Military Embedded Systems November/December 2022

By

John McHale Technology Update

SPECIAL REPORT: Tech for navigating GPS-denied environments

Machine learning, GPS alternatives key for navigating future jammed environments

By Dan Taylor, Technology Editor

DoD’s MOSA mandate drives CMOSS approach to A-PNT

By Jason DeChiaro, Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions

Meeting the needs of millimeter-wave 5G small cells for defense and beyond By Alexander Ippich, Isola

By Richard Jaenicke, Green Hills Software

SDRs for M-code satellite military communications By Brandon Malatest and Kaue Morcelles, Per Vices

ON THE COVER: Teams in the military-communications industry are looking at solutions including machine learning (ML) and alternative navigation systems that are less susceptible than GPS to disruption. In the photo, a Marine tours a simulated forward operating base during a 1st Radio Battalion field exercise at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho. Photo: Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Isaac Velasco.

When the mission calls for a 3-phase 3U power supply that can stand up to the most rugged environments, the military chooses VPXtra 704™ from Behlman – the only VPX solution of its kind built to operate seamlessly from MIL-STD-704F power for mission-critical airborne, shipboard, ground and mobile applications. > 3-phase AC or 270V DC input; high-power DC output > Available holdup cards store 700W of DC power for up to 80 msec

ADVERTISERS

PAGE

ADVERTISER/AD TITLE

30 AirBorn – High-speed verSI connectors

2 Analog Devices, Inc. –

One transceiver, endless radio applications

3 Annapolis Micro Systems –

The only full ecosystem of 3U & 6U 100GbE products aligned with SOSA

6 Behlman Electronics, Inc. –3 Phase. 3U. 1 Choice.

35 Dawn VME Products –

Rugged, reliable and ready

31 Elma Electronic –Ready to report for MOSA & CMOSS duty

36 Evans Capacitor Company –MIL-STD-704 power hold-up solutions

16 GMS – The world's most powerful full-featured wearable computer

15 Interface Concept –

Building next-generation embedded boards

48 Mercury Systems, Inc. – We make technology obsolescence, obsolete

34 Milpower Source – First 3U PDU on the market to utilize air flow through (AFT) technology

20 Phoenix International –

Phalanx II: The ultimate NAS

13 PICO Electronics Inc – DC-DC converters, transformers & inductors

41 State of the Art, Inc. – Space heritage

21 Times Microwave Systems – Miltech/M8M

20 Verotec – Modular development systems built from standard elements

23 Wolf Advanced Technology –VPX3U-RTX5000E-Switch

23 Wolf Advanced Technology –VPX3U-RTX5000E Coax-CV

25 Wolf Advanced Technology –VPX3U-A500-VO/VPX3U-A1000-VO/VPX3UA2000-VO/VPX3U-A4500-VO

25 Wolf Advanced Technology –VPX3U-A4500E-VO

27 Wolf Advanced Technology –VPX3U-RTX5000E-VO

27 Wolf Advanced Technology –VPX3U-XAVIER/CC6-SBC/HPC

27 Wolf Advanced Technology –XMC-A2000E-FGX-IO

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Open standards spell a departure from bloated defense budgets

By John McHale, Editorial Director

Do you miss the U.S. defense budgets of yore, where costs for programs skyrock eted into the billions and overall defense spending reached into the trillions? Where cost was not a concern, only a capability? If you’re pining for those days, then you probably don’t want to read this issue.

Our final issue of 2022 includes a focus on open standards, which are lever aged to keep costs down over the life cycle of defense platforms. Many of our contributing authors in this edition and throughout the year extol the virtues of a modular open systems approach (MOSA) in part to reduce expenses to prevent those dreaded cost overruns of decades past – it’s become a trope: $400 hammers and $500 toilet seats.

Yes, MOSA came to us decades after the 1980s defense-spending highs, but it is in fact the descendant of those efforts to scale down costs while maintaining capa bility in military systems. Its predeces sors included the mandate in 1994 from then-defense secretary William Perry to use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components and equipment wherever and whenever possible. COTS still exists today as a procurement strategy for the Department of Defense (DoD).

Ever wonder what else was overpriced? I did, so I searched the term “overpriced defense products of the 1980s” and found a 1986 column from a Los Angeles Times scribe named Jack Smith. In the op-ed, “$37 screws, a $7,622 coffee maker, $640 toilet seats: suppliers to our military just won’t be oversold,” Smith details some of these items.

“… a $285 screwdriver, a $7,622 coffee maker, a $387 flat washer, a $469 wrench, a $214 flashlight, a $437 tape measure, a $2,228 monkey wrench, a $748 pair of duckbill pliers, a $74,165 aluminum ladder, a $659 ashtray and a $240 million airplane.”

John.McHale@opensysmedia.com

What outraged many was that there never appeared to be anything special about these coffeemakers or wrenches, aside from being labeled as military products. You could get the same thing at a local hardware store for under $10. This of course infuriated the voting public, which led to the changes in acqui sition we see today.

Today’s most outrageously expensive item is software code. One can never overestimate what it will cost; that number always comes in too low. The F-35 is just one example, with its billions of lines of code that continued to mount in cost. While software code may never become a commodity like some hardware components, software-development costs can be reduced through reuse: Reuse of code through common APIs is the goal of the FACE [Future Airborne Capability Environment] Consortium. For more see our article titled “FACE in mili tary avionics systems: Now let’s integrate it,” on page 38.

Another important piece of MOSA is that it can leverage commercial processors, FPGAs [field-programmable gate arrays], RF components, and other innovations from the automotive and other highervolume markets. While the defense arena originated GPS, the internet, and drones, the DoD is more a consumer of commercial innovation than a driver of commercial solutions.

Well, not for every item: As far as I know, there are no Silicon Valley entrepreneurs building hypersonic missiles in their garage, but it’s a fact that commercial processors and FPGAs will be critical in helping detect projectiles that exceed the speed of sound.

Not everything is COTS and MOSA. There will always be a need for closed architectures in some systems and custom component designs. But those custom components must be able to

interface with all these open architecture standards. For more on custom designs, see my Q & A with John Sturm of Vicor on page 32.

Four decades and many policy changes later, the DoD’s latest efforts to reduce costs seem to have momentum. Just read our articles if you don’t believe me.

Even with momentum like that behind SOSA, standards take time to develop. The SOSA Technical Standard is cur rently only in version 1.0; requirements, while in process, are not yet here in force. Industry and government know that MOSA strategies will save money and hope they will also speed up acquisition.

The DoD acquisition process continues be glacial, just as it was in the 1980s. Changing this type of bureaucracy is not easy, as there’s no replacement for government-acquisition processes. To expedite the process, the government created new processes to test, develop, and procure technology and get it more quickly into the hands of warfighters.

Rapid-acquisition offices, Other Transac tional Authorities (OTAs), and the Defense Innovation Unit’s developmental off shoots like the Air Force’s AFWERX and SOFWERX for Special Operations are just a few examples of these efforts to proto type technology and leverage commercial innovation to deploy it to the field as fast as possible. They also provide a gateway for nontraditional defense suppliers to gain entry into the defense market as do consortia like SOSA and FACE.

MOSA and standardization efforts should assure more efficient adoption of com mercial innovation for warfighter systems and hopefully prevent those $400 ham mers from proliferating again. However, I may have spoken too soon on lowcost toilet seats. Just search “$14,000 toilet seat for military.” Apparently 3-D printing can be expensive.

Better sleep for soldiers may come through sensor, ML data

By Lisa Daigle, Assistant Managing Editor

An ongoing project intends to enable military and other scientists to monitor and even enhance the ways in which a soldier’s brain sleeps and, importantly, attains rest and repair. The effort – a collaboration between the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command (USAMRDC) Military Operational Medicine Research Program (MOMRP) and scientists and engineers at Rice University (Houston, Texas) –is only one of a group of sensor-driven military projects seeking to create wearable technology to track and improve soldier performance and outcomes.

Scientists at the Houston-based university are developing a noninvasive “sleeping cap” that analyzes the glymphatic system, the flow of fluid that is thought to cleanse and rid the brain of common metabolic waste during sleep. The cap will be used to further understand how the human brain deals with that waste, and if that function actually prepares and refreshes people for the next day.

A team at Rice University’s NeuroEngineering Initiative – together with teams from Rice’s Institute of Biosciences and Bioengineering (IBB) and physicians from Houston Methodist Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston – are developing a lightweight skullcap that can analyze the wearer’s glymphatic function and stimulate proper flow to treat sleep disorders and improve wakefulness and day-to-day function.

The first year of what the research team anticipates will be a multiyear award from the U.S. Army was funded by a $2.8 million grant through the Army-allied nonprofit Medical Technology Enterprise Consortium, according to a USAMRDC report.

MOMRP director Cmdr. Christopher Steele notes in an announcement from the USAMRDC Public Affairs Office that restful sleep is often difficult for soldiers, par ticularly in the field: “And so there’s this chronic disruption that we know isn’t good; and while young, healthy individuals can withstand a lot of that, good sleep is a core piece of brain health.”

Steele asserts that over time, constant sleep disruption is known to lead to such condi tions as cardiovascular disease, weight gain, hypertension, depression, all of which can result in a compromised and less prepared fighting force.

“Consistent sleep disruption is playing Russian roulette with brain health,” Steele says. “Sleep has to be considered the sixth sense when it comes to determining how an individual is performing over their career, and [also] over standard days and weeks under various stressors.”

The best way at present to view fluid flow in the brain is magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), says Paul Cherukuri, executive director of the IBB, in a story on the project from Rice University. “Since an MRI can’t be easily transported, the Department of Defense asked if we can design a small, portable cap that can measure and modulate the brain health of warfighters during sleep to enhance their performance. Developing this pro totype will require us to start with off-the-shelf devices and learn from them in parallel with building our own sensor technology and algorithms at Rice.”

Behnaam Aazhang, director of the Rice NeuroEngineering Initiative and the J.S. Abercrombie Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice, says of the cap: “We’re aiming for something practical and portable that is easy to use and can be available to soldiers and patients all the time.” (Figure 1.)

Figure 1 | This illustration from Rice University depicts the initial design for the noninvasive “sleeping cap” technology currently being developed by Rice University engineers, the U.S. Army, and several other institutions.

Dr. Eugene Golanov and Dr. Gavin Britz of Houston Methodist became inter ested in the field after discovering dis turbances in the glymphatic system after patients experienced brain hemorrhage, according to the Rice story. The recently discovered glymphatic system pumps cerebrospinal fluid into the brain during sleep, flushing misfolded proteins and other biochemical waste.

“We demonstrated that abnormalities of this system affect the brain,” says Britz, the Candy and Tom Knudson Centennial Chair in Neurosurgery and director of the Houston Methodist Neurological Insti tute. “Sleep is the body’s natural method of clearing these abnormalities.

“This unprecedented collaboration will not only give us more ideas for helping our soldiers in the field but also provide the spark for investigating and treating all brain diseases quickly and in real time,” Britz says. “This will crack open a new field of gathering brain data noninva sively, and it’s never been done before.”

The final device will ideally combine and analyze multiple streams of data through machine-learning software developed at Rice. According to MRDC, given the current pace of this work, a prototype “sleeping cap” is scheduled to be available by the end of 2022 or early 2023.

The Raspberry Pi SWaP-C revolution: driving battlefield IoT

By David Jedynak

An industry perspective from Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions

For more than ten years, the educational, industrial, and hobbyist markets have embraced the small-form-factor Raspberry PI single-board computer (SBC) as a pre ferred low-cost, low-power tool that lowers the barrier for deploying intelligence and connectivity just about anywhere that imagination directs. The result is a ubiquitous platform, with more than 45 million units sold. Today, these tiny cards are helping to make the Internet of Things (IoT) concept a reality.

Meanwhile, Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2), the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) vision for the netcentric battlefield, scales all the way from the cloud –making all data sharable – down to the ground level where that data needs to be collected and distributed.

The JADC2 goal is for all platforms to be intelligent and connected to the network using a Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA). That directive requires cost-effective solu tions in a form factor that can operate way out at the tactical edge. Such applications often require a fully integrated rugged mission computer built with OpenVPX cards. In a lot of cases, however, a “good-enough” level of processor performance and I/O feature set is all that’s needed. For size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C)-constrained applications, a military-grade Raspberry Pi-based mission computer defines a whole new class of solution for intelligence and connectivity at the tactical edge.

Already in its 4th generation, the Raspberry Pi SBC combines surprisingly good pro cessor performance with many I/O options that enable system designers to think about networked connected processing more in terms of a “widget” that can be located just about anywhere to solve small problems. It provides defense system designers with a new tool; one not designed for a specific application, but thanks to its minimal SWaP-C burden, one appropriate for a vast number of applications. Because of its small size, affordability, and low-power consumption profile, this small SBC can drive new applications yet undreamed of.

To make that vision a reality, the Raspberry Pi device needs to be available in a militarystandard qualified environmental package able to survive in battlefield conditions. The good news is that rugged industrial versions of the SBC are available and used in innumerable applications. The next step is to bring the industrial version up to military standards so that it can be sealed, immersed, hosed down, or mounted exter nally as required. What’s more, the new generation of engineers entering the defense market is already familiar with the platform. These so-called “digital natives” have been exposed to the Raspberry Pi computing platform throughout their education – in some cases as early as elementary school – in STEM courses.

Consider a few examples of how a military-grade Raspberry Pi mission computer can be used in the field: When an older legacy interface, such as a serial port, needs to be modernized to Ethernet, the Raspberry Pi can be placed on the platform as close to the device as needed, providing an interface bridge while reducing cabling. Eventually, when that legacy system is replaced, the Raspberry Pi unit can be repurposed for another application. In another example, consider how many things in the battlefield today are not monitored or equipped with processing power. With Raspberry Pi, intelligence and network connectivity can be easily added to just about anything in the battlefield.

To help realize the vision of readily distributing and integrating MOSA embedded computing just about anywhere a system designer desires, Curtiss-Wright developed

Figure 1 | The Parvus DuraCOR Pi is the first ultra-small-form-factor rugged mission computer to support the Raspberry Pi ecosystem with support for the Hardware Attached on Top (HAT) expansion ecosystem. the Parvus DuraCOR Pi. (Figure 1.) The ultra-small-form-factor unit is based on the industrial Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 (CM4). It weighs 0.50 pounds and measures 1.20 by 2.49 by 3.34 inches (30.5 by 63.2 by 84.8 mm). With built-in wired Ethernet interface and support for WiFi and Bluetooth (both of which can be disabled), MIL-STD-38999 connectors, a mil-grade power supply, and a sealed IP67 chassis, the unit meets stringent MIL-STD/DO-160 environmental stan dards. I/O expansion is supported via a standard RPi 40-pin HAT [hardware attached on top] connector, and its flex ible expansion ring system enables addi tional module rings to be stacked on top of the unit housing. The unit is 100% compatible with the Pi Development Ecosystem and runs all software devel oped for the RPi operating environment, such as NSA STIGd Raspbian Linux, VxWorks, Windows IoT Core, and the like.

If you only knew of Raspberry Pi as a hobbyist toy platform, the introduction of true military-grade versions will alter your own vision of how SWaP-C com puting based on a ubiquitous MOSA platform can drive battlefield IoT.

David Jedynak is chief technology officer and Technical Fellow for CurtissWright Defense Solutions.

Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions https://www.curtisswrightds.com/

DEFENSE TECH WIRE

By Dan Taylor, Technology Editor

Ukraine receives air defense radars from Hensoldt Sensor company Hensoldt is sending four air defense radars to Ukraine to support its war effort against Russia, the com pany announced in a statement. The TRML-4D radars will be part of Diehl Defence’s IRIS-T SLM air defense system. One of the radars has already been delivered, and the remaining three will be delivered over the next few months, according to a statement from Hensoldt.

The TRML-4D radar uses active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar technology along with multiple digitally shaped beams. The radar is capable of detecting, tracking, and clas sifying different types of aerial targets, in particular small, fast, and low-flying and/or maneuvering cruise missiles and aircraft, as well as hovering helicopters. The company reports that the radar can track 1,500 targets at a radius of up to 250 kilometers or about 155 miles. Hensoldt currently supplies radars to German navy frigates and corvettes, as well as in airspace surveillance for approach control at airfields.

Lockheed, Honeywell boost dividends as Ukraine war continues

Major defense contractors are seeing profits surge, with two of them recently announcing increases in their dividends. Lockheed Martin announced that its board of directors had authorized a dividend boost from $2.80 to $3.00 per share for the fourth quarter of 2022.

The company makes the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), which is in high demand in Ukraine: The U.S. reportedly shipped 16 HIMARS systems to Ukraine as part of a $9 billion security-assistance package. Additionally, a new $1.1 billion security assistance package finalized in October 2022 would more than double that figure, providing Ukraine with another 18 HIMARS systems. A U.S. Marine Corps statement said that the HIMARS can fire as many as six rockets or one missile within a few seconds.

AI predictive maintenance for U.S. Army to be provided by Palantir

Palantir Technologies has won an $85.1 million contract to provide U.S. Army Materiel Command (AMC) with support for its prognostic and predictive maintenance and supply-chain optimization efforts. Under the five-year contract, AMC will use Palantir software to support logistics in contested environments, improve equipment reliability, and advance supply chain optimization, according to a Palantir statement.

Under the terms of the agreement, Palantir soft ware will deploy an AI/ML [artificial intelligence/ machine learning] capability that integrates highvolume maintenance, sensor, and supply data. This capability – which the company says uses a modular open systems architecture – will enable a highly secured environment for AMC and its mis sion partners in other services to develop, test, and deploy predictive-maintenance models aimed at improving equipment availability and manage maintenance costs.

2 | Stock illustration.

Figure 1 | A Hensoldt air defense radar is shown. Photo courtesy Hensoldt.

Figure

NEWS | TRENDS | D o D SPENDS | CONTRACTS | TECHNOLOGY UPDATES

Iron Dome interceptor missiles fired by U.S. Marine Corps in tests

The U.S. Marine Corps conducted a live-fire test of Tamir Iron Dome interceptors from a mobile launcher as part of a test of a new prototype system for Medium Range Intercept Capability (MRIC), interceptor manufacturer Rafael announced in a statement. The Marines performed three tests to determine how the interceptor responded to various interception scenarios, the state ment noted.

The company says the Tamir interceptor is designed to intercept cruise missiles, uncrewed aerial vehicles, and a number of different rockets, mortars, and precision-guided missiles. Rafael is part-manufacturer (along with Israel Aerospace Industries) of the Iron Dome system used by Israel, which has been operational since 2011. The Iron Dome system uses a type of detection and tracking radar, a battle-management and weapons-control center, and a missile-firing unit. The interceptor missile itself is equipped with electro-optic sensors.

MOSA

for future vertical lift agreement reached between

U.S. Army, Collins Aerospace

Collins Aerospace entered a cooperative research and develop ment agreement with the U.S. Army to develop best practices for developing processors for future vertical lift (FVL) platforms using a Modular Open System Approach (MOSA), the com pany announced in a statement. The agreement with the Army’s Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation & Missile Center, calls for the team to develop best practices, approaches, processes, and methods for airworthiness certification of multicore processors for the purpose of enabling faster integration of new capabilities, greater mission flexibility, and lower acquisition cost for FVL platforms.

The Collins Aerospace announcement stated that it intends to focus on shortening certification timelines and enhancing affordability for both the U.S. Army and industry. Collins Aerospace opened a “MOSA Center of Excellence” in Huntsville, Alabama, earlier in 2022 and has been involved in the Army’s FVL programs.

Cyber program from DARPA seeks to harden software security

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has launched what it calls the Hardening Development Toolchains Against Emergent Execution Engines (HARDEN) program, in which it chose teams to create practical tools that will prevent exploitation of integrated computing systems by disrupting the pat terns of exploits used by would-be cyber attackers and depriving any attackers of emergent execution engines. The DARPA HARDEN announcement details the phe nomenon colloquially described as “weird machines”; simply translated, the phrase means that a system’s own design and features can accidentally help an attacker operate the system in ways never intended, as unrelated, benign features across the system unwit tingly add up to an unexpected or emergent execution engine that is ready to run attackers’ exploits.

Open architecture ground control software tested on MQ-1C Gray Eagle

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) and the U.S. Army have conducted the first flight test of a new U.S. Army Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA)-based ground segment for the MQ-1C Gray Eagle Extended Range (GE-ER) unmanned aerial system (UAS). According to the GA-ASI statement, during the test, the new ground modernization software suite was hosted on a prototype of a Gray Eagle Miniature Mission Interface (GEMMI). The flight test was a demonstration of the Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE), a multivendor suite that com mands the automated takeoff and landing, flight modes, and sensor control of the GE-ER. The test, according to the GA-ASI statement, intended to demonstrate the technical maturity of open architecture software and its ability to control UASs while adhering to the Army’s Scalable Control Interface (SCI) system architecture.

Figure 4 | An MQ-1 unmanned vehicle is shown in flight. U.S. Army photo/ Staff Sgt. Sean Brady.

Figure 3 | An Iron Dome interceptor launch is shown. Photo by Darrell Ames/PEO Missiles and Space.

Tech for navigating GPS-denied environments

Machine learning, GPS alternatives key for navigating future jammed environments

By Dan Taylor

The U.S. and its military allies rely on GPS for navigation of high-value assets, but the technology is quite vulnerable to jamming and other interference. Teams in the militarycommunications industry are looking at solutions including machine learning (ML) and alternative navigation systems that are less susceptible to disruption.

Ask anyone involved in the high-conflict areas of Ukraine, and they will tell you just how big of a problem it is when a major military power unleashes its jamming capabili ties on GPS access over a large area.

Early reports during the war indicate that Russia was quick to use its electronic war fare (EW) technologies to disrupt GPS, which the United States and allies rely on for navigation of military assets. Because of this vulnerability to jamming, many in the industry are taking a hard look at machine learning to mitigate the problem, and also examining alternatives to GPS.

Sean O’Hara, director of machine intelligence and autonomy and a fellow at defense research company SRC (North Syracuse, New York), says that a major contributor to the challenges of operating in GPS-denied environments is understanding the tactical situation and responding accordingly.

“Solutions for reestablishing navigation and timing are highly situational, depending on the operational mission context; the local operating environment; how GPS is being denied, degraded, manipulated, or otherwise affected; and the tactical and strategic resources available to support reestablishment of position, navigation, and timing capabilities at the edge sensor/platform,” he says.

O’Hara notes that today’s autonomous and semi-autonomous systems already do a good job when it comes to leveraging multiple subsystems in numerous domains

A U.S. Marine tours a simulated forward-operating base during a 1st Radio Battalion field exercise at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho. Photo by Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Isaac Velasco.

to deal with this challenge. That level of success doesn’t mean they’ve solved the problem, however.

“This is both a blessing and a curse, as over the last several decades our adversaries have consistently and quickly weaponized advanced commercial technology,” he says. “This trend is holding today, especially with regards to robust autonomous navigation systems and low-cost loitering munitions.” (Figure 1.)

Leveraging machine intelligence

Machine intelligence (MI) plays a critical role in addressing this challenge, and innova tion in this area is rapidly increasing with new capabilities emerging sometimes in as little as a few months, O’Hara says.

“One foundational area supported by machine intelligence is in the application of deep, or high dimensional, sensing to assist with situational understanding,” he says. “This involves using deep learning approaches, often across multiple sensing domains (radio frequency, computer vision domain, and others), to assist in determining the current operational ‘state.’”

This state, he asserts, consists of the situational understanding elements that estimate where the platform or sensor is, and whether the current operational environment is challenged or unchallenged.

A second area where MI methods come in handy is to adapt and optimize the opera tional capabilities of sensors, platforms, and weapons in GPS-denied environments. This could happen locally within the platform or sensor itself if it is disconnected from communications, or it could be orchestrated by “assets at a higher level tactical or strategic echelon,” O’Hara adds.

“This approach of situational understanding and state estimation to dynamically adapt the solutions can be robust and effective,” he says. “It may be prohibitive to provide perfect/full capabilities everywhere all the time. However, it is very possible to deploy solutions that provide the level of mission capabilities that are needed, where they are needed, and when they are needed.”

New possibilities from Starlink and 5G

One interesting recent development is SpaceX’s Starlink, a constellation of satellites that provides internet access to 40 countries – including Ukraine, an area where GPS navigation is virtually impossible due to the vast amount of jammers from the ongoing war. New research as reported in the MIT Technology Review suggests that these satellites could be used to create a useful navigation system to rival GPS.

Starlink operates more than 3,000 satellites orbiting about 340 miles above the surface of the Earth, and researchers determined that by using synchronization sequences, they could exploit Starlink signals for positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT). Basically, a receiver on the ground could analyze the signals beamed down by Starlink satellites, calculate the distance to the satellite, and then pinpoint a location.

In a similar analysis, electronics company Rohde & Schwarz recently penned an abstract discussing the use of 5G broadcasting as an alternative PNT method to GPS. Author Stefan Maier notes that an extended outage of GPS could cause “multi-billion [dollar] losses for the economy” and therefore it is useful to search for backup solutions.

The abstract notes that Rohde & Schwarz is working on a prototype of an alternative PNT system using the existing terrestrial TV broadcasting infrastructure in the UHF band by: 1) improving the synchronization within and between transmitters, 2) adding special positioning reference signals, 3) adding UTC time stamps, and 4) adding the transmitter locations. (Figure 2.)

“A passive, receive-only mode device (ROM) can calculate its position and precise time without having [to] transmit hardware,” Maier writes. “The capacity of such a system is unlimited in terms of users. Since only a few percent of the 5G broadcast signal are needed for positioning at a time, the vast majority of the signal could still be used for video and audio broadcasting or other data transfer.”

Because television transmitters operate at power levels of up to 100 kW, the signal would be much harder to jam compared to low-power space-based signals like GPS, he adds.

MOSA and SOSA are helping

Until such a GPS alternative emerges, the industry must improve the sensors it has. A key challenge in GPS-denied environments is power consumption, which is a concern with any mobile system. O’Hara says there’s no one-size-fits-all solution here, as “the power required to support re-establishment of position and timing can vary greatly.”

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But there are encouraging advancements in technology, particularly when it comes to microelectronics, that could help in this area. And standards developed through the Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) – and more specifi cally hewing to Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) criteria – is creating momentum when it comes to reuse and modularity for commercial sensing and microelectronics components that lead to breakthroughs in size, weight, and power (SWaP)-constrained conditions, O’Hara says.

“The combination of DARPA’s ERI [Electronics Resurgence Initiative] pro gram portfolio and recent U.S. strategic investments targeting domestic micro electronics (for example, the CHIPS Act) are placing us on a good path toward an enhanced national security posture,” he says.

One of the best things that industry can do when it comes to improving sensor navigation in the future is to reduce single-point vulnerabilities within core systems, O’Hara says.

“Moving to distributed and collabora tive architectures that degrade together with ‘soft failure’ modalities is critical,” he says. “I think our military is on the right path in this area. I am getting a stronger sense of buy-in from the ser vices over the last several years with regards to mosaic warfare approaches –using larger numbers of smaller distrib uted and collaborative elements. Legacy approaches have used smaller numbers of large/exquisite elements that are less resilient and more easily targeted, creating challenges to their operational lethality and survivability.” MES

Figure 2 | Rohde & Schwarz’s SMW200A system, which the company says can create GNSS scenarios and emulate wireless communication signals such as 5G broadcast. (Photo courtesy Rohde & Schwarz.)

SPECIAL REPORT

DoD’s MOSA mandate drives CMOSS approach to A-PNT

By Jason DeChiaro

The U.S. Army’s Mounted Assured PNT System (MAPS) program was initiated to replace existing GPS receivers and antennas in most of the Army’s ground vehicle variants, eliminating redundancy. The program is overseen by PM-PNT at the Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, where mounted and dismounted position, navigation, and timing (PNT) technologies for the Army are developed and managed.

The first iteration of Mounted Assured PNT System (MAPS) systems, known as “MAPS GEN I,” are able to distribute PNT data directly to multiple systems on a vehicle, replacing the need for multiple GPS devices – a common situation – on a single platform. The first U.S. MAPS GEN I system was first operationally deployed by the U.S. Army in 2019.

The follow-on generation of the program, MAPS GEN II, adds additional capabilities to enable an Assured PNT (A-PNT) solution that uses multiple sensors and multiple sources to provide PNT information in environments where access to trusted GPS data is diminished or denied.

Today, most PNT solutions are stovepiped or isolated systems. For the next gen eration of MAPS technology, the U.S. Army – in an attempt to seek a better way to operate – has directed industry that it wants to move from the closed-system approach employed in MAPS GEN I and MAPS GEN II and move instead to an open architecture CMOSS [C5ISR/EW Modular Open Suite of Standards]-based design to bring the program in line with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) mandate for modular open system approach (MOSA)-based solutions. In addition to combating vendor lock, a CMOSS-based MAPS solution using industry-standard OpenVPX form factor cards, will improve the Army’s ability to respond quickly to emerging threats, no matter what they might be.

Scientists and engineers from the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (C5ISR) Center work during an exercise to assess evolving government and industry positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) technologies, along with testing the C5ISR/Electronic Warfare Modular Open Suite of Standards (CMOSS) chassis. Photo by Kaitlin Newman, U.S. Army C5ISR Center.

Tech for navigating GPS-denied environments

The move towards modular open architectures for next-gen MAPS isn’t limited to hardware: Another differentiator for the follow-on to MAPS GEN II is the emergence of the PNT Operating System (pntOS) operating environment, which brings the MOSA mandate to PNT software development. pntOS is described by the Army as “an open source, government-owned plugin architecture for building integrated PNT sensor fusion applications for all operational environments.” It uses standard message formats to ensure that all plugins written using the software will be swappable without modification. This government-owned open architecture was developed to integrate seamlessly with other open architectures.

Using pntOS, software developers can write plugins based on their own field of expertise for navigation-filter algorithms, sensor-integration strategies, integrity approaches, and network buses in isolation, without needing to understand any other part of pntOS.

This open-source approach to software for PNT applications enables developers to write custom pntOS plugins in any programming language, which means improve ments in cost, program schedules, and performance efficiencies. As an open-source, government-owned plug-in architecture for building integrated PNT sensor-fusion applications, pntOS substantially reduces the time and effort required to develop algorithms and add support for new sensors.

In addition, the Army is directing industry that the next-generation MAPS will need to support Alternative RF Navigation, a space-based commercial system that is currently being evaluated as an alternative and complementary source of PNT information on the battlefield. (Figure 1.)

The Army’s wish list for next-gen MAPS therefore combines CMOSS architecture and support for pntOS and Alternative RF Navigation. During recent AUSA conference in October 2022, the first rugged CMOSS module that delivers an Assured Position Navigation and Timing (A-PNT) solution was introduced and demoed that includes support for both Alternative RF Navigation and pntOS. The VPX3-673A module is a rugged 3U OpenVPX form factor module compatible with the U.S. Army’s CMOSS suite of standards and aligned to the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Technical Standard 1.0.

The rugged CMOSS/SOSA aligned A-PNT card ingests positioning and timing data from multiple sensors and output consistent and trusted timing and navigation information to the war fighter. It combines a low-noise chip scale atomic clock (LN-CSAC), a Xilinx MPSoC [multiprocessor system on a chip] processor, an Alternative RF Navigation receiver, and an inertial mea surement unit (IMU) on a single card. In addition, the board hosts an internal GPS module capable of both SASSM decryption and M-Code, or an external GPS receiver accessed via a front-panel connector. The board distributes A-PNT information using standard VICTORY data messages in compliance with the CMOSS Mounted Form Factor (CMFF) architecture.

The card can act as systemwide timing master by producing and distributing phase-aligned clock signals. The source is user-selectable from multiple options, including the LN-CSAC, GPS, Alternative RF Navigation, or external sources via the Ethernet backplane or coax connectors. Additionally, this module supports NTP/PTP protocol. In compli ance with the SOSA radial clock profile, the module is capable of outputting 11 radial clocks on the backplane and one radial clock on the coax connector. If more clock channels are required, multiple modules can be daisy-chained together. MES

Jason DeChiaro is a system architect at Curtiss-Wright whose responsibilities include supporting customers in architecting deployable VPX systems including CMOSS/SOSA compliant designs. Jason has more than 15 years of experience in the defense industry supporting the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, and U.S. Navy and the IC community. He received his electrical engineering degree, with distinction, from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts.

Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions https://www.curtisswrightds.com/

Figure 1 | A space-based commercial navigation system is under evaluation as a complementary source of position, navigation, and timing (PNT) for battlefield users. Stock image.

Meeting the needs of millimeter-wave 5G small cells for defense and beyond

By Alexander Ippich

Fifth-generation networks, known as 5G, offer extensive wireless services with even faster data rates to come for such uses as military and mission-critical communications, enhanced mobile broadband, and the massive Internet of Things (IoT). Most of the systems to date have been based on signals below 6 GHz. Once network coverage has been achieved at higher millimeterwave (mmWave) frequencies of 24 GHz and higher, 5G networks will support multigigabit upload and download speeds. Distributed network coverage at those higher frequencies will require many small cells with printed circuit boards (PCBs) capable of RF, microwave, mmWave, and high-speed digital (HSD) operation. Those small cells will demand PCB materials with high performance and reliability through mmWave frequencies, and with characteristics well suited to the operating environments of both indoor and outdoor 5G small cells.

Small cells in 5G networks are being designed for use at millimeter-wave (mmWave) frequencies to take advan tage of available frequency spectrum for wideband communications, including streaming video and fast data. By using mmWave spectrum and transmission bandwidths as wide as 2,000 MHz, 5G small cells are being designed for upload speeds as fast as 10 Gbit/sec and down load speeds to 20 Gbit/sec. Operating at those higher frequencies and bandwidths, small cells will be much smaller than stan dard 5G cell sites or base stations, with

far fewer simultaneous users and providing much smaller coverage areas because of the short-wavelength signals that provide coverage at mmWave frequencies. While base stations or macrocells may cover circular service areas several miles in circumference, dedicated small cells may be needed for each piece of a given 5G service area.

5G small cells will be constructed in three basic sizes for indoor and outdoor use: microcells, picocells, and nanocells. The largest of the three, microcells, may be in shoebox-sized enclosures on every street corner, mounted on lampposts to give 5G service providers as much as one mile of indoor and outdoor coverage from about 2 W (+33 dBm) maximum transmit power at mmWave frequencies. Smaller and with about 0.25 W (+24 dBm) transmit power, picocells will provide short-range coverage (about 600 feet) when mounted outdoors or indoors. The smallest of the small cells, a femtocell, is for indoor use only and typically for a single user. It transmits at about +20 dBm power for a maximum coverage range of about 30 ft.

Tech for navigating GPS-denied environments

Densely packed PCBs

As 5G expands, thousands of small cells will provide new wireless capabilities to millions of 5G users on the battlefield, on bases, and in every major metropol itan area. The small cells will be invisible to most users, mounted at reasonable heights to avoid obstacles that might block mmWave signals. Moreover, they will lack the attention-grabbing pres ence of 4G base stations, with their multiple towers and large antennas. To consistently perform the many functions required of small cells for dependable 5G wireless communications, especially within the uncharted domain of mmWave frequencies, they will contain a full share of technology within those small enclo sures, calling on densely packed printed circuit boards (PCBs) with many inte grated circuits (ICs) mounted on multi layer circuit assemblies.

Challenging conditions

What types of challenges exist for circuits in these 5G small cells? Consistency is a must for important – often mission-crit ical – usage, especially across wide oper ating temperature ranges and changing conditions such as temperature and humidity. Circuits for 5G small cell PCBs must maintain electrical consistency, for such parameters as dielectric constant (Dk) and dielectric loss or dissipation factor (Df), as well as mechanical con sistency enabling the tight dimensional requirements for multilayer PCB assem blies that pack a great deal of function ality within a small space.

Whether at the prototype stage, where innovative designs may be implemented in as many as 16 circuit layers, or in final production that might require highly inte grated circuit assemblies with as many as 40 (as claimed) circuit layers, mechanical consistency is critical for maintaining the alignments of transmission lines that impact signal amplitudes and phases as mmWave frequencies. Alignments between circuit layers are also impor tant, in the form of blind and buried viahole interconnects, as are mechanical circuit deviations due to environmental effects such as temperature, humidity, even vibration; any of these can degrade small-cell electrical performance.

In general, circuits for 5G small cells, should have low Dk (or dielectric constant) values. While those Dk values may not be totally constant with operating frequency, since circuit material Dk tends to gradually decrease with increasing frequency, they should be predictable so that a measured Dk value at frequencies below 6 GHz can be accurately projected for frequencies above 24 GHz in 5G small cells, to aid the accuracy and effectiveness of computer-aided design (CAD) software tools used in circuit modeling.

5G small cells should also exhibit low Df (or dissipation factor) values, which will rise as a function of frequency, to minimize dielectric circuit losses. Circuit materials with minimal moisture absorption, especially in outdoor cells, can minimize the dielectric losses caused by water absorption in high humidity environments. Specification of smooth conductors can also help minimize conductor losses at mmWave frequencies. The combination of low conductor and dielectric losses greatly aids hybrid mixedsignal circuits which may include radio transceivers operating at mmWave frequen cies; microprocessors; data converters running at multigigabit rates; and the wide assortment of high-frequency, high-speed components and surface-mount technology (SMT) devices employed on 5G small-cell PCBs: low-noise amplifiers (LNAs), power amplifiers (PAs), and digital attenuators. (Figure 1)

Given the need to transmit signals from such small enclosures, 5G small cells also flirt with the effects of internally generated heat, from active components such as PAs and resulting from excessive circuit losses. PCBs for 5G small cells should have thermalmanagement capabilities that can safely conduct heat away from heat-generating components and the components and circuit surrounding them and to outside the small cell enclosure. A critical material parameter, coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE), provides insight into how a circuit material changes physically as a function of temperature, in all three axes, so that it can also provide a means of evaluating dif ferent circuit materials for the durability of plated through-holes used to interconnect multiple circuit layers.

Sorting solutions

With the high device densities and hybrid natures of PCBs in 5G small cells, practical circuits must be built for stable but exceptional electrical behavior as well as out standing mechanical behavior even in outdoor operating environments. In addition to

Figure 1 | Once network coverage has been achieved at higher millimeter-wave (mmWave) frequencies of 24 GHz and higher, 5G networks will support multigigabit upload and download speeds.

performance, there is the manufacturing aspect: Favorable circuits for 5G small cells should also be process-compatible with commonly used circuit materials, such as FR-4, which may also appear within a 5G small-cell enclosure and part of the production line for 5G small-cell PCBs.

Low-loss substrates can be used, as they have high dimensional stability across tem perature and humidity; feature less loss than traditional FR-4 circuit materials at higher frequencies; and are process-compatible with FR-4 materials to help speed and sim plify the steps needed to fabricate multilayer circuit assemblies for 5G small cells.

All three substrates employ low-profile copper conductors which contribute to low loss in HSD circuits and low passive intermodulation (PIM) in antennas and other analog mmWave circuits. The substrates feature good dimensional stability with tempera ture, which minimizes physical changes with temperature for good soldering accuracy. Another boon: Extremely low moisture uptake so that even in high-humidity operating environments, increases in signal loss due to moisture absorption will be minimal, even at mmWave frequencies. For processing purposes, all three are characterized by a glass transition temperature (Tg) of +200 °C.

More specifically, I-Tera MT40 (RF/MW) laminate and prepreg materials have a typical Dk of 3.45 at 10 GHz as measured through the z-axis (thickness); When less loss is required at a lower Dk, Astra MT77 laminates and prepregs; the third, Tachyon 100G laminates and prepregs materials (Fig. 3), are well-suited for HSD circuits of 100 Gb/s and faster in 5G small cells. They have a Dk through the z-axis of 3.02 at 10 GHz which remains constant for operating temperatures from -55 °C to +125 °C and Df of 0.0021 at 10 GHz. All of these share a low rate of moisture absorption of 0.1%. (Figure 1.)

PCB assemblies within 5G small cells will be densely packed with components to maximum analog and digital function ality while delivering the consistency and reliability needed for modern 5G wire less networks for military, defense, and other mission-critical communications services. What is found in those PCB assemblies will serve as foundations for the high-speed data and mmWave sig nals moving to and from the 5G small cells, performing in all seasons and at all temperatures. How these circuit layers are built will be critical to determining the successful operation of 5G wireless net works at mmWave frequencies. MES

Ippich is Signal Integrity & Advanced Technology, Product Manager RF/Microwave, OEM Marketing Europe, Isola.

Isola • https://www.isola-group.com

Alexander

Securing military GPS and PNT systems

By Richard Jaenicke

Almost every part of our modern economy depends on the Global Positioning System, or GPS. For example, agriculture, construction, mining, rail transportation, and search and rescue all rely on the accurate position, navigation, and timing (PNT) enabled by GPS. An even broader set of industries – communications networks, banking transactions, financial markets, and power grids – rely on GPS for precise time synchronization, to such an extent that most systems would cease working without it. Alternative navigation (ALTNAV) systems can supplement GPS systems in GPS-denied environments using internal clocks and onboard sensors, and those ALTNAV systems should be protected from cyberattacks as well.

Like the bulk of so many commercial industries, U.S. military forces depend heavily on GPS. For the military, GPS enables navigation in hostile territory; precise muni tions guidance; location of casualties; and fusing of data for intelligence, surveil lance, and reconnaissance (ISR). Any gap in the availability of accurate GPS signals or equipment could disrupt aircraft, ships, munitions, land vehicles, and ground troops in military operations.

Military adversaries understand that dependence can disrupt operations through multiple forms of electronic attack, including jamming, spoofing, and hacking. The new military code (M-code) signal mitigates the first two by using a higher-gain transmitter antenna to make jamming more difficult and a more secure encryption algorithm, making spoofing almost impossible. Protection against hacking requires a different solution and should be applied at all segments. Alternative navigation (ALTNAV) systems can supplement GPS systems in GPS-denied environments using internal clocks and onboard sensors, and those ALTNAV systems should be pro tected from cyberattacks as well.

Modernization of the segments

GPS consists of three segments: space, control, and user (Figure 1). The space seg ment is a constellation of satellites that continuously broadcast precise time and location data. The control segment is a set of ground stations that control and mon itor the satellites. The user segment is the diverse array of GPS receivers used by civilians and the military in aircraft, ships, land vehicles, munitions, and handheld devices. Each of those segments is susceptible to electronic attacks, including jam ming, spoofing, and hacking. Jamming and spoofing receive the most attention and are addressed directly by the use of the new military code (M-code) signals as part of the GPS modernization programs.

Today’s GPS satellite constellation – with its oldest satellites launched in the late 1990s/early 2000s – continues to provide valuable communications services, but it needs modernized technology and capabilities to take on the challenges of the future. Artist’s rendition of a GPS III satellite courtesy National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing in coordination with multiple federal agencies.

Tech for navigating GPS-denied environments

The GPS modernization program includes updates to each segment of the system. GPS III satellites supplement and will eventually replace the constellation of GPS satellites now in orbit, starting with the first GPS III satellite launched in 2018. Some previous versions of GPS satellites (GPS IIR-M and IIF) also are capable of transmitting the M-code signal, just not at the higher power level of GPS III. The Next Generation Operational Control System (OCX) will replace the current ground control system, known as the Operational Control Segment (OCS). OCX includes modern cybersecurity protections and the ability to control the two latest generations of GPS satellites now in orbit, including enabling M-code and some new civilian signals. The Military GPS User Equipment (MGUE) program updates the user segment with receivers capable of receiving and decoding the M-code signal. A variety of receivers designed for different plat forms will be built from a handful of M-code cards, each of which is designed for either ground use or aviation and maritime use. Each of those cards is based on an M-code ASIC [applicationspecific integrated circuit] developed by one of three suppliers.

Jamming and spoofing

Because a GPS receiver relies on sig nals broadcast from satellites in medium earth orbit, signal strength at the receiver is low and vulnerable to disruptions from interference or jamming. The low signal strength is primarily a function of the distance, because the receive signal strength follows the inverse square law with respect to distance from the sat ellite. The resulting minimum power received from the Coarse Acquisition (C/A) code is only about 160 dBW (10-16 W). The P code used by the U.S. military is only about -163 dBW, which is half the power of the C/A code.

GPS jamming can be mitigated at the receiver using digital beamforming, which is deployed on many U.S. military aircraft. Beamforming nulls the jamming signal, while reception lobes are locked onto good satellite signals. Modern mili tary aircraft are able to null multiple GPS jamming signals at the same time.

The other solution is to increase the

power from the satellite, which

is precisely what the M-code transmitters do on the new GPS III satellites. M-code will be broadcast from a high-gain directional antenna in addition to a wide-angle antenna covering the entire Earth. The directional antenna can be aimed at a specific region to provide a 20 dB (100-time) increase in local signal strength.

Low signal strength also leaves the receiver susceptible to spoofing, which occurs when someone uses a radio transmission to send a counterfeit GPS signal that over powers a GPS satellite signal. GPS spoofing can direct aircraft, ships, or ground forces off-course and into danger. The best solution to spoofing is encryption: Current military GPS receivers use a selective availability anti-spoofing module (SAASM) to decrypt the P(Y)-code. M-Code upgrades that encryption using the modernized NAVSTAR security algorithm (MNSA), making M-code-enabled receivers virtually impervious to spoofing. Civilian GPS receivers can only access the unen crypted signal, so those are susceptible to spoofing, but that can be partially solved by spoofing-detection software. Although that does not enable access to a valid GPS signal, it does prevent taking action based on erroneous signals. Spoofing detection effectively reduces a spoofing attack to a denial of service (DoS) attack.

Alternative PNT

Another solution for jammed or spoofed GPS is to use alternative sources of PNT. Alternative PNT generally starts with an atomic clock for relative time and an inertial navigation system (INS), which calculates the location, orientation, and velocity of a moving object using accel erometers and gyroscopes. An INS is an autonomous, self-contained unit after initialization, so it is highly resistant to any type of jamming. However, an INS is susceptible to small errors in measuring the acceleration and orientation that can accumulate over time and become sig nificant. Therefore, the vehicle position needs to be corrected periodically with help from a different navigation system.

A variety of sensors and technologies can provide complementary navigation to INS (Figure 2). Visual navigation (VisNav) compares imagery from onboard sen sors to a database of terrain features or landmarks to calculate vehicle posi tion. Sensors can include EO/IR, vision, Doppler radar, sonar, and lidar; each can be used individually or combined by sensor fusion technology. Automated celestial navigation (CelNav) images the sky and analyzes the orientation of stars and satellites. Signals of opportu nity (SoOP) measure a variety of local radio-frequency signals (e.g., cellular networks and broadcast TV) and calcu late the relative distance between an aircraft and the signals’ origin. Magnetic anomaly navigation (MagNav) measures variations in the Earth’s magnetic field as an aircraft travels over the earth and compared with geomagnetic reference maps to determine the aircraft’s location. Although some of those sensors can be temprorarily blinded by electromagnetic

Figure 1 | The three segments of GPS – space, control, and user – are illustrated. Source: GAO report.

Figure 2 | Different sets of alternative navigation technologies can be used based on the platform and the mission. Source: GAO report.

Tech for navigating GPS-denied

attack, such complementary navigations are relatively resilient yet remain suscep tible to hacking.

Hacking and security

Hacking is a grave concern for a groundcontrol station, as a hacker could gain control of one or more satellites. The hacker could not only cause denial of service or transmission of false information but could also change the orbit or cause physical damage to the satellite. The OSX next-generation operational control segment specifically includes a complex set of cybersecurity requirements.

Like any other computer system, a GPS receiver is also susceptible to hacking. A hacked GPS receiver could be disabled at a particularly inopportune time or provide erroneous position and navi gation information similar to spoofing. Although the GPS modernization pro gram does not directly address hacking receivers, all military GPS receivers are designed with some amount of cyber security. It is possible to go further and make a receiver virtually unhackable through a combination of hardware and software security architectures.

Security architecture

Security depends on having a high assur ance of no vulnerabilities and authenti cation to ensure the correct code is loaded. Each portion of the code should be designed, tested, and verified to be free from vulnerabilities, starting with any metal-masked boot ROM code, which cannot be updated easily if a vul nerability is discovered later. The highest security assurance is demonstrated through security certifications and even formal proof of correctness.

An authenticated platform starts with a hardware root of trust (RoT) and then extends a chain of trust through the software layers, each authenticating the next before loading. The main choices for a hardware RoT include a separate trusted platform module (TPM) chip, on-chip boot ROM code, and on-chip security based on a physically unclon able function (PUF). For example, a Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC [multi processor system on a chip] has a con figuration security unit (CSU) that boots from on-chip, metal-masked ROM and enforces the root of trust. It validates the

integrity of a user public key read from external memory by calculating a checksum using the SHA-3/384 engine and then compares it to an RSA key hash stored in an eFUSE device. If those match, the CSU loads the first-stage boot loader (FSBL) and authenticates the FSBL. The FSBL authenticates and loads the full boot loader, which authenticates and loads the operating system (OS).

Once a trusted hardware platform is established, the next step is the design of the software architecture. The most accepted path to building a trusted software envi ronment for high-assurance applications like PNT is a Multiple Independent Levels of Security (MILS) operating environment implemented to high robustness. High robust ness means resilience to extremely sophisticated and well-funded threats, such as attacks from nation-states and national laboratories.

The MILS system divides the software architecture into three layers: the separation kernel, middleware, and applications. Each layer enforces a separate portion of the security policy set, with the separation kernel the only layer executing in privileged mode. The separation kernel divides memory into partitions using a hardware-based memory management unit (MMU) and allows only carefully controlled communications between non-kernel partitions. Higher-level operating system services, such as net working stacks, file systems, virtualization, and most device drivers, execute in a parti tion instead of in the kernel in privileged mode (Figure 3). This enables the separation kernel to focus on providing only the four foundational-security policies required to support higher-security functionality in the middleware and applications running in user mode. Those fundamental security policies are data isolation, control of information flow, resource sanitization, and fault isolation. The narrow focus on security minimizes the code size of the separation kernel, making it easier to evaluate. It is even possible to use formal methods of mathematics to prove the correctness of the kernel.

With a secure separation kernel as the foundation of a MILS architecture, applications can enforce their own security policies, enabling application-specific security policies. Each layer and application can be evaluated separately without impact to the evalu ation of the other layers and applications, making the overall system easier to imple ment, certify, maintain, and reconfigure.

Alternative PNT solutions can have even more demanding security requirements than a GPS receiver. Because the system may need to combine information from classified and unclassified sources, the alternative PNT solution may need to span all security enclaves on the platform.

Example of secure deployment

Operating systems from Green Hills Software have been used in each of the three GPS segments: space, control, and user. The latest GPS design-in is with Raytheon

Intelligence & Space (RI&S) for its offering of the Military Global Positioning System User Equipment (MGUE) Increment (Inc.) 2 miniature serial interface (MSI) with next-generation ASIC.

RI&S is developing one MSI card for avia tion and maritime systems and another MSI card for ground-based systems, and INTEGRITY-178 tuMP will be used in both solutions running on the Arm processor-based ASIC. RI&S selected the INTEGRITY-178 tuMP RTOS based on previous use and for its ability to simul taneously meet both safety and secu rity requirements. Those requirements included the highest DO-178C design assurance level (DAL A) and the NSAdefined separation kernel protection pro file (SKPP) for “high robustness” security.

The MGUE Inc. 2 MSI program is devel oping a smaller M-Code ASIC and receiver card that consumes less power while increasing functionality, security, and performance. The smaller card will enable use in handheld and dismounted applications as well as mounted, mari time, and aviation platforms. The GAO [U.S. Government Accountability Office] estimates that approximately 700 dif ferent types of weapon systems will ultimately require M-Code cards and M-Code-capable receivers, including ships, aircraft, ground vehicles, muni tions, and handheld devices. MES

Richard Jaenicke is director of marketing for safety and securitycritical products at Green Hills Software. Prior to Green Hills, he served as director of strategic marketing and alliances at Mercury Systems, and held marketing and technology positions at XCube, EMC, and AMD. Rich earned an MS in computer systems engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a BA in computer science from Dartmouth College. Readers may email him at richj@ghs.com.

Green Hills Software https://www.ghs.com/

Figure 3 | MILS architecture with the separation kernel running in kernel mode and enforcing separation of user space partitions.

SDRs for M-code satellite military communications

By Brandon Malatest and Kaue Morcelles

It is no surprise that GPS/GNSS [Global Positioning System/ Global Navigation Satellite System] is remarkably important in modern society, with applications ranging from mobile phones to missile guidance systems. Particularly in the military, these signals can often dictate the difference between life and death. Therefore, modernization of GPS equipment and techniques has been a natural process following years of technological advancements in RF technology. One of the main achievements in this field was the development of M-codes, which provide a more reliable, secure, and flexible GPS source for military receivers. M-codes can improve GPS applications in the military – let’s look at the role software-defined radios (SDRs) play in this industry.

Communication and navigation are two of the main pillars in any military endeavor. They provide the spatial and situation awareness necessary to make the best decisions in harsh envi ronments. Therefore, if the RF mili tary devices malfunction, the whole mission can fail. In this context, GPS/ GNSS [Global Positioning System/ Global Navigation Satellite System] satellites play a major role in military technology, being the main approach

for reliable and precise navigation across the globe, with applications ranging from drones and UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) to missile guidance systems. Naturally, developments in GPS/GNSS technology must keep up with the evolution of military equipment, resulting in the need for robust, flexible, and precise systems.

The following discussion breaks down the main concepts of GPS M-code, which is a crucial technique to improve the robustness, security, and overall performance of GPS receivers in military applications. Furthermore, we look at how new technological developments have improved the implementation of M-Code in military equipment, focusing on the role of software-defined radios (SDRs) in these receivers. Finally, the flexibility and reconfigurability of SDRs is discussed in reference to how they can aid in the development of secure and jam-resistant GPS receivers in difficult environments.

Tech for navigating GPS-denied environments

Basic history of GPS/GNSS

The first generation of GPS satellites, a group of 11 satellites referred to as Block I, launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California between 1978 and 1985. After this major milestone, Block II satellites started to be deployed during the late 1990s to replace the older gen eration with more advanced features. One of the most important improve ments was introduced by the Block IIR-M, launched in 2005, which implemented a novel antenna system that significantly increased both L1 and L2 band power, while also broadcasting the recently developed M-code.

The latest development in GPS satellites came with the Block III generation, with important updates in terms of M-code transmission. For instance, the Block IIIC satellites will not be restricted to only wide-angle M-code transmission, which is widely applied in the Block IIR-M group: they will also integrate a highgain antenna for directional spot beam transmission, with 100 times more power capability than the conventional wideangle approach, significantly alleviating the RF requirements for GPS receivers.

GPS is not only crucial for military mis sions and defense, but it is also an inte gral part of our daily lives, being critical to positioning and navigation systems, proper timing, financial transactions, air-traffic control and monitoring, and location functions for cellphones. As a result, it requires constant moderniza tion to keep up with new technologies. The basic configuration of GPS satel lite systems is already well established

(Figure 1), with nominal orbits of 20,000 km (12,427 miles) around the globe, with three carriers L1 (1575.42 MHz), L2 (1227.60 MHz), and L5 (1176.42 MHz). Total earth coverage for a full 24 hours can only be ensured with a minimum of 24 GPS satellites, with the current system being composed of 31 satellites. Modernization is necessary to meet the rapidly growing consumer market and satisfy the military demand for accuracy and robustness.

M-code and its operational benefits

The M-code is a type of military signal applied in the L1 (1575.42 MHz) and L2 (1227.60 MHz) bands that is designed to increase security of GPS signals and improve the antijamming capabilities of military receivers. Different from the encrypted/precision P(Y) code, which requires the previous acquisition of the C/A or civilian code, M-code can be received autonomously by the RF device. The Modernized Navstar Security Algorithm (MNSA) is the main encryption method applied in M-codes, which ensures the system is secure while providing user-friendly key management. Figure 2 shows the power spectral-density plots for L1 C/A, P(Y), and M codes.

M-codes are excellent for antijamming techniques. For instance, they can be delivered to specific locations through spot beam transmissions from Block III sat ellites. The high-gain directional antennas in Block III satellites enable focusing the power into a single region on Earth, increasing significantly the transmitted power and reducing the receiver’s susceptibility to jamming. Furthermore, M-code signals use BOC [binary offset carrier] modulation, which gives its two-lobe signature seen in Figure 2. This modulation scheme enables the separation between M-code and the civilian signals, such as C/A or L1C/L2C. Thus, it is possible to jam the less restricted signals without degrading the M-code GPS from the militaries, allowing the so-called Blue Force Electronic Attacks (BFEAs), or interference sources in navi gation warfare.

Besides antijamming capabilities, the highly secure MNSA encryption ensures that the receiver can detect and reject false signals, increasing the antispoofing capabilities of the device. This situation arises because it is nearly impossible for adversaries to read the highly encrypted M-code signals and transmit deceptive signals to lure the receiver, almost eliminating the possibility of spoofing.

Modernizing GPS systems is important for both the military and civilians; however, the introduction of M-code in GPS technology also brings several challenges in the design and operation of military receivers. First, the complex autocorrelation function of the

Figure 2 | The power spectral-density plot L1 on Block IIR-M is depicted.

Figure 1 | Shown: Artist’s rendering of a GPS constellation.

BOC modulated signal, with multiple lobes, makes the acquisition and tracking pro cess much more difficult, especially for robust reception. Moreover, M-code requires a higher-bandwidth than conventional GPS signals, so receivers with very high-sample rates are crucial, which consequently increases the total cost and power consumption. The MNSA encryption/decryption process is also very computation-heavy.

SDRs for satellite communications

The development of M-code receivers is still in its early years, where the efforts are being focused on the so-called M-code cards, which can be integrated into dedicated RF receivers to be used in military vehicles, such as aircraft and ships, and weapon systems in general. The combination of these cards and RF receivers are expected to be the main building blocks of M-code GPS systems in the future. In this context, SDRs will play a major role in the reception and demodulation of these signals, being used to perform the BOC demodulation on-board and send the processed data to the MSNA decryption algorithm in a host computer or a M-code Card.

SDRs are basically RF transceivers com posed of a radio front end (RFE) and a digital back end, which typically con sists of an FPGA [field-programmable gate array]. The RFE is responsible for all receive and transmit functionalities over a wide tuning range. The highest bandwidth SDRs available can reach up to 3 GHz of instantaneous bandwidth over multiple channels with independent analog-to-digital converters and digitalto-analog converters (ADCs/DACs). The digital back end, on the other hand, per forms all the necessary on-board digital signal processing functions, including modulation/demodulation, up/downconverting, Ethernet networking, and serial JESD204B communication with the RFE. In the GPS/GNSS context, the use of SDRs stems from their design flex ibility, especially in terms of size, weight, and power (SWaP), as the FPGA can be completely reprogrammed online and repurposed without any hardware modi fication. Figure 3 shows the basic struc ture of an SDR used in M-code reception.

Figure 3 | SDR receiver architecture for M-Code is shown.

SDRs provide several advantages for M-code receivers when compared to conventional RF technology. High-end SDRs, for instance, implement receivers with high sample rate ADCs, enabling the high-instantaneous bandwidth required in M-code. Furthermore, the FPGAbased back end can implement several DSP functions required in these systems, including filtering, ACF [autocorrelation function], detection of false signals, and BOC signal demodulation. SDRs can implement frequency-hopping algo rithms, which can improve even more the antijamming capabilities of M-code receivers, which is extremely desirable in modern warfare. Multiple-input/multipleoutput (MIMO) SDRs can implement sev eral channels simultaneously in satellite communications, which is particularly relevant for controlled reception pattern antennas (CRPAs) and BFEA antennas. Finally, the high degree of flexibility and reconfigurability of the digital backend enables real-time adaptation of the SDR, which is important in the battlefield and under unpredictable conditions. This flexibility also enables off-the-shelf SDRs to meet different SWaP requirements for several military applications, from tactical manpack radios to navigation systems in large battleships.

Modernizing receivers

GPS/GNSS systems are crucial for the suc cess of military missions, aboard drones/ unmanned vehicles, aircraft, ships, land vehicles, and missile-guidance systems. With the constant evolution of military electronics, GPS systems must keep up with the technological advancements to provide precise, robust, and flexible operation. M-code is one of the most advanced techniques in this field, a novel code that improves antijamming, anti spoofing, security, and flexibility by means of MNSA encryption, BOC modula tion, and compatibility with beam-spotfocused transmission. In this context, SDRs are extremely important for the development of M-code-compatible GPS receivers, enabling advantages including high-instantaneous band width, on-board BOC demodulation, frequency-hopping capabilities, realtime reconfigurability, and MIMO opera tion for BFEA antennas. MES

Brandon Malatest graduated from the Honours Physics program at the University of Waterloo (Ontario); after graduating, he became a research analyst at one of the largest market research firms in Canada. He is now one of the co-founders and COO of Per Vices in Toronto, which develops high-performance software-defined radio (SDR) platforms that are designed to meet and exceed requirements across multiple markets.

Readers may reach the author at Brandon.m@pervices.com.

Kaue Morcelles is a Per Vices electrical engineer, who works on projects with emphasis on electronic design and instrumentation. Learning and writing about cutting-edge technologies is one of his passions.

Per Vices Corporation • www.pervices.com

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MIL TECH TRENDS

MOSA power supplies, custom components, engineering talent

By John McHale, Editorial Director

John Sturm

Power is a key consideration for modern open architecture initiatives such as the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Technical Standard, says John Sturm, Vice President of Business Development for the Aerospace & Defense business unit of Vicor, when I interviewed him just before Thanksgiving. We also discussed where custom power supplies fit into defense world and talked about how commercial AI and big data applications are driving innovation and cost reductions in defense power component manufacturing, recruiting engineering talent into the defense market, and what will be a disruptor in military power supplies in the future. Edited excerpts follow.

MIL-EMBEDDED: Please provide a brief description of your responsibility within Vicor and your group’s role within the company.

STURM: I am the global vice president for the Aerospace & Defense business unit of Vicor. I’m also president of the Vicor Power Systems division.

About a year ago Vicor segmented into four distinct business units, Aerospace & Defense being one of them. My team’s roles and responsibilities are understanding the market, defining product needs, conducting business development, and providing customer and technical support for all aerospace, defense, and new space applica tions globally.

MIL-EMBEDDED: What are the latest design trends/requirements for power supplies in military systems? In other words, what are your military customers looking for?

STURM: From the Vicor perspective, it comes down to two primary topics, the first being standardization and second the AC-to-DC component. For decades Vicor has been a provider of not just power components but also custom power systems and

solutions for military applications. Our Vicor Power Systems division, a fully owned subsidiary of Vicor, focuses on these specific power designs. However, these custom solutions or systems are not only time-consuming but also expensive to develop and qualify for something that could be a one-off solu tion. So, there is big push [in the defense community] to standardize solutions to allow reuse and cut development time and costs. That’s where standardiza tion comes into play. [The Department of Defense (DoD)] have decreased their appetite for specific one-off designs and are pushing for things to be built on more common platforms that will reduce their cost and time to market.

Vice President of Business Development for the Aerospace & Defense business unit of Vicor

We’ve been producing DC products since the company was founded in 1981. More recently, we’ve been asked to pro duce modular AC solutions and take advance of our proprietary packaging and switching topology. [However,] with analog engineers aging out in the industry and in the work force, there is an immediate need for high-perfor mance AC component solutions.

These two trends – standardization and AC products – are the hottest items my entire team spends their time focused on.

MIL-EMBEDDED: Future requirements will cover those trends?

STURM: Yes, and they will really come into play with each other from an interoperability standpoint.

MIL-EMBEDDED: Speaking of interoperability, I see that Vicor is a member of the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Consortium. How do power supplies factor into the SOSA Technical Standard?

STURM: SOSA is a strategy that takes advantage of standardization. It outlines a standard form factor for C5ISR [com mand, control, communications, com puters, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] systems as a whole. They all require power to operate; by following a specific form factor, the power supply produces specific voltage rails that designers need in the sensor application. What they are trying to do is provide common power requirements in a standard form factor so they can pro vide plug-and-play options that fit into a standard chassis.

MIL-EMBEDDED: SOSA is an example of a Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA), a strategy mandated by the DoD in 2019. Are you seeing more requirements related to MOSA and open architectures, not just SOSA?

STURM: Yes, we are seeing more requirements, but that entire landscape is still evolving. SOSA, as it relates to power, mandates the power rails that are used in the application, so it inherently

provides a level of standardization. MOSA takes an additional step from a system standpoint to assure compatibility and interoperability in hardware and software development across platforms and vehicles. What started as method to standard size for communications, computing, and ISR applications is now being looked at to enable standard chassis and power requirements across all military systems.

There is nothing we have as human beings that is not powered, so power is very important. What open standards help to do is take the afterthought of power away. They don’t place it at the forefront, but make it a given so people don’t have to think about how they’re going to power a system. It’s already there.

MIL-EMBEDDED: For years power-component designers have said that no matter the application, defense programs always made power an afterthought in the design, that it was not something considered from the ground up in the design. Are open architectures helping to change that practice?

STURM: We used to call it the tailpipe syndrome. When starting a design, everybody looked at what they were going to do from an ASIC [application-specific IC] or pro cessor standpoint or from what the sensor’s prime function would be. Not until the end of the design process did they realize they have to power it. There is nothing we have as human beings that is not powered, so power is very important. What open standards help to do is take the afterthought of power away. They don’t place it at the forefront, but make it a given so people don’t have to think about how they’re going to power a system. It’s already there.

Even though we’ve always had standards – VITA 46, VITA 62, etc. – the evolution never stops because engineers will always say ‘if I had this, I could do this.’ So, as much as the government pushes everyone to standardize, to reduce the negative aspects of going custom there still needs to be a place for something a little different. This is where we can help – because we’re modular and scalable – we offer derivatives that can plug and play into the same form factor or footprint that can specialize it, but not necessarily make it custom. This modular approach can really be a competitive advan tage to the customer to ensure long-term power supply for a system.

MIL-EMBEDDED: Do increased MOSA strategies mean less demand for custom solutions as opposed to COTS [commercial off-the-shelf] VPX power supplies, for example?

STURM: MOSA is leading toward a more COTS approach, but there will be always be the need to customize systems. Vicor can really offer the best of both worlds. We can make custom power supplies that are half-moon-shaped, that are octagon-shaped, etc., because the customer only has so much space left for you to fit the power supply. Now we have these chassis systems that have a standard chassis-size form factor like 3U or 6U and have standard power rails specified, so they know they will get certain voltages at certain current levels. It becomes a pluggable form factor for power sup plies, cards, sensors, and single-board computers. However, if a system needs a little more power, we could modify the power card and it would still plug into the standard chassis. That’s an important benefit.

MIL-EMBEDDED: VPX has surpassed VME in new designs for sure, but do you still see much demand for VME or CompactPCI power supplies in the military?

STURM: VME and CompactPCI demand has really fallen off. VPX is still strong and growing all the time. We not only support systems based on VITA 46 and VITA 62 standards, but also in many cases customers need something a little different. Our scalable components enable them to get something a little different that can still fit within the standard form factor.

MIL-EMBEDDED: What are the hottest defense application areas for your power supplies? Radar/EW? Unmanned systems? Space? Avionics? C4ISR? Some other area?

STURM: Those you outlined are the hottest applications for Vicor. When you look at our power density – which not only provides higher power but also [enables] very small form factors – and our pulse-current capability, it means our products are an excellent fit in all those applications. A term that is way overused, but equates well, is SWaP [size, weight, and power]: That’s where our products provide the most value. Our power density means we can provide the highest current available or the most power in the smallest package. This enables high-energy applications like lasers. Also, because of the high current capability and pulse-load capability the advancements made in radar are unbelievable and enabled by these products.

MIL-EMBEDDED: Vicor plays in other, higher-volume markets than defense, such as commercial AI [artificial intelligence]. Do the volumes of these markets help drive component costs down for your military customers? And does innovation in a commercial market impact the defense market and vice versa?

STURM: I’ll answer the questions in reverse and tie them together. In years past, as a company research and devel opment efforts on the defense side really drove technology development and product innovation. That’s where the most demanding needs were coming from, where the aerospace and defense primes were driving their tech nology and equipment. However, in more recent years the products and packaging we developed specifically have come from data center and AI applications. They’ve really raised the performance bar and my team specifi cally has been able to take advantage of the products we developed for those other core platforms.

Cost is absolutely a concern for us. As a U.S. manufacturer, we have made and continue to make significant invest ments in vertical integration, high-speed, high-volume capability to minimize component cost and manufacturing expense. To that end we expanded our

As we develop smaller power modules, we can produce more modules on a single panel and reduce the cost per component accordingly. At the same time, the smaller modules have higher power density, so we achieve both lower cost and higher performance.

manufacturing floor space this year by 45% to accommodate higher demand. That’s been a necessity on the com mercial side, specifically in AI and highperformance computing (HPC) data center markets. This has translated over to the aerospace and defense side, enabling us to manufacture those com ponents much less expensively through shared cost and more efficient factory utilization.

Our manufacturing approach is analo gous to how semiconductor compa nies produce chips on a wafer, which we refer to as a panel. As we develop smaller power modules, we can produce more modules on a single panel and reduce the cost per component accord ingly. At the same time, the smaller modules have higher power density, so we achieve both lower cost and higher performance.

Then there is the vertical integration play. Years ago, Vicor was very verti cally integrated, but advancements that came about in other technologies like in the field-effect transistors (FET) market, made it difficult to remain com petitive. Sourcing die and doing wiring, bonding, and packaging in-house was a huge expense. It was difficult to keep up with the large suppliers in that market

space. But today we are again investing more in vertical integration to not only control where our products are made but also to control how long it takes to make them. Vertical integration enables us to produce the high volumes we need but more importantly, getting to zero-defect levels. This is necessary to help us better serve high-volume markets like automotive. Operations that were once outsourced will be internal to Vicor in upcoming years because we’re not certain we can achieve the quality levels we demand through outside suppliers.

MIL-EMBEDDED: Trade shows have returned in full and I’ve been to quite a few myself and I still see a trend I saw before the pandemic – more gray-haired folks than not. Does the military electronics industry have a recruitment challenge on its hands in terms of hiring young engineers? How does Vicor recruit engineering talent to its military business?

STURM: This hits home to me because I’m a gray-haired gentleman. We are trying to do what we can to mitigate that. It is hard to compete against companies that are in trendy markets with trendy products and provide lots of lifestyle benefits to young individuals coming out of college. We’re trying to hire interns to work at Vicor while still in college and recruit new graduates to show and introduce them to what we enable around the world based on our technology. I don’t think many young graduates come out of school and look at our industry and say ‘wow it’s really innovative, and I should go there.’ But disruptive innovation is what Vicor is all about. We see that in our power products, and we try to demonstrate that to young candidates and interns so that when they get out of school, they don’t just look to a data center or processor or ASIC company, but see that Vicor could also be a good fit and career opportunity.

MIL-EMBEDDED: Speaking of disruption: Looking forward, what disruptive technology/innovation will be a game-changer in military power electronics?

STURM: The things that I see as the biggest game-changers are high-voltagerelated, especially in our market. Right now we’re tied to standards MIL-STD 1275 and MIL-STD 704, which dictates the bus voltage available for the systems, architects, and electronics. Higher voltages are where they are going to get a better efficiency and reduction in I2R [I2R is the power lost that is caused as current moves through wires or cables of a known resistance] losses especially as vehicles – personal and transit – continue along on electrification and hybrid paths. Those benefits allow end users to take advantage of better battery technology, reductions in system weight, and increases in performance and capability by allowing them to take advantage of more state-of-the-art computing devices and systems. That’s where I see our industry moving toward and benefiting from. We have to start thinking about deviating from

the historic specs that have been a part of our lives for so many decades, to see what we can do differently to benefit us moving forward.

John Sturm joined Vicor in 1997. He has over 33 years of experience in electrical design engineering, engineering management, business development, sales, and sales management. In his current role he is focused on leading the company’s business in the aerospace and defense market while developing key partnerships with prime contractors in the industry. Prior to Vicor he was with TDK Corp. of America and Grayhill Inc. John holds a B.S. in electrical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology and an MBA. in marketing and finance from the Lake Forest (Illinois) Graduate School of Management.

Vicor https://www.vicorpower.com/

NAVIGATE ... THROUGH ALL PARTS OF THE DESIGN PROCESS

TECHNOLOGY, TRENDS, AND PRODUCTS DRIVING THE DESIGN PROCESS

Military Embedded Systems focuses on embedded electronics – hardware and software – for military applications through technical coverage of all parts of the design process. The website, Resource Guide, e-mags, newsletters, podcasts, webcasts, and print editions provide insight on embedded tools and strategies including technology insertion, obsolescence management, standards adoption, and many other military-specific technical subjects.

Coverage areas include the latest innovative products, technology, and market trends driving military embedded applications such as radar, electronic warfare, unmanned systems, cybersecurity, AI and machine learning, avionics, and more. Each issue is full of the information readers need to stay connected to the pulse of embedded technology in the military and aerospace industries.

FACE in military avionics systems: Now let’s integrate it

By Arun Subbarao

It’s hard to escape the headlines around the Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA), open standards, and individual initiatives such as those from The Open Group FACE Consortium, the creators of the Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) Technical Standard. In 2004, the Open Systems Task Force published a Program Manager Guide titled “A Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) to Acquisition.” Since then, the industry has seen a progression in policy guidance that raised the profile of MOSA and its applicability within military systems to enable success on the battlefield while lowering acquisition costs and promoting innovation.

The MOSA [Modular Open Systems Approach] strategy made its way into the National Defense Authorization Act language that was first signed into law for fiscal year 2017. In turn, this has flowed into requirements at the pro gram manager level under the nowfamous Tri-Services Memo: “MOSA for

our Weapon Systems is a Warfighting Imperative,” issued by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) in 2019.

The FACE [Future Airborne Capability Environment] Technical Standard – as one of the named open standards endorsed by U.S. policy – was recently described by U.S. Army Brigadier General Rob Barrie as “integral to MOSA success by enabling modularity and promoting software reuse.” Programs such as the U.S. Army’s Future Vertical Lift call out the FACE standard as a requirement.

Image courtesy Collins Aerospace.

Open standards for embedded systems: FACE, SOSA, CMOSS, VPX, and more

In today’s digitized avionics, most of the functional capability is implemented in software. Anywhere from 70% to 90% of that functionality depends on the selected equipment and how exten sively it relies only on displays for the human-machine interface. The reality is that software development is hard; testing and certifying the safety of that software is hard. The need for greater functionality and adaptation of that software to new situations is constant. The reality is that the old way of getting that software into aircraft fleets – which traditionally took years if not decades –now needs to be completed in weeks or days, sometimes hours.

By codifying a modular architecture, standard interfaces, data models, and conformance criteria into a common operating environment and reusable components, there now exists the means

to share capabilities not only across platforms but also across the military services and avionics vendors.

The business benefits: Customers need not redo the development of a capability just to place it on a different aircraft. Components from different programs can be reused, with new components obtained from a wider variety of suppliers. This approach increases competition and the delivery of innovative solutions.

Modularity and interchangeability: the vision of FACE In short, this standardization of approaches for using open standards within military avi onics systems promises to lower implementation costs, accelerate development, ensure robust architecture and consistently high-quality software implementation, and maxi mize opportunities for reuse. The FACE standard embraces these ideals by providing a modular reference architecture based on segments that can be integrated to meet final system requirements. (Figure 1.)

The content of each of those segments can and will vary depending on the preference of the system architect and the demands of the system under development. Despite those variations, modularity is ensured because the FACE standard defines the logical interfaces between the segments.

Each segment consists of one or more components. Each of those components must be shown to be fully conformant to the FACE standard applicable to the segment to which it contributes.

A FACE conformance test suite is used for that purpose, with a certification of confor mance awarded following successful reviews by a FACE verification and certification

Figure 1 | FACE architectural segments are detailed.

authorities. That successful review is then recorded on the FACE registry with the FACE library administrator.

Any component that has been certi fied in this way is known as a “Unit of Conformance” (UoC).

FACE operating system segment

The foundational system services reside in the FACE operating system segment (OSS). These services are provided by OSS UoCs and include the control of access to the computing platform, sup port for the execution of all FACE UoCs, and the hosting of operating systems interfaces. (Figure 2.)

The OSS is where the foundational ele ment of FACE conformant systems is laid out. The platform software that resides directly on hardware runs here. The ben efit of writing this code using FACE APIs is that it becomes far easier to migrate this code between different systems and different hardware. When the FACE standard was being defined, the consor tium chose to harness existing standards such as POSIX and ARINC, both of which have withstood the test of time.

From a security perspective, the use of built-in CPU virtualization features to isolate hardware security functions and separate application runtime services from hardware control interfaces goes a long way toward assuring system robust ness. Such design techniques eliminate commonly exploited threat vectors that result in security policy bypass, privi lege escalation and loss of CPU control altogether.

The ability for software partitions to be fortified and controlled with greater fidelity at the hardware level aligns perfectly with FACE ideals. Figure 3 introduces the notion of a hardware partitioning segment fulfilled by a hypervisor to the FACE reference archi tecture. The depiction shows a hyper visor isolating two sets of software on two different CPU cores, with each set configured with FACE conformant com ponents. Each set of software is granted greater partitioning properties over a single OS-hosted design in which the

Figure 2 | Shown: Operating system segment with FACE.

Figure 3 | Example of FACE configuration with CPU virtualization-assisted hardware partitioning segment.

Figure 4 | Shown: the Collins Aerospace Tactical Combat Training System (TCTS) Increment II aircraft.

SOSA Technical Standard 1.0: Impact on

device drivers and internal service are separated.

Conformance: An example The fact that the FACE conformance certification process is conducted using an independent assessment is the best way to assure customers that a product conforms to the requirements found within the FACE Technical Standard. The answer to preventing the “what could go wrong” using the FACE standard comes down to assuring 100% conformance to its requirements. Otherwise, the poten tial strongly exists for reuse to be denied and integration costs to rise because an interface mismatch can occur.

Collins Aerospace is committed to FACE conformance and earned the industry’s first FACE conformance certification in 2016. The company has found that these certificates provide an outstanding mar keting vehicle to show proof that it is an open system software provider that adheres to MOSA.

The Tactical Combat Training System (TCTS) Increment II program (Figure 4) is one important example of using open standards to provide multidomain live, virtual and constructive (LVC) training capabilities to modern warfighters. The underlying system – called the Joint Secure ACMI System (JSAS) – uses an open systems architecture leveraging FACE and other industry interface stan dards to enable interfacing with a variety of monitoring and debriefing systems.

Proof of FACE lies in its ability to win business

Mandatory FACE conformance require ments have flowed down for nearly every applicable military program since the publication of FACE 2.0.

Ultimately, the proof of the princi ples lies in the ability to win business through their application. That ability is ably demonstrated, in one instance, by the success of Collins Aerospace’s Tactical Combat Training System (TCTS) Increment II program, whose underlying system uses an open systems archi tecture incorporating FACE and other industry interface standards. MES

Arun Subbarao is vice president of engineering at Lynx Software Technologies, responsible for the development of products for the internet of things and cybersecurity markets. He has more than 20 years of experience in the software industry working on security, safety, virtualization, operating systems, and networking technologies. In this role, he spearheaded the development of the LynxSecure separation kernel and hypervisor product as well as other software innovations in cybersecurity leading to multiple patents. He is also a panelist and presenter at several industry conferences. He holds a BS in computer science from India, an MS in computer science from SUNY Albany, and an MBA from Santa Clara University.

Lynx Software Technologies https://www.lynx.com/

Space

Ruggedized multiple-stream platform enables video at the edge

Maris-Tech launched a high-end multiple-stream video platform called Jupiter-AI. The company has received initial orders for Jupiter-AI as an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) solution and as a ruggedized platform within enclosure. The Jupiter-AI, an integration between Maris-Tech’s Jupiter-Nano and Hailo’s Hailo-8 (an as-fast-as 26 TOPS [tera operations per second] AI accelerator), enables a hardware and software solution for remote platforms’ video streaming, recording, debriefing, and artificial intelligence (AI) at the edge.

The complete solution features low power usage; multiple video sensors; high video quality over narrowband wireless networks; low-latency streaming; and deep learning and AI acceleration enabling object detection, classification, tracking, and handling other customers’ AI requirements in high frame rate. The Jupiter-AI was designed for professional defense, homeland security, and civilian markets. Suggested use cases are in autonomous vehicles, agriculture, visual inspection, machine vision, search and rescue, intelligence gathering, observation, situational awareness, and automatic target-recognition applications when mounted on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), loitering munition platforms, armored vehicles, and missiles.

Maris-Tech | https://martechseries.com/

Senseeker launches advanced digital pixel readout IC

Senseeker Engineering has announced the availability of the Calcium RP0033, a high dynamic range (HDR) advanced digital pixel readout integrated circuit (DPROIC) with > 120 dB dynamic range and a frame rate of up to 700 frames per second. The part’s 20 µm p-on-n pixel and 640-by-512 format is an industry standard that enables the Calcium RP0033 chip to be used with existing detector and optics technology. The IC can be used to accelerate development of advanced HDR infrared focal plane arrays (FPAs) by hybridizing available off-the-shelf detectors with advanced readout.

Digital pixel readouts disassociate the well capacity from the noise floor, which enables both better sensitivity and larger well capacity. The Calcium RP0033 has dual-gain modes with programmable well capacities of over 40 Me- and 400 Me-, each with read noise of 50 and 330 electrons at 80 K, respectively. The chip can operate in both integrate-then-read and integrate-while-read modes and has programmable windows to observe and track targets at thousands of frames per second.

Senseeker |

https://senseeker.com/

Connector series extends for EMI-heavy environments

TE Connectivity is extending its 369 Connector Series with the new 369 shielded rectangular panel and PCB [printed circuit board] connectors for environments that demand ambient EMI [electromagnetic interference] noise protection. These connectors leverage the capabilities of the 369 series and extend it to additional applications such as ethernet, power distribution, and mixed-signal/power devices. The combination of shielding technology with the existing 369 connector series enables a wider range of potential applications for the 369 products beyond commercial aerospace, which can include harsh aerospace and military environments like military aerospace, fighting vehicles, and military ground vehicles.

TE’s new rectangular connectors have been tested to withstand indirect lightning strikes of 3.6ka and are rated to provide effective shielding of greater than 60 DB at low frequencies and greater than 40 DB at high frequencies. This EMI protection technology is wrapped in a composite nickel shell. The 369 series shielded connectors enable various ethernet protocols and speeds up to 10 Gb/sec. They are also backward-compatible with current 369-line product offerings.

TE Connectivity | https://www.te.com/

Rugged XMC ACAP card aims at high-speed processing, AI uses

New Wave DV offers the V1163, a heterogeneous computing XMC form factor featuring the Xilinx Versal adaptive compute acceleration platform (ACAP) and rugged optical and electrical input/output (I/O) that gives users options for Versal Prime or Versal AI Core part selection. In a single mezzanine card, the V1163 provides 100G optical interfaces, FPGA [field-programmable gate array] fabric, Arm processor cores, and optional artificial engineering (AI) engines. The V1163 is designed for applications requiring any combination of the following: high-speed optical/electrical interfaces, FPGA processing resources, ARM processing cores, and AI engines. Use cases include sensor interface design, digital signal processing, video processing, application coprocessing, and multilevel secure networking.

The card is also aimed at uses in radar, signals intelligence, video, storage, medical imaging, and embedded communications systems. The V1163 provides electrical and optical I/O options supporting 10/25/40/50/100 Gb/sec ethernet. In addition to the ethernet interfaces described, the FPGA fabric provided within the ACAP part is capable of hosting IP cores for Fibre Channel, ARINC-818, sFPDP, Aurora, and other protocols. With this support, the card can be used for mixed-interface protocol needs or protocol-bridging applications.

New Wave DV | https://newwavedv.com/

InfiniDome releases GPSdome 2 dual-band antijamming technology

infiniDome has released GPSdome 2, an antijamming part that enables simultaneous dual-frequency protection from three directions of attack for both smaller and larger applications. The part is designed to defend small to medium tactical unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as well as manned and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), especially when they are mission-critical assets in GPS-challenged environments. Its usefulness can be extended to loitering munitions as well as drones, with the aim of increasing resiliency while prolonging mission time.

The technology includes algorithms and a proprietary chip that analyzes the RF [radio-frequency] interference in the environment, and then combines multiple antenna patterns to create and dynamically steer three nulls in the direction of a hostile signal. The GPSdome 2 – which can be ordered in an optional mil-spec-compliant version – has so far been chosen by an unidentified Israeli defense contractor for integration with its own platforms.

infiniDome | https://www.infinidome.com/

Base station receiver enables use in rugged environments

Septentrio recently announced the launch of the AsteRx SB3 ProBase, a new part of its ruggedized receiver product line. The AsteRx SB3 ProBase is IP68 housed GNSS [global navigation satellite system] base-station receiver, featuring quad constellation GNSS technology. The product was designed to create an easy-to-integrate base station to densify a network. Other SB3 receivers offered by the company include the AsteRx SB3 Pro rover receiver, the AsteRx SB3 Pro+ rover and base receiver, and the AsteRx SB3 CLAS (sold solely for the Japanese market).

AsteRx SB3 products are pin-to-pin compatible with Septentrio’s AsteRx SB ProDirect receiver and with the recently released AsteRx SBi3 GNSS/INS system to make it easier to change receivers.

Septentrio | https://www.septentrio.com/en

The Air Force’s interim IT strategy could be a modernization road map for other agencies

By Gil Vega, Veeam

It’s been said before that the best plans tend to be the simple ones. While it’s not clear whether that’s ever been said about digital transformation, the Air Force’s recently released interim Chief Information Officer (CIO) strategy could serve as an example of this truism, focusing on straightforward goals to modernize and secure the organization’s information technology environment.

The strategy, developed by Air Force CIO Lauren Knausenberger, aims to transform the department, as well as the Space Force, into a collaborative digital environment reliant on interoperable, dynamic technology solutions. It is posi tioned to withstand priority shifts and appropriations battles because it selects key core objectives and prioritizes what’s most important.

Cloud adoption, zero trust, and artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) are among the key elements of the Air Force’s plan, as it strives to build an adaptive, integrated digital envi ronment with data at its core. Supporting cloud, cyber, and AI

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objectives requires data to be accessible, available, and up-todate at all times.

Speeding up cloud adoption

The interim strategy aims to accelerate Air Force cloud adop tion to build a globally distributed, hybrid cloud network. This keystone goal will undergird the department’s ability to share data securely by enabling interoperability across its networks and standardizing the data models. With the expansion of cloud adoption and the complexity of hybrid cloud environ ments, the Air Force will need to have complete insight on its data inventory, where specific data sets will operate and, most importantly, will need to know who is responsible for main taining data security and availability on which network.

According to Veeam’s 2022 Data Protection Trends Report, two of the most common causes of data loss are technology mal function and human error, so a strong data management policy is crucial. In a multi- or hybrid cloud environment, it’s often assumed the cloud provider offers a guarantee of availability should data be deleted or lost, but this rarely lines up with gov ernment needs. Having a full inventory of your data, knowledge of what systems it operates on, and who secures those systems and how that data is backed up will be among the most impor tant pieces of this strategy. Typically, this requires a separate data-protection solution.

Leaning into zero trust and automated cyber

Per the 2021 White House cybersecurity executive order, the federal government is moving to adopt zero-trust architectures by 2024. The Air Force is moving ahead with its own zerotrust plans, aiming to build an architecture to segment data across multiple classifications levels and leveraging Identity, Credential, and Access Management (ICAM) tools to help limit user access.

By focusing on tools like ICAM and agile encryption, the Air Force is on the path to full zero-trust and strengthening its cyber posture against security concerns like insider threats and ransomware. Even with strong cybersecurity practices in place, as the ongoing use of ransomware has shown, defense orga nizations still need a robust data-protection plan in place to handle the inevitable loss of data.

The Air Force should make sure to maintain three copies of important data; on at least two different types of media; with at least one of these copies being offsite; one offsite data backup must be air-gapped, offline, or immutable; and ensure that zero errors be present following automated backup testing and recoverability verification.

Utilizing AI/ML

The interim CIO strategy also intends to inform and speed decision-making through the use of AI/ML. This effort follows the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Data Strategy, which includes managing data sets for AI and algorithmic models. From the data sets it uses, to the algorithms that will process them, to the technology used to maintain its digital environ ment, the Air Force strategy depends on the secure flow of data across its enterprise. This is even more true in an inte grated AI/ML-enabled digital environment.

For the Air Force to capitalize on the technology’s potential and quickly inform decision-making, the data servicing AI/ML applications must be unimpeachable. The service will need to establish data-protection practices that ensures continuous testing of data quality, timely backups, and quick recovery in the event of a disruption. Immutable backups will become even

more crucial, as attackers’ abilities to infiltrate networks unde tected and compromise data integrity ultimately would render AI insights useless. AI and ML only offer a battlefield advantage if based on accurate data.

A strategy for all seasons

The Air Force interim CIO strategy will likely serve as a guide post to the other military services looking to modernize their digital environments in a continually changing policy and budget environment.

To ensure the success of that strategy, data protection must be obtained with critical failsafe planning and a comprehensive data backup approach. Digital transformation means that orga nizations have to plan for multiple backup contingencies, quick recovery, and continuous monitoring to help ensure that opera tions won’t grind to a halt because of data disruption. The Air Force strategy goes a long way toward reaching that future.

Gil Vega is Veeam’s Chief Information Security Officer and the Senior Vice President for Global Information Security.

Veeam https://www.veeam.com/

5G Initiatives by Government Agencies Enter New Stage

By Anritsu

The DoD, along with multiple other federal agencies, are combining efforts to rapidly deploy 5G solutions in all areas of strategic development. 5G military applications will utilize ever-more-sophisticated RF communications consisting of more complex modulations.

In this white paper, learn about the evolution of the testing network ecosystem needed to meet 5G demands, considerations for implementing these new technologies, key metrics for testing military communication systems, and some examples of testing solutions.

Read this white paper at https://bit.ly/3tPnWL2

CONNECTING WITH MIL EMBEDDED

GIVING BACK

Each issue, the editorial staff of Military Embedded Systems will highlight a different charitable organization that benefits the military, veterans, and their families. We are honored to cover the technology that protects those who protect us every day.

By Editorial Staff

This issue, we are highlighting Rifles to Rods (RtR), an organization that provides high-quality fishing experiences for military vet erans at no charge. RtR’s mission is to connect veterans with their local fishing communities, enabling them to meet like-minded people, teach them a new skill set, and improve their post-deployment mental health.

RtR co-founder Ryan Puzzo, a former U.S. Army sergeant who returned from deployment in Afghanistan following his service in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, found that transitioning stateside was difficult: “It’s tough transitioning back to civilian life. Overseas, you have a mission and a purpose, back home no one gets it or understands the sacrifice you made,” Puzzo says.

Puzzo and a friend, Gerard McAllister, found that fishing offered an escape from the stress of everyday life. Together the pair decided to found a nonprofit dedicated to sharing with veterans the physical and mental benefits that fishing can provide. RtR’s fishing trips and instruction strive, according to the organization’s materials, to offer veteran participants relief from anxiety, pain, and depression; improved mental clarity; and overall feelings of well-being.

Rifles to Rods [a federally certified 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization] is based in Massachusetts but serves vets from all over and is poised to expand outside of New England. It is also a 100% volunteer organization. From fly fishing in the freshwater rivers of New England and going out on the ocean off Cape Cod to supplying free fishing gear and licenses to veterans, RtR aims to embody its motto by getting veterans out onto the water to “put a rod in their hand and a smile on their face.”

For additional information, please visit https://www.riflestorods.org/.

WEBCAST

How the SOSA Technical Standard Works with VITA Standards

Sponsored by Curtiss-Wright and Mercury

One of the key differentiators of the Technical Standard for the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Reference Architecture, Edition 2.0 snapshot 1 is that it seeks to adopt existing standards first in order to ben efit from years of design and development experience. One such standard is OpenVPX, which was developed in the early 2010s by the VITA Standards Organization, also a member of SOSA.

This webcast – leveraging the expertise of Steve Edwards of Curtiss-Wright and Rodger Hosking of Mercury, both SOSA members – explores how VITA standards influenced the SOSA development process and examines how VITA standards were adopted for SOSA Technical Standard 2.0 snapshot 1. (This is an archived webcast.)

Watch this webcast: https://bit.ly/3AqyOm2

Watch more webcasts: https://militaryembedded.com/webcasts/archive/

WHITE PAPER

The Rise of Autonomous Technology in the Military and What it Means

By Anritsu

The integration of 5G technology in the military will influence every aspect of warfare, in particular on the implementation of an autonomous force. Given the mission-critical nature of these use cases, ensuring their operation in the harshest environments is both a necessity and a challenge. Those responsible for the design and utilization of these mission-critical autonomous solutions must establish the proper test process to ensure operation whenever they are called upon.

Military autonomous use cases often leverage emerging com mercial technologies. Likewise, effective test processes will also borrow from established nonmilitary applications. Due to the critical nature of these systems, test solutions must have high accuracy and high-end performance. This white paper discusses how to establish the proper test processes for these autonomous technologies to ensure operations whenever they are called upon.

Read this white paper: https://bit.ly/3EHZcdz

Read more white papers: https://militaryembedded.com/whitepapers

TECHNOLOGY MAKING YOUR HEAD SPIN?

WE CAN HELP YOU MAKE SENSE OF IT ALL

Military Embedded Systems focuses on embedded electronics – hardware and software – for military applications through technical coverage of all parts of the design process. The website, Resource Guide, e-mags, newsletters, podcasts, webcasts, and print editions provide insight on embedded tools and strategies including technology insertion, obsolescence management, standards adoption, and many other military-specific technical subjects.

Coverage areas include the latest innovative products, technology, and market trends driving military embedded applications such as radar, electronic warfare, unmanned systems, cybersecurity, AI and machine learning, avionics, and more. Each issue is full of the information readers need to stay connected to the pulse of embedded technology in the military and aerospace industries.

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