.xes-inc.com/about/
San Diego Sugar Land, Texas Dayton, Ohio.
contact/
https://cp-techusa.com http://www.systelinc.com
“We have seen customer mindsets
General Micro Systems
Crystal Group Trusted Computing Group
Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. changing, and they are beginning to
Hiawatha, Iowa Beaverton, Ore.
www.gms4sbc.com be more open and comfortable with
www.crystalrugged.com https://trustedcomputinggroup.
Kaman Fuzing & Precision org the alternatives” to NSA Type 1, Pet-
Conduant
Products
Longmont, Colo. Virtium LLC ric says. Despite its status as the gold
Middletown, Conn.
www.conduant.com Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif.
www.kaman.com/ standard for military data encryption,
www.virtium.com
Curtiss-Wright Defense fuzing-precision-products
NSA Type 1 is starting to receive some
Solutions ZMicro
Kontron America Inc. technical criticism in the data storage
Ashburn, Va. San Diego
San Diego
www.conduant.com https://zmicro.com marketplace.
www.kontron.com
“We are seeing a lot of concern about

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 TECHNOLOGY F CUS

using Type 1 encryption in systems that quality screening, and shock-isolat- pany has a request for gold SATA with
require low latency,” says Mike Flander, ing packaging. thick barrel pins that fit in very tight
technical director at Crystal Group. “It “We add an extremely rugged con- spaces to eliminate shock and vibra-
can be limited in data input, and the formal coating that provides a seal for tion issues.
industry is longing for something that humidity protection, and some rug- Curtiss Wright designers often let
isn’t Type 1, such as CSfC, that has bet- gedization resilience,” says Crystal economics drive their approaches
ter data throughput.” Group’s Shaw. “We don’t need to do a to ruggedizing data storage drives,
lot of structure modification to these depending on the application. “We
The need for rugged drives, until we get into the high-per- don’t always use ruggedized drives;
There’s one common thread to military formance NVMe drives that generate sometimes we use commercial-grade
and aerospace data storage systems: a lot of heat. Getting the heat out is a drives in an engineered box designed
they all have to be sufficiently rugged focus of our research and development to support those drives,” says Cur-
to resist the effects of shock, vibration, group at Crystal.” tiss-Wright’s Young.
temperature extremes, and all manner Virtium has announced the compa- Often it’s best to consider the appli-
of electromagnetic interference. ny’s XR — short for extra rugged — line cation before ruggedizing data drives,
Crystal Group purchases commer- of 2.5-inch and slim SATA solid-state says Phoenix International’s Deacon.
cial-grade solid-state drives from man- drives, as well as an XR DIMM mem- “It boils down to economics,” Deacon
ufacturers like Seagate Technology ory module. “We use special connec- says. “It’s all application-driven. What
in Cupertino, Calif., and then rugge- tors with extra gold on the fingers for is good enough for the application,
dizes these drives with processes that endurance against shock and vibra- and how much money do I have to
involve conformal coating, extensive tion,” says Virtium’s Phillips. The com- pay for it?” 

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The vision for path-agnostic communications

is becoming possible due to the burgeoning
commercial space internet.

Air Force eyes path-agnostic communications

for high-speed decision-making
BY John Keller

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AFB, Ohio — U.S. Air Force Force Base, Ohio, awarded contracts mobile operating locations using con-
researchers are asking communica- in October to Lockheed Martin Corp. in stantly available, high-bandwidth,
tions and networking experts at two Bethesda, Md., and to Ball Aerospace & beyond-line-of-sight communications.
U.S. defense contractors to find new Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., for This new capability will be called
ways to distribute information among the Defense Experimentation Using the path-agnostic communications
land, sea, and air forces quickly to sup- Commercial Space Internet program. because its users will be able to com-
port high-speed decision-making. This project seeks the ability to municate reliably to any location in
Officials of the Air Force Research move and share data seamlessly the world without explicitly specify-
Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air among a wide variety of fixed and ing which nodes of a communication

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network to use. oping commercial space internet military-unique requirements not oth-
Lockheed Martin won a $3.6 million networks. erwise met by commercial space inter-
contract for the Defense Experimenta- This approach differs radically from net vendors.
tion Using the Commercial Space Inter- traditional military satellite commu- Last year Defense Experimentation
net program, and Ball Aerospace won a nications programs in which the gov- Using the Commercial Space Internet
$2.3 million contract for this program. ernment typically specifies and funds program contracts went to Iridium Sat-
The vision for path-agnostic com- every aspect of the program, Air Force ellite LLC in McLean, Va., and to the
munications is becoming possible due researchers point out. L3Harris Communication Systems West
to the burgeoning commercial space Instead, taking advantage of the segment in Salt Lake City. Iridium won
internet, Air Force officials say. Several commercial space internet will con- a $2.5 million contract in July 2018, and
commercial companies plan to estab- centrate government efforts on the L3Harris Communication Systems West
lish space internet constellations con- few areas that are unique to Air Force won a $5.7 million contract in Septem-
sisting of hundreds to thousands of applications. ber 2018. 
satellites, each to create global inter- The project has three phases: estab-
net services. lish connectivity between several Air For more information contact Lockheed Mar-
The Defense Experimentation Force sites using commercial demon- tin online at www.lockheedmartin.com; Ball
Using the Commercial Space Internet stration satellites and terminals; Aerospace at www.ball.com/aerospace; Iridium
program seeks to establish resilient, expand connectivity to many Air Force Satellite at www.iridium.com; L3Harris Commu-
high-bandwidth, high-availability Air assets by proliferating user terminals nication Systems West at www2.l3t.com/csw;
Force communications and data shar- to several locations and vehicle types; or the Air Force Research Laboratory at www.
ing capabilities by leveraging devel- and special experiments to address wpafb.af.mil/afrl.

Air Force researchers to test on a shipping container-like box, Ray- well as three use cases. The numbers
high-power microwave weapon theon plans to reduce the size signifi- of both likely will expand, however,
to destroy or disable swarms cantly in future versions. AFRL already as the project moves forward, says
of unmanned aircraft evaluates two other high-power Lisa Porter, deputy undersecretary of
The U.S. Air Force Research Labora- microwave systems — the Tactical defense for research and engineer-
tory at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., High-Power Operational Responder ing. A value of the contracts have not
is investing $16 million in further (THOR), that deploys as a means to yet been determined and will depend
field assessment of Raytheon’s Phaser provide base defense against drones, on budgets, but the contracts will be
High Power Microwave System out- and ‘Counter-Electronic High-Power multiple-award. 5G is seen by many
side the continental U.S. The testing Microwave Extended-Range Air Base as a revolutionary technology that
phase will span over 12 months in Air Defense’ system, or CHIMERA, will enable a broad range of capabil-
which the Phaser will engage simu- which is designed to engage multi- ities such as smarter sensors, greater
lated and real unmanned aerial vehi- ple middle- and long-range targets information gathering and more com-
cle (UAV) threats. The evaluation will over a wider area. puting power at the edge. There are
explore the effectiveness of Phaser’s security concerns, however, because
counter-drone engagement without Military setting-up plans for some of the underlying technologies,
disrupting the necessary installa- large-scale 5G experiments particularly the chips, are manufac-
tion operations. The effectiveness of The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) tured elsewhere. In addition, there are
Phaser against drone swarms already released a draft request for proposals currently few suppliers of 5G compo-
has been demonstrated at the Army in November to create large test beds nents. Security is an important con-
MFIX exercise in 2018, when the sys- for 5G applications and spectrum sideration as well, Porter says.
tem eliminated 33 drones, two to sharing. At the start, DOD is looking
three at a time. Currently mounted at four military facilities as test sites s

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 UN M A N N ED
vehicles

Military unmanned aerial vehicles increasingly

are vulnerable to falling into enemy hands,
which makes trusted computing and cyber
security a critical unmanned technology.

Vulnerability of unmanned systems makes trusted

computing a critical cyber design challenge
BY David Sheets

ASHBURN, Va. — Trusted-computing is a platform is the lack of constant super- manned systems, unmanned systems
difficult concept to implement, even vision from a trained and trusted are more prone to falling into the hands
in some of the best scenarios. Imple- human operator. While supervision of potential adversaries. One exam-
menting adequate cyber security and is typically available on manned sys- ple is the seizing of a U.S. unmanned
other protections becomes even more tems, unmanned systems may only underwater drone by China at the end
challenging when the system being have periodic contact with an operator. of 2016.
protected will be deployed into the What’s more, an unsupervised sys- The availability of reliable, secure
harsh world without a trusted service tem may need to make autonomous communications becomes much more
member nearby to operate the system. decisions based on minimal and poten- critical when dealing with unmanned
The first challenge when designing tially untrustworthy sensors. Another systems. While a manned system that
a deployable solution for an unmanned important issue is that, compared to loses communication still can operate,

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 UNMANNED
vehicles
as long as the onboard operators can framework to unmanned systems,
work to restore communications or designers must take care to ensure Defense board debates
complete the mission, a communica- that their system has been appro- ethical use of military
tions failure is much more critical for priately analyzed so that all controls artificial intelligence (AI)
an unmanned system. If communica- have been selected to provide protec- A Pentagon-appointed panel of
tions are lost, the unmanned system tion across all potentially compromised tech experts says the Defense
may need to throttle back, proceeding environments, not just nominal oper- Department can and must ensure
with much more limited functionality. ating environments. that humans retain control of arti-
Loss of communications also means The NIST 800-53 security controls ficial intelligence (AI) used for mil-
that the unsupervised system won’t document describes the set of con- itary purposes. “Human beings
be able to quickly respond to chang- trols that might need to be applied should exercise appropriate levels
ing circumstances. to unmanned systems. Another doc- of judgment and remain respon-
For all of these reasons, systems ument, CNSS Instruction 1253, provides sible for the development, deploy-
designers must ensure that their guidance on the overlay of controls that ment, use, and outcomes of DoD
unmanned systems are well protected. are mandated to be applied to national AI systems,” the Defense Innova-
These protections must take into security systems. tion Advisory Board stated as its
account the possibility of an attacker This guidance is based on selecting first principle of ethical military AI.
gaining physical access to the sys- the level of protection required (low, Four other principles state that AI
tem, and must include adequate cryp- medium, or high) across three protection must be reliable, controllable, unbi-
tographic protection of stored data and categories (confidentiality, integrity, and ased, and makes decisions in a way
appropriate cyber security protections availability). System designers should that humans can actually under-
to maintain communication integrity select the appropriate level of protec- stand. In other words, AI can’t be a
and confidentiality. tion for each of these three categories “black box” of impenetrable math
To help system designers meet the so that their programs don’t under-pro- that makes bizarre decisions, like
challenge, there are specific documents tect or over-protect their system based the Google image-recognition soft-
that provide guidance on how to main- on its unique system level risks. ware that persistently classified
tain trusted operation on unmanned Similarly, there are also policies that black people as gorillas rather than
systems. provide guidance on cryptographic human beings. The board didn’t
One such document is the Com- standards for unmanned systems. One delve into the much-debated
mittee on National Security Systems example, the “Policy on the Use of Com- details of when, if ever, it would
Policy 28 (CNSSP-28), “Cybersecurity mercial Solutions to Protect National be permissible, for an algorithm
of Unmanned National Security Sys- Security Systems” (CNSSP-7), also avail- to make the decision for military
tems.” Much of the guidance in this able on the CNSSP policy page, provides purposes to take a human life. “Our
document references other guidance guidance on using Commercial Solu- focus is as much on non-combat
documents from which to pull informa- tions for Classified (CSfC) for national as on combat systems,” says board
tion (e.g. CNSSP-7). Much of the guid- security systems. member Michael McQuade, VP
ance that CNSSP-28 provides indicates While CSfC has gone through multi- for research at Carnegie Mellon
particular technologies that must be ple revisions of the Data at Rest (DAR) University.
employed (e.g. encryption for all com- Capability Package (CP), the latest ver-
mand and control data links). In addi- sion, v4.8, which is currently in review General Dynamics
tion, CNSSP-28 indicates guidance on and accepting comments, provides unveils proposal for Army
which processes must be adhered to. additional guidance on unattended unmanned small tank
This includes, for example, describing operation. General Dynamics Land Systems
required aspects of the risk-mitiga- In this document, the unattended (GDLS) in Sterling Heights, Mich.,
tion framework that must be applied Use Case defines the operational has unveiled its proposal for the
to unmanned systems. parameters for unattended operation. U.S. Army’s Robotic Combat Vehi-
When applying risk-mitigation Requirements at the end of the docu-

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 UNMANNED
vehicles
ment allocate from the set of potential line of December 5, 2019. all potential attack vectors. System
CP requirements to the Unattended Beyond the guidance on protecting designers should verify that their COTS
Operation use case. Since the docu- unmanned systems that is available vendors are actively involved in appro-
ment is now in the review period, from publicly available documents, priate trusted computing communities
interested programs that may want additional guidance for ensuring com- to ensure that they maintain aware-
to use approved CSfC DAR solutions, plete protection can be obtained from ness of and follow appropriate guid-
such as Curtiss-Wright’s DTS-1 Rug- leading, experienced COTS vendors. ance from current documents across
ged Network Attached File Server, on Programs can work with their ven- their product lines. 
unmanned systems, were advised to dors to ensure that the products they
review the draft document and pro- plan to integrate into an unmanned David Sheets is senior principal security architect
vide feedback on applicability of the system have been engineered to meet at Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions. Contact him
requirements to their specific plat- stringent security requirements and by email at dsheets@curtisswright.com.
forms and systems prior to the dead- can provide protection in the face of

cle acquisition project. A concept for tember highlighted an emerging Army wants to counter
the program of the TL1 Robotic Com- vulnerability of long-range mis- hundreds of swarming drones
bat Vehicle was displayed for the first sile defenses: the attacking drones armed with explosives
time at the Association of the United evaded Patriot PAC-2 surface-to-air Future small armed unmanned
States Army (AUSA) annual meet- missile batteries to reach their tar- aerial vehicles (UAVs) can form
ing this fall in Washington. The new gets. As the Army rebuilds short- swarms of hundreds of mini, pre-
Robotic Combat Vehicles are devel- range air defense capabilities, long cision-guided explosives, over-
oping as part of Army’s Next Genera- ignored in favor of long-range sys- whelm radar or simply blanket an
tion Combat Vehicle program, which tems, the service also is looking to area with targeting sensors. They
in turn part of the ‘big six’ priorities integrate counter-drone capabil- can paint or light up air, ground, or
of the service that also includes long- ities into existing Patriot ground- sea targets for enemy fighters, mis-
range precision fires, Future Verti- to-air missile systems. Specifically, siles or armored vehicles, massively
cal Lift, the network, air and missile Army experts are building into the increasing war zone vulnerability.
defense, and Soldier lethality. The picture Raytheon’s Howler count- They can instantly emerge from
main goal of the unmanned RCV proj- er-unmanned aerial vehicle (CUAV) behind mountains to fire missiles
ect — a creation of the next genera- configuration, which includes the at Army convoys, infantry on the
tion of vehicles that are not only more Coyote “Kamikaze drone,” an expend- move or even mechanized armored
lethal and survivable than current able UAV that can locate and destroy columns. Finally, perhaps of great-
combat platforms but much smaller, enemy drones, and the Ku band radio est significance, many of them can
lighter, and more fuel efficient. Sol- frequency system multi-mission now fire weapons with little human
diers in the field need the right equip- simultaneous radar, or KuRFS, which intervention. Overall, the Army is
ment to be successful. A tank that is can acquire and track drones of all fast-tracking what could be called an
too heavy to cross a bridge or maneu- sizes. The Army is already employ- entire sphere of defensive weapons
ver through rough terrain and high ing the Howler, which reached initial to counter swarming drone weap-
altitudes can have a serious impact operational capability in June after a ons; these include Electronic Warfare
on mission success. development and fielding window of innovations to jam enemy drone sig-
just 17 months. The system is capable nals, Stryker-mounted Hellfire mis-
Army to incorporate killer UAV of intercepting Group 1 and Group 2 siles to shoot drones out of the sky
technology into missile defenses drones, including systems up to 55 and — in a Raytheon effort with the
The attack on two major Saudi oil pounds, capable of operating at alti- Army — create an integrated “sense-
plants by low-flying drones in Sep- tudes of up to 3,500 feet. track-hit” counter-drone kill chain.

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Night-vision goggles of the future may blend

low-light vision, virtual reality, and aug-
mented reality.

Army considers giving night-vision goggles

virtual- and augmented-reality capabilities
BY John Keller

FORT BELVOIR, Va. — U.S. Army researchers to provide a more intuitive and ergo- and Electronic Sensors Directorate
are looking for companies able to write nomic augmented-reality interface. (NVESD) at Fort Belvoir.
software that would enhance digital Augmented reality adds digital Fully digital soldier architecture
night-vision goggles with augmented- elements to a live view, while virtual software would be for the Army’s Spe-
and virtual-reality capabilities for war- reality involves a complete immersion cial Products and Prototyping Division
fighters on the battlefield. experience that shuts out the physical (SPPD) Quick Response Branch (QRB),
Officials of the Army Contracting world — useful for infantry simulation in partnership with the U.S. Special
Command-Belvoir Division at Fort Bel- and mission rehearsal. Operations Command and Program
voir, Va., issued a request for informa- The Army Contracting Command is Manager Soldiers, Sensors, and Lasers.
tion (000128456) in late October for the issuing this market survey on behalf The fully digital soldier architecture
Fully Digital Soldier Architecture (FDSA) of the Army Combat Capability Devel- seeks augmented and virtual reality
project. opment Command (CCDC) Command, in night-vision goggles by combining
This architecture would use high- Control, Computers, Communications, a digital visual augmentation system;
frame-rate digital image feeds; 2-D and Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance, and tactical assault kit-enabled end-user
3-D terrain data; and full-color displays Reconnaissance (C5ISR) Night Vision device; tactical radio; weapon sights;

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and small unmanned aerial vehicles tion), and pieces of kit that constitute and ability to take-in visual informa-
(UAVs) to provide capabilities not pos- the network. tion; does the presence of a near-eye
sible with analog systems, research- Hardware in the architecture must full-color digital display enhance user
ers say. communicate via a hard-wired connec- experience of augmented and virtual
The Army particularly is interested tion like USB 2.0, with options for wire- reality; can power throttling signifi-
in an architecture with digital image less operation via Bluetooth, 802.11g, cantly enhance system up-time; and
processing to improve image quality, Wireless Personal Area Network can distribution of processing improve
as well as an intelligent toggling sys- (WPAN), or Ultra-Wide Band (UWB). system performance? 
tem to modulate power and dataflow The radio shall be either wave relay
to save power and display only relevant radio such as an MPU-5 or wideband Companies interested were asked to email
information. waveform such as a Harris 152A/163. 10-page white papers in .pdf form by 14 Nov.
FDSA should enable individual users Prototypes may not be fully func- 2019 to the Army Contracting Officer Joanna
to customize their digital network, tional if they adequately demonstrate Jones at joanna.m.jones8.civ@mail.mil. Email
based on their preferences as well as ways to enhance performance of the questions or concerns to Joanna Jones at joan-
mission requirements. Customizable user and the system. na.m.jones8.civ@mail.mil. More information is
facets of the system should include This project will address four basic online at https://www.fbo.gov/notices/095e8d-
degree of automation, end-state pri- questions: can 3-D technology improve 8501715d780e267d2342b7389b.
ority (up-time, detection, and recogni- the infantry warfighter’s performance

Raytheon delivers first laser Rugged motion control For more information contact Cobham
counter-UAV system gimbal for air-defense sensor online at www.cobham.com.
Officials of U.S. defense contractor payloads from Cobham
Raytheon Co. announced they have Cobham Advanced Electronic Solutions Searching for satellite protection
delivered the first high-energy count- in Arlington, Va., is introducing the SPS- in contested space
er-unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) 1000 multi-axis gimbal system for As long as human beings have been
laser weapon system to the U.S. Air military applications such as counter sending satellites into space, they
Force in October. In recent years, the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and have been contemplating ways to
U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) has air defense operations. The SPS-1000 is destroy them. In recent years, the
assessed directed-energy weapons a sensor positioning system (SPS) that technology behind anti-satellite
like laser weapons as an affordable acquires, tracks, and points a variety of (ASAT) weapons has progressed con-
alternative to traditional firepower to sensor payloads in harsh land, sea, and siderably. What’s more, the ability to
keep enemy drones from tracking and airborne environments. The SPS-1000 launch and destroy them extends
targeting troops on the ground. The offers integral field-replaceable con- beyond the two traditional superpow-
system will be deployed overseas as trol electronics, which eliminates all ers (the U.S. and Russia) to include
part of a yearlong Air Force experi- external cables without any sacrifice newcomers like India, China, and oth-
ment to train operators and test the in performance; and a reconfigurable ers. For this reason, Sandia National
system’s effectiveness in real-world design allowing for utmost payload Laboratories — a federal research
conditions. Raytheon’s high-energy flexibility. The SPS-1000 motion control center headquartered in New Mex-
counter-UAV laser weapon system device can support payloads as heavy ico — has launched a seven-year
uses an advanced variant of the as 150 pounds, and features brushless campaign to develop autonomous
company’s multi-spectral targeting direct drive DC motors; absolute opti- satellite protection systems. This
system to detect, identify, and track cal encoders; C-based firmware; as well campaign will fund the creation of
enemy drones. Once targeted, the as gyro stabilization/slip ring and cus- hardware and software that will allow
system can destroy an enemy UAV tomer I/O interface options. The SPS- satellites to defend themselves.
in a matter of seconds. 1000 will be available in January 2020.

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NASA pushing bounds of SWaP in spacecraft

with atmospheric monitoring CubeSat
BY John Keller

HAMPTON, Va. — U.S. space researchers are surveying industry bus; and assembly, integration, and testing (AI&T) services.
for companies able to build a small constellation of orbit- The SAGE IV sensor will require a commercial off-the-
ing CubeSat satellites, each about the size of a shoebox, shelf (COTS) space-quality 2D PIN diode array with square
to monitor aerosols, ozone, and other components of the pixels that should not exceed 35-micron pitch; have active
Earth’s atmosphere. area no smaller than 4 by 4 millimeters; and offer a total
Officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Admin- focal plane assembly package size no larger than 50 by 48
istration (NASA) Langley Research Center in Hampton, by 20 millimeters.
Va., issued a sources-sought notice (SS_SAGEIV_PDO) in The project seeks full potential well density of 5000
October for the Small Satellite Technologies atmospheric electrons per square micron; spectral sensitivity between
monitoring/measurement 350 and 1050 nanometers;
concept(s) project. programmable integration
NASA wants capabilities time enabling stepping of
and ideas from industry between 5 and 20 milli-
to help design an inte- seconds; at least 12-bit
grated CubeSat spacecraft readout electronics; and
and Stratospheric Aero- full-frame readout rate of
sol and Gas Experiment at least 20 Hz.
(SAGE) IV sensor to mon- The project will require
itor Earth’s atmosphere either an integrated active
as part of Earth Venture thermal control system
system science projects. or available surface area
The integrated spacecraft on the back side of the
and electro-optical sensor focal plane assembly for
should measure about 14.2 government bonding of a
inches by 4.8 inches and NASA is looking for electro-optical sensor payloads for shoebox-size government-supplied ther-
weigh no more than 26.5 atmospheric monitoring cubesats. moelectric cooler system.
pounds. The SAGE IV project will
The SAGE IV project will capitalize on new small satel- require space-quality CubeSat or small satellite space-
lite technologies to design a new CubeSat sensor to match craft buses including structures and trusses for a likely 6U
or exceed capabilities of the SAGE III sensor payload, which form factor equipped with a solar panel electrical power
measures about 3.8 cubic feet, weighs about 725 pounds, system with more than 75 Watts of power available to the
and operates from the International Space Station. instrument.
NASA experts want to design the SAGE IV in a 6U CubeSat Companies interested in making their capabilities known
form factor, and deploy it in a constellation of four or more to NASA were asked to email capabilities statements by
SAGE IV CubeSats for continuous monitoring of atmospheric 19 Nov. 2019 to NASA’s Ceseley Dunbar at ceseley.dunbar@
aerosols, ozone, and other atmospheric components. nasa.gov. 
The SAGE IV project seeks to observe the sun during sun-
rise and sunset in spectral channels that range between the Email questions or concerns to NASA’s Michael Obland at michael.d.o-
ultraviolet and infrared. This sources-sought notice seeks out bland@nasa.gov. More information is online at https://www.fbo.gov/spg/
vendors that can provide the necessary detector; spacecraft NASA/LaRC/OPDC20220/SS_SAGEIV_PDO/listing.html

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 PRODUCT
applic at ions
of satellite communications coverage is not
available.
The Marines has asked Cubic GATR for a
troposcatter system as potential replacement for
the AN/TRC-170. The Next Generation Tropos-
catter system will be based on commercial and
non-developmental item technologies able to
meet Marine Corps requirements.
Tropospheric scatter, or troposcatter, enables
communications with microwave radio signals
over distances of nearly 200 miles by randomly
scattering UHF and SHF radio waves as they
pass through the upper atmospheric layers of
the troposphere.
INFORMATION SECURITY Boeing if the Air Force exercises all contract options. Troposcatter transmits radio signals in a
Boeing to provide information security On this order Boeing will do the work in narrow beam aimed just above the horizon in
for Minuteman III nuclear missiles Huntsville, Ala.; Huntington Beach, Calif.; and the direction of the receiver station. As the sig-
U.S. Air Force strategic weapons experts needed Layton, Utah, and should be finished by Janu- nals pass through the troposphere, some of the
encryption and information security for the ary 2022. For more information contact Boeing energy scatters back toward the receiver station.
nation’s fleet of Minuteman III intercontinen- Defense, Space & Security online at www.boe- GATR Technologies pioneered an inflatable
tal ballistic missiles (ICBMs). They found their ing.com/company/about-bds, or the Air Force satellite communications (SATCOM) antenna
solution from the Boeing. Co. Defense, Space Nuclear Weapons Center at www.kirtland.af.mil/ design that is portable, easy, and quick to set
& Security segment in Layton, Utah. Units/Air-Force-Nuclear-Weapons-Center. up. The company is capitalizing on its ultra-por-
Officials of the Air Force Nuclear Weapons table SATCOM antenna technology to troposcat-
Center’s ICBM contracting division at Hill Air COMMUNICATIONS ter communications. Cubic Corp. in San Diego
Force Base, Utah, announced a $22.6 million Marine Corps chooses acquired GATR Technologies in 2015.
order to Boeing for ICBM Cryptography Upgrade troposcatter communications The Cubic GATR Next Generation Troposcat-
Increment II (ICU II) production. system from Cubic GATR ter system is to replace the Marine Corps AN/
This modification exercises production lot 2, U.S. Marine Corps communications experts TRC-170, which consists of air- or ground-trans-
option 1 and provides the government 54 A-4 needed a next-generation troposcatter radio
drawers, Air Force officials say. This effort sup- to replace the service’s AN/TRC-170 tropospheric
ports Minuteman III nuclear missile continuous scatter microwave radio terminal. They found
signal lockout, remote code change, and irre- their solution from Cubic GATR Technologies
versible transform capabilities in the A4 drawer Inc. in Huntsville, Ala.
programmer group of the launch facility. Officials of the Marine Corps Systems Com-
These key upgrades will add mission-es- mand at Quantico Marine Base, Va., announced
sential improvements to Minuteman III nuclear a $325 million 10-year contract to Cubic GATR
surety and promote overall robustness while for as many as 172 Next Generation Tropos-
decreasing significant vulnerabilities during code catter systems.
change operations, Air Force officials say. Troposcatter communications systems enable
The ICBM Cryptography Upgrade Increment II warfighters to establish a communications capa-
project could be worth as much as $104.2 million to bility in areas where access to a trusted source

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1912MAE38-40_pro.indd 38 12/5/19 3:37 PM

 portable troposcatter microwave radio terminals aerial vehicles under terms of an $11.5 million
that provide secure digital trunking between five-year contract.
major nodes of the U.S. military TRI TAC com- Officials of the Naval Air Warfare Center
munications network, or in stand-alone military Weapons Division at China Lake Naval Weapons
communications applications. Station in Ridgecrest, Calif., are asking Jopana
TRC-170 links might carry dedicated traffic to provide AN/ALQ-231(V) Intrepid Tiger (IT II)
to include analog and digital channels, point- family of systems hardware and incidental engi-
to-point subscriber circuits, facsimile circuits, neering services.
and teletype circuits. The Intrepid Tiger II EW pod and embedded
Marine Corps leaders have asked Cubic GATR computing subsystem provides airborne elec-
to package the Next Generation Troposcatter tronic warfare and electronic attack commu- ital I/O lines, dual video, four COM ports with
system in a four- or two-man-lift transit case nications jamming capability for Marine Corps RS232/422/485 options, and an audio headset
with improved size, weight, and power (SWaP) fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, UAVs, ground- jack with a one-watt audio amplifier to drive
attributes such that it is transportable on a light based systems, and laboratories. an 8-ohm speaker.
combat vehicle like a Joint Light Tactical Vehicle In 2012 Navy officials designated the AN/ The Golden-Eye computer measures 5.38
(JLTV), CH-53 helicopter, MV-22 tiltrotor aircraft, ALQ-231(V) Intrepid Tiger II as a rapid deploy- by 6.88 by 2.13 inches, weighs 3.25 pounds,
or C-130 fixed-wing utility aircraft. ment capability to provide critical airborne elec- and consumes as little as 25 Watts of power.
The new troposcatter system will have secu- tronic attack capability to ground forces quickly, The GMS S905R Raider III also is a rugged
rity and encryption that meets National Security Navy officials say. computer for defense and UAV applications that
Agency (NSA) communications security modern- General Micro Systems Inc. (GMS) in Ran- is designed for applications where a rugged com-
ization requirements, and can provide C- and cho Cucamonga, Calif., provides the compa- puter is needed to provide the best possible per-
X-band communications. ny’s S902R Golden-Eye III and S905R Raider III formance per dollar per Watt, GMS officials say.
The Marine Corps has asked Cubic GATR to rugged processor and data storage systems for The Raider III supports the Intel i7 Core
provide a troposcatter communications able to the AN/ALQ-231(V). processor, and runs on the CANbus and MIL-
send and receive data at 50 megabits per second GMS is the original source of the system’s STD-1553 databuses. Like its Golden-Eye cousin,
at distances of 35 to 50 miles, and 20 megabits rugged general-purpose processors, and is the it operates in temperatures from -40 to 85 C. It
per second at 120 to 160 miles; accept sufficient only company that can provide processors and is a fanless system that can be mounted directly
power from a 10-kilowatt generator; and that components without a substantial duplication to a metal surface or be used as a stand-alone
meets MIL-STD 810G, MIL-STD 461G, and MIL- of cost to the government, Navy officials say. system. It measures 5.5 by 5.5 by 1.24 inches,
STD 464C for ruggedization, resistance to elec- The GMS Golden-Eye III is designed to pro- weighs 1.9 pounds, and runs on as little as 25
tromagnetic interference, and ability to operate vide rugged embedded computing for defense Watts of power.
through exposure to harsh chemicals like fuel. and UAV applications, as well as industrial and Jopana specializes in laboratory-based spe-
On this contract Cubic GATR will do the work commercial applications, GMS officials say. It is cial test and data acquisition/reduction equip-
in Huntsville, Ala., and should be finished by widely deployed in Army vehicles, robots, and ment for weapon system analysis. Jopana has
October 2029. For more information contact UAVs, and works with the Windows 7, Linux, experience in providing custom test equipment
Cubic GATR online at www.cubic.com, or Marine and VxWorks operating systems. and data processing equipment for a variety of
Corps Systems Command at www.marcorsy- The S902R Golden-Eye III small lightweight military aircraft, including the F-14, F-117, and
scom.marines.mil. computer is conduction cooled and sealed, and F/A-18 aircraft, as well as the AIM-9, AIM-7,
operates in temperatures from -40 to 85 degrees AIM-54, AIM-120, and SM-2 missiles.
ELECTRONIC WARFARE Celsius without throttling, GMS officials say. The On this contract Jopana will do the work in
Navy picks Jopana for EW computer is based on the Intel i7 Core proces- Oxnard, Point Mugu, and China Lake, Calif., and
system; embedded computing sor with as many as four physical CPU cores, as Yuma, Ariz., and should be finished by October
and data storage from GMS much as 16 gigabytes of SDRAM. 2024. For more information contact Jopana Tech-
Airborne electronic warfare (EW) experts at Jop- The S902R supports as many as five Gigabit nologies online at http://jopana.com, General
ana Technologies Inc. in Oxnard, Calif., will pro- Ethernet channels with TCP/IP offloading engine, Micro Systems at www.gms4sbc.com, or the
vide the U.S. Marine Corps with EW capability for six USB 2.0 ports, as many as four removable Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division at
fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and unmanned 2.5-inch solid-state drives, eight buffered dig- www.navair.navy.mil/nawcwd.

www.militaryaerospace.com MILITARY & AEROSPACE ELECTRONICS  D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 9   39

1912MAE38-40_pro.indd 39 12/5/19 3:37 PM

 PRODUCT
applic at ions
SECURE CLOUD COMPUTING provide cloud computing, cyber security, and Accessibility means Microwave will pro-
Microsoft Azure to provide military trusted-computing services to the U.S. Army, vide cloud services also will provide automated
cloud computing for the tactical edge Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force; the defense intel- failover and enables interoperability between
U.S. government information technology (IT) ligence community; and the U.S. Coast Guard. applications and access to data.
experts needed a military cloud computing infra- Before the JEDI cloud contract, the DOD’s Centralized management and distributed
structure based on commercial technology for lack of a coordinated enterprise-level approach control requires Microsoft Azure to establish a
the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and U.S. to cloud infrastructure has made it virtually central cloud computing program office to over-
intelligence community. They found their solu- impossible for U.S. warfighters and leaders see and manage cloud services for the DOD,
tion from Microsoft Corp. in Redmond, Wash. to make critical data-driven decisions at mis- including applying security policies; monitoring
Officials of the Washington Headquarters sion-speed, DOD experts explain. security compliance and service usage across the
Service in Alexandria, Va., announced a poten- In the absence of modern cloud services, network; and accrediting standardized service
tial $10 billion ten-year contract to Microsoft last warfighters and leaders have been forced to configurations.
month for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastruc- choose between foregoing capabilities or slog- Ease of use decreases the technical exper-
ture (JEDI) Cloud project to for the company to ging through a lengthy acquisition, rollout, and tise necessary to store data and access, deploy,
provide modern, enterprise-level cloud services provisioning process. and manage applications using cloud services.
to DOD, based on an existing, large, globally A fragmented and largely on-premise com- Commercial parity with commercially avail-
available public offering. puting and storage solution forces the warfighter able cloud service requires Microsoft Azure to
The Microsoft Azure cloud computing sub- into tedious data and application management provide services to DOD that keep pace with
sidiary will provide enterprise-level, commer- processes, compromising their ability to rapidly advancements in industry, and rapidly make
cial cloud services as infrastructure as a service access, manipulate, and analyze data at the new features available to DOD as they become
(IaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS) to the home front and tactical edge. commercially available.
DOD and related mission partners, from home Most importantly, current environments have Modern and elastic computing, storage and
front to the tactical edge. not been optimized to support large, cross-do- network infrastructure means updating cloud
Microsoft Azure reportedly prevailed in the main analysis using advanced capabilities such services regularly, including processing archi-
JEDI Cloud project over Amazon.com Inc. in Seat- as machine learning and artificial intelligence tectures, servers, storage options, and plat-
tle to become the federal government’s primary to meet warfighting needs and requirements. form software.
cloud-computing vendor. Microsoft Azure will offer JEDI Cloud ser- Fortified security means Microsoft Azure will
In October Microsoft Azure introduced a vices at all classification levels, across the home provide enhanced cyber security and trusted
military-rugged version of the company’s Azure front to the tactical edge, including disconnected computing defenses from the root level of sys-
Data Box family for forward-deployed operating and austere environments, and closed-loop net- tems through the application layer and down
units, ground patrols, or similar mission needs works. The company also will produce indus- to the data layer with continuous monitoring
at the tactical edge. The Azure Data Box Edge try-standard metrics. and auditing, automated threat identification,
appliance is for transferring data to and from The JEDI Cloud contract has eight primary resiliency against persistent adversary threat,
the Microsoft Azure cloud computing network. objectives: provide worldwide cloud computing and an operating environment that meets or
This contract enables Microsoft Azure to services; provide data accessibility from the home exceeds DOD information security requirements.
front to the tactical edge; centralized manage- Advanced data analytics means Microsoft
ment and distributed control; ease of use; par- Azure will provide an environment that securely
ity with commercially available cloud services; enables data-driven and timely decision making
provide a modern and elastic computing, data at tactical and strategic levels, including machine
storage, and network infrastructure; provide learning and artificial intelligence.
data security; and offer advanced data analytics. On this contract Microsoft Azure will do the
Globally available services means that Micro- work at various locations, and will be finished
wave will provide a worldwide, highly available, by October 2029, if DOD exercises all options.
resilient infrastructure that supports geograph- For more information contact Microsoft Azure
ically dispersed users — including austere and online at https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us, or
connectivity-deprived environments at all clas- the Washington Headquarters Service at www.
sification levels. whs.mil. 

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1912MAE38-40_pro.indd 40 12/5/19 3:37 PM

 To submit new products for consideration,

new products
contact John Keller at jkeller@endeavorb2b.com.

wave transceiver for critical electronic warfare

(EW) applications. Using the latest commercial
DATA RECORDERS semiconductor technology, Mercury’s transceiver tor design, sourceless stabilization, advanced
Rackmount data recorder for signals enables rapid deployment of directional EW sys- heuristics, and hybrid identification techniques
intelligence introduced by Pentek tems necessary to counter the latest electromag- enable the FLIR identiFINDER R425 to detect
Pentek Inc. in Upper Saddle River, N.J., is introduc- netic threats. The DCM6112 transceiver uses the radioactive sources in all directions. It deliv-
ing the RTR 2654 26.5 GHz RF Sentinel intelligent latest commercially developed semiconductor tech- ers three times the gamma and two times the
signal scanning rackmount data recorder for mili- nology combined with ruggedized military-grade neutron sensitivity of currently fielded systems,
tary, security, and government signals, communi- packaging to minimize latency and maximize band- so responders can detect radiological threats
cations, and electronic intelligence applications. width. This can enable EW systems to protect from farther away and behind heavier shielding.
The RTR 2654 combines a Pentek Talon recording against complex threats. The modular architec- Where other systems can become inoperable in
system with a 25.6 GHz RF tuner and Pentek’s ture also supports several DCM6112 modules extremely high gamma fields, the identiFINDER
Sentinel intelligent signal scanning software for in a scalable system. The DCM6112 transceiver R425 remains operational, delivering pinpoint
automatic scans of the RF spectrum from 800 features four 12-bit analog-to-digital converter accuracy. At 15 percent lighter weight than pre-
MHz to 26.5 GHz for signals of interest and mon- channels as well as four 12-bit digital-to-analog vious generations, the handheld identiFINDER
itor or record bandwidths as wide as 500 MHz. channels. All channels support a sample rate as R425 provides ergonomic balance for surveying,
A Pentek Model 78141 Jade transceiver module fast as 3.2 gigasamples-per-second. The real-time emergency response, and environmental mon-
serves as the data acquisition engine of the Talon signal processing function consists of three Xilinx itoring. The internal battery lasts for 12 hours,
RTR 2654. One of its dual 3.2 gigasamples per Kintex Ultrascale field-programmable gate arrays with power options that include disposable or
second 12-bit A/D converters operates at a sample (FPGAs) and one Xilinx Zynq Ultrascale FPGA to rechargeable batteries that can be hot-swapped
rate of 2.8 gigasamples per second. The model enable complex application-specific algorithms. for as much more time as four hours of extended
78141 rackmount system is coupled to the 500 For more information contact Mercury Systems operations. The system haves an IP67-rating and
MHz bandwidth IF output signal of a 6 GHz RF online at www.mrcy.com. has an enclosed solid-state detector to withstand
tuner front end. A digital downconverter (DDC) in harsh environments. For more information con-
the model 78141 provides frequency zooming for SENSORS tact FLIR Systems online at www.flir.com.
signal bandwidth steps of 500, 280, or 140 MHz. Handheld system for detection
The Sentinel recorder provides automated signal of radioactive materials NETWORKING
monitoring and detection. For more information introduced by FLIR Rugged Ethernet switch for
contact Pentek online at www.pentek.com. FLIR Systems Inc. in Wilsonville, Ore., is introduc- 6U VME mission computing
ing the FLIR identiFINDER R425 next-generation introduced by Abaco
ELECTRONIC WARFARE handheld radioactive materials identification Abaco Systems in Huntsville, Ala., is introducing
Transceiver for electronic warfare device (RID) to provide responders with increased the GBX25 Level 3 Managed 6U VME NETernity
(EW) introduced by Mercury sensitivity, flexible power management, and Ethernet switch for mission computing; fire con-
Mercury Systems Inc. in Andover, Mass., is intro- advanced communications to locate and mea- trol; radar; sensor and video networking; and
ducing the DCM6112 digitization RF and micro- sure radioactive sources. A single cubic detec- industrial automation. The switch is for config-

www.militaryaerospace.com MILITARY & AEROSPACE ELECTRONICS  D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 9   41

1912MAE41-44_np.indd 41 12/5/19 3:37 PM

 new products
software. The dual I/O variant of the Ethernet
switch will offer as many as 40 switched ports.
The maximum non-blocking switching band-
width of 340 gigabits per second offers sufficient
headroom for demanding applications. Sup-
ported interfaces include 10/100/1000BASE-T,
uring 6U VME network support and configura- 100BASE-FX, 1000BASE-SX, 1000BASE-LX,
tion in new systems and systems upgrades based 10GBASE-SR, and 10GBASE-LR. For more infor-
on the 6U VME architecture. For existing users mation contact Abaco Systems online at www.
of Abaco’s GBX24 and RM921B, the GBX25 abaco.com. vehicles and aircraft. The EMC filters have a rat-
offers 100 percent pin-compatible technology ing of plus-or-minus 40 volts DC at 20 amps,
insertion. It also is an enhancement for systems POWER ELECTRONICS and come in rugged encapsulated quarter-brick
using the Abaco RM922, GBX16, and GBX16A EMC filters for harsh environments packages with a choice of flanged or non-flanged
switches. The use of SFP modules enables sys- introduced by TDK Lambda base plates. The FQA series offers high differ-
tems designers to configure the GBX25 to their TDK-Lambda Americas Inc. in San Diego is ential and common-mode noise attenuation to
applications. The common platform enables introducing the FQA series of electromagnetic simplify system-level compliance to MIL-STD-
engineers to use the GBX25 in several different compatibility (EMC) filters for demanding appli- 461G standards. The modules also provide input
systems without reconfiguring the management cations in harsh environments such as military spike protection to MIL-STD-1275D and RTCA/

PRODUCT & LITERATURE SHOWCASE

VIDEO DISPLAY & TRANSMISSION

Proven Solutions

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Integrated COTS solutions for baseband & networked video

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PM
 ADV ERTIS ERS IND E X
ADVERTISERPAGE
Airborn Inc............................................................................................... 29
Annapolis Micro Systems Inc............................................................... 23 SUBSCRIP TION INQUIRIES
Astronics Test Systems.......................................................................... 14 Phone: 1-877-382-9187 / International Callers: +1-847-559-7598
E-mail: MAEM@omeda.com
Elma Electronic Inc................................................................................. 14 Web: www.mae-subscribe.com
Fairview Microwave................................................................................ 17
General Micro Systems Inc...................................................................C4 VICE PRESIDENT/GROUP PUBLISHER Alan Bergstein
Guntermann & Drunck GmbH.............................................................. 7 603 891-9447 ⁄ abergstein@endeavorb2b.com
L-Com........................................................................................................C3 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF John Keller
603 891-9117 ⁄ jkeller@endeavorb2b.com
Pasternack Enterprises...................................................................... 3, 25
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Jamie Whitney
Pentek........................................................................................................C2 603 891-9135 ⁄ jwhitney@endeavorb2b.com
Phoenix International............................................................................ 27 CONTRIBUTING EDITOR WESTERN BUREAU J. R. Wilson
Pic Wire & Cable...................................................................................... 15 702 434-3903 ⁄ jrwilson@endeavorb2b.com
Pico Electronics Inc................................................................................... 1 EDITORIAL ART DIRECTOR Kermit Mulkins

Radiall AEP Inc........................................................................................ 29 PRODUCTION MANAGER Sheila Ward

RGB Spectrum.......................................................................................... 42 AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT MANAGER Debbie Bouley

603 891-9372 ⁄ dbouley@endeavorb2b.com
Systel Inc................................................................................................... 15
AD SERVICES MANAGER Gay Turvey
W. L. Gore and Associates..................................................................... 13 918 832-9221 ⁄ gturvey@endeavorb2b.com
Wind River Systems............................................................................... 14 MARKETING MANAGER Adrienne Adler
Z Micro...................................................................................................... 15 603 891-9420 ⁄ aadler@endeavorb2b.com

www.endeavorbusinessmedia.com

EDITORIAL OFFICES
Endeavor Business Media, LLC
Military & Aerospace Electronics
61 Spit Brook Road, Suite 501, Nashua, NH 03060

N 603 891-0123 ⁄ www.milaero.com

SALES OFFICES
EASTERN US & EASTERN CANADA & UK
Keith Gregory, Sales Manager
508 1/2 Ocean Park Ave., Bradley Beach, NJ 07720
732 897-9550 / Cell 917 993-3741
kgregory@endeavorb2b.com
WESTERN CANADA & WEST OF MISSISSIPPI
Maureen Elmaleh, Sales Manager
7475 Miller Street, Arvada, CO 80005
303 975-6381 / Cell 212 920-5051

CONNECT WITH US melmaleh@endeavorb2b.com

REPRINTS Jessica Stremmel

for all the latest in 717 505-9701 x2205 ⁄ Jessica.stremmel@theygsgroup.com

DIRECTOR LIST RENTAL Kelli Berry

Military & Aerospace news. 918 831-9782 ⁄ kberry@endeavorb2b.com

For assistance with marketing strategy or ad creation,
please contact Marketing Solutions
Kaci Wheeler
918 832-9377 ⁄ kwheeler@endeavorb2b.com

CORPOR ATE OFFICERS

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Chris Ferrell

CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER Scott Bieda

CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER Patrick Raines

CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER Eric Kammerzelt

CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER June Griffin

EVP, TECHNOLOGY GROUP Lester Craft

@MilitaryAerospaceElectronics

www.militaryaerospace.com MILITARY & AEROSPACE ELECTRONICS  D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 9   43

MAEFb14v_atd_180514 1 5/14/18 9:14 AM

2:54 PM 1912MAE41-44_np.indd 43 12/5/19 3:37 PM

 new products
DO-160G, and have testing consistent with MIL- offers advanced security features, and deliv- output; an internal IO fan; is network capable;
STD-883F and MIL-STD-202G. The circuit-board- ers the performance of a 12 core (576 Giga- has a 5-volt DC input; accepts one SD card for
mount FQA power electronics device can be FLOPS) Intel Xeon D processor, a Xilinx Zynq data storage; and offers wireless expansion. It
cooled using either an industry standard quar- UltraScale+ MPSoC (ZU4EG) FPGA, and a Flash- measures 5.7 by 2.53 inches, and operates in
ter-brick heatsink, or conduction cooled via a based Microsemi SmartFusion2 IPMC FPGA with temperatures from -25 to 85 degrees Celsius. For
cold plate. The non-flanged package size mea- HOST v3.0 support to deliver data security. The more information contact Connect Tech online
sures 60.6 by 39 by 12.7 millimeters, and the board’s advanced TrustedCOTS security fea- at http://connecttech.com.
flanged version measures 60.6 by 55.9 by 12.7 tures include enhanced trusted boot capabilities,
millimeters. The total DC resistance of the filter such as FPGA-based authenticated boot code GRAPHICS PROCESSING
is typically 12 Ohms minimizing power losses. and other features, to protect against malicious Rugged 3U VPX graphics
The filters are available with standard produc- cyber attacks and reverse engineering. It also processing board for military
tion screening (-S suffix) and a baseplate tem- supports Intel Trusted Platform Module (TPM) uses introduced by EIZO
perature rating of -40 to 115 degrees Celsius, 2.0 and NVMe encrypted Flash memory. The Image processing specialist EIZO Rugged Solu-
or with enhanced screening (-M suffix) and an CHAMP-XD1S features memory modules that tions Inc. in Altamonte Springs, Fla., is introduc-
extended temperature rating of -55 to 115 C. provide enhanced security protection for pro- ing the Condor GR5-P2000 3U VPX graphics
Enhanced screening includes functional testing cessor and FPGA memory. For more informa- and general-purpose graphics processing unit
at high and low temperatures and a 96 hour tion contact Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions (GPGPU) card for military and aerospace rugged
burn-in period with temperature cycling. For online at www.curtisswrightds.com. embedded computing applications. The GR5-
more information contact TDK Lambda online P2000 offers graphics and GPGPU capability
at www.us.tdk-lambda.com. IMAGE PROCESSING while delivering as much as 2.3 trillion floating
NVIDIA Jetson Nano-based point operations per second (TFLOPS) of CUDA
EMBEDDED COMPUTING imaging-processing board processing power. The Condor GR5-P2000
DSP board for radar and introduced by Connect Tech 3U VPX embedded computing card features a
electronic warfare (EW) Connect Tech Inc. in Guelph, Ontario, is intro- chip-down implementation of the NVIDIA Pascal
introduced by Curtiss-Wright ducing the Photon Jetson Nano AI Camera Plat- Quadro P2000 (GP107) technology to improve
The Curtiss-Wright Corp. Defense Solutions form to support smart camera applications that the card’s thermal dissipation profile and offer
division in Ashburn, Va., is introducing the involve low-power artificial intelligence (AI). This extended availability The MIL-STD-810G-certi-
CHAMP-XD1S high-performance 3U OpenVPX Jetson Nano image-processing board provides a fied card features two output configurations: two
digital signal processor (DSP) for demanding Power over Ethernet-powered device (PoE PD) DisplayPort++ and two Single-Link DVD-D or
size, weight, and power (SWaP)-constrained Gigabit Ethernet uplink for data and power, and four Single-Link DVD-D outputs — all available
radar, signals intelligence (SIGINT), and elec- has various I/O connectors positioned for pack- from the rear P2 VPX connector. DisplayPort++
tronic warfare (EW) applications. The board aging into off-the-shelf camera housings. The gives the option to support high-resolution mon-
is for floating-point intensive DSP applications board offers power via separate input or over itors resolution as fine as 4K at 120 Hz. The card
like specialized threat analysis and protection Ethernet, which is IEEE 802.3af-2003 and IEEE also features H.265 encode and decode capa-
(STAP), synthetic aperture radar (SAR), sonar, 802.3at2009 compatible; one Gigabit Ethernet bility, supports NVIDIA CUDA 10 and OpenCL
multi-sensor processing, direction finding, and port; one NVMe port; one 1 microSD port; four 1.2, and offers 4 GB GDDR5 graphics memory
mission computing. The multi-core high perfor- general-purpose input/output (GPIO) ports; and with NVIDIA GPUDirect DMA. For more infor-
mance embedded computing (HPEC) module US OTG for programming. The board is compat- mation contact EIZO Rugged Solutions www.
ible with the NVIDIA Jetson Nano; has front IO; eizorugged.com.
one port for lens control; one power output port
for infrared LEDs; internal IO display; one HDMI

44  
D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 9   MILITARY & AEROSPACE ELECTRONICSwww.militaryaerospace.com

1912MAE41-44_np.indd 44 12/5/19 3:37 PM

 Ruggedized Connectivity Solutions
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