COTS Journal, November 2021

November 2021, Volume 23 – Number 11 • cotsjournalonline.com

The Journal of Military Electronics & Computing

JOURNAL

Bringing AI to the Rugged Edge MOSA Standards Gain Momentum in the Market

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The Journal of Military Electronics & Computing COTS (kots), n. 1. Commercial off-the-shelf.

Terminology popularized in 1994 within U.S. DoD by SECDEF Wm. Perry’s “Perry Memo” that changed military industry purchasing and design guidelines, making Mil-Specs acceptable only by waiver. COTS is generally defined for technology, goods and services as: a) using commercial business practices and specifications, b) not developed under government funding, c) offered for sale to the general market, d) still must meet the program ORD. 2. Commercial business practices include the accepted practice of customer-paid minor modification to standard COTS products to meet the customer’s unique requirements.

JOURNAL

—Ant. When applied to the procurement of electronics for he U.S. Military, COTS is a procurement philosophy and does not imply commercial, office environment or any other durability grade. E.g., rad-hard components designed and offered for sale to the general market are COTS if they were developed by the company and not under government funding.

SPECIAL FEATURES 16

Bringing AI to the Rugged Edge

By Jim Ison, Vice President, One Stop Systems

DEPARTMENTS 6

The Inside Track

SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT 20

MOSA Standards Gain Momentum in the Market

By John Reardon, Editor

COT’S PICKS 24

Editor’s Choice for November

Cover Image MCAS IWAKUNI, Japan -At the request of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 242 successfully conducted the first ever landing of two F-35B Lightning II aircraft aboard the Japanese Ship Izumo on Oct. 3.

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The Journal of Military Electronics & Computing

JOURNAL EDITORIAL

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New technical standard set to reduce development and integration costs for military capabilities and reduce time to field The Open Group Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Consortium published a new Technical Standard for SOSA™ Reference Architecture, Edition 1.0.

Streamlining US military capabilities, the new standard will enable rapid, affordable, cross-platform capability advancements based upon fundamentals of the system, software, hardware, and electrical and mechanical engineering best practices and Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) principles to develop a solution that addresses Department of Defense (DoD) needs for a cohesive unified set of sensor capabilities.

The SOSA™ Consortium aims to create a common framework for transitioning sensor systems to an open systems architecture,

based on key interfaces and open standards established by industry-government consensus. The open architecture supports airborne, subsurface, surface, ground, and space. The goal of The Open Group SOSA Consortium is to reduce development and integration costs and reduce time to field new sensor capabilities.

“The future belongs to those who strive for it. The release of SOSA Technical Standard 1.0 represents a major step forward in implementing the DoD’s vision of a Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) for sensor systems as advocated in the Tri-Service memorandum for Service Acquisition Executives and Program Executive Officers issued on January 7, 2019,” said Dr. Ilya Lipkin, Air Force Steering Committee Chair for the SOSA Consortium.

“We are very excited about the release of version 1.0. This achievement culminates the collaborative efforts over the past 5 years by a team of government, industry, and academia to define a standard for sensing systems. This standard will enable rapid acquisition and fielding of state-of-the-art components to support our competitive edge in the global environment. The SOSA Consortium success is owned and shared by the community of volunteers who dedicate their expertise, effort, and long hours beyond their work responsibilities toward a common goal.”

“The much-anticipated release of the SOSA Technical Standard 1.0 marks a significant advance in MOSA within the DoD,” said Jason Dirner, Team Leader, Architecture Team, U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM). “The new SOSA Technical Standard, and its alignment with other standards such as CMOSS, lays the foundation for greater reuse, faster upgrades, increased competition, and lower costs within the acquisition community.”

“The PMA-209 Avionics Architecture Team is thrilled to witness the release of the SOSA Technical Standard 1.0. This now available important work not only benefits the entire open architecture community, but it also supports NAVAIR’s efforts to increase the speed of acquisitions to the Fleet, stated LCDR Whitesell, PMA-209 AAT IPT Team Co-lead. This new eagerly awaited technical standard enables the possibility of enterprise-wide reusable components, reduced total ownership costs, and products that can be quickly customized, modified, and extended throughout product life cycles in response to changing user requirements. We applaud the tireless efforts of the SOSA Consortium members and look forward to many more successes in the future.”

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SECO USA’s Deck Control Device Successfully Completes On-Ground MQ-25 Remote Control Demonstration

SECO USA, Inc. announces the successful demonstration of a new deck control device (DCD) to be used for controlling the MQ-25TM StingrayTM unmanned aerial refueler on U.S. Navy aircraft carriers.

The MQ-25, designed and developed by Boeing, will be the Navy’s first operational, carrier-based unmanned aircraft. The operator-worn, remote-control DCD was successfully tested earlier this month during a multi-day demonstration featuring Navy and Boeing personnel simulating carrier-based operations at MidAmerica St. Louis The airport in Mascoutah, Ill. The demonstration preceded carrier-based sea trials to take place in the coming months.

Unlike most unmanned vehicle controllers, the DCD includes several features and functions specific to aircraft carrier-based vehicles.

It consists of multiple assemblies, including a heads-up handheld control grip, an arm-mounted display unit, a waist-worn battery-operated processor unit, and a military-grade radio.

SECO USA designed the circuitry, operating

DDC-I’s Deos RTOS is First to Receive OSS Conformance Certification for FACE™ Technical Standard, Edition 3.1 DDC-I announced that its Deos™ DO-178C Design Assurance Level A (DAL A) safety-critical real-time operating system is the first RTOS to receive the Future Airborne Capability Environment™ (FACE) Conformance Certificate for the FACE Technical Standard, Edition 3.1. The certification covers the Safety Extended and Safety Base Profiles for the Operating System Segment (OSS). The Safety Extended Profile, which adds support for TCP/IP communications, multi-process support, and expanded POSIX capability (80 extra functions), is a superset of the functionality required by the Safety Base and Security Profiles.

The Deos RTOS Platform for FACE Technical Standard 3.1 combines the time and space partitioned Deos RTOS and SafeMC™ multicore technology with RTEMS (Real-Time Ex-

system software, packaging, and integrated critical subassemblies. In the process, SECO USA pushed the envelope through an agile process of iterative design to optimize human factors and ergonomics while meeting strict technical requirements such as safety-critical redundancy and operation in a harsh electromagnetic environment.

The DCD has a simple, user-friendly interface designed to enhance aircraft handling operations by highly trained aircraft carrier personnel, as well as a mobile remote control resulting in a device that is capable of withstanding the complex nature of an aircraft carrier deck. To complete the deck handling system, SECO USA also ruggedized a matching set of air vehicle-mounted radios to meet MQ-25 flight worthiness specifications.

“Based on Boeing’s challenging concept and requirements for the DCD, we are excited to deliver a pioneering remote vehicle control solution,” said Tien Chuang, Chief Operating Officer of SECO USA. “With the DCD design, SECO USA has demonstrated the value of bringing our cross-industry expertise, working in close collaboration with our Boeing and U.S. Navy

ecutive for Multiprocessor Systems), a mature, deterministic, open systems, hard real-time POSIX executive. The integrated platform combines the strengths and pedigree of both ARINC-653 and POSIX RTOSs, providing the industry-standard interfaces and feature set required for conformance with the FACE Technical Standard, Safety Extended, and Safety Base Operating System Profiles, all in a time and space partitioned, hard real-time, multicore execution model.

“DDC-I has been a pioneer in providing mission and safety-critical software to the military and aerospace industry for over 35 years,” said Greg Rose, vice president of marketing and product management at DDC-I. “We’re proud to deliver the industry’s first FACE 3.1-Conformant OSS to the avionics community and look forward to supporting FACE standardization efforts with an open, conformant platform that combines best-in-class performance and safety certifiability with enhanced application portability.”

partners. This affirms our history of delivering rugged product, including handheld, battery-operated devices, to the most demanding of applications.”

“Our goal is to ensure we are seamlessly integrating all components of the MQ-25 onto the carrier deck”, Rhiannon Sherrard, director of Training Aircraft and Autonomous Systems for Boeing Global Services. “Seeing the deck control device hardware and software work in concert with the aircraft and the personnel who control it is a major step forward, and we’re looking forward to continued demonstrations.”

First certified to DO-178 DAL A in 1998, Deos is a safety-critical embedded RTOS that employs patented technology to deliver the highest possible CPU utilization to avionics systems developers. SafeMC technology extends Deos’ advanced capabilities to multiple cores, enabling developers of safety-critical systems to achieve best-in-class multi-core performance without compromising safety-critical task response and guaranteed execution time. SafeMC employs a bound multiprocessing (BMP) extension of the symmetric multiprocessing architecture (SMP), safe scheduling, and cache partitioning to minimize cross-core contention and interference patterns that affect the performance, safety criticality, and certifiability of multi-core systems. These features enable avionics systems developers to address issues that could impact the safety, performance, and integrity of a software airborne system as specified by the Certification Authorities Software Team (CAST) in its Position Paper CAST-32A for Multi-core Processors.

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GA-ASI Awarded OBSS Contract from AFRL

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. received a $17.8 million award from the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to design and develop an unmanned Off-Board Sensing Station (OBSS) aircraft. AFRL is developing an open architecture concept Autonomous Collaborative Platform (ACP) to achieve its goals of rapid time-to-market and low acquisition cost while extending and enhancing the sensing volume of manned platforms.

“We’re excited to continue working on this project with AFRL,” said Chris Seat, senior vice president of Special Programs for GA-ASI. “Our experience in developing and delivering the most cost-effective and forward-looking UAS solutions puts GA-ASI in a great position to deliver the right ACP to meet our customer’s requirements.”

The award covers the next 12 months as the base effort, and if the option is exercised,

GA-ASI will spend the following 15 months manufacturing and flight demonstrating the

aircraft with the award potentially growing to a total of $49 million.

Lincad awarded a contract with Thales UK for its SquadNet batteries

Lincad is pleased to announce a new contract with Thales UK to supply its SquadNet batteries for the company’s industry-leading networking soldier radios.

mode, blue force tracking, and an extended, 24-hour battery capacity to extend mission life and reduce the need to carry spare batteries. It comes with built-in GPS and secure communications over IP networks to enable positional data to be transmitted over Bluetooth to another Android device for soldiers to keep track of each other’s positions. The radio is designed to work in areas where other radios may fail, including woodlands, urban environments, and undulating ground. The unit is lightweight and encased in a robust, compact outer shell to protect against damage in the field.

As an experienced designer and manufacturer of defense batteries and charging systems, Lincad supplies to a range of global customers, often working to military specifications, and its products represent the very latest in battery and charger technology and design.

The SquadNet battery is a bespoke 3.6V, 3Ah battery that has been specifically designed to power the Thales SquadNet radio that operates on the modern battlefield to provide effective combat communications.

Operating in demanding environments, the batteries provide a resilient and trusted power management solution, ensuring that infantry soldiers have access to reliable and robust voice communication and situational awareness.

The SquadNet soldier radio has a pointto-point range of up to 2.5km, automatic relay 8

COTS Journal | November 2021

Peter Slade, Joint Managing Director of Lincad, said: “We are pleased to announce this contract with Thales UK for further supply of the SquadNet battery. We worked with Thales on the original design and the inevitable success of the radio has led to further orders. Whilst in a relatively simple form factor, the SquadNet battery demonstrates Lincad’s ability to support customers in their power management requirements.”

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Ambarella to Acquire Oculii for $307.5 Million; Radar Perception AI Algorithm Global Leader - Oculii’s Patented Adaptive AI Software Increases Resolution of Existing RF Radar Silicon Up To 100X

Ambarella, Inc. announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Ohiobased Oculii Corporation (“Oculii”). Oculii’s adaptive AI software algorithms are designed to enable radar perception using current production radar chips to achieve significantly higher (up to 100X) resolution, longer range, and greater accuracy. These improvements eliminate the need for specialized high-resolution radar chips, which have significantly higher power consumption and cost than conventional radar solutions. Oculii’s software can be deployed on Ambarella’s existing CVflow® SoCs, operating in conjunction with leading radar RF solutions to increase safety and reliability.

The acquisition expands Ambarella’s addressable market into radar perception and fusion with its existing edge AI CV perception SoCs for automotive and other IoT endpoint applications, including mobile robotics and security. The fusion of Ambarella’s camera technology and Oculii’s radar software stack provides an all-weather, low-cost and scalable perception solution, enabling higher levels of autonomy for automotive tier 1s and OEMs globally.

“The Oculii team brings great synergies

with Ambarella’s algorithm-first approach and our ongoing initiatives to intelligently fuse sensor data in edge AI systems,” said Fermi Wang, president, and CEO of Ambarella. “We expect Oculii’s unique adaptive radar perception algorithms, combined with Ambarella’s vision and AI processing, to unlock greater levels of perception accuracy than previously attainable with a discrete camera and radar solutions.”

“Joining Ambarella will enable Oculii to expand the development of our radar technology while leveraging our synergies as part of this leading vision and AI processor company,” said Steven Hong, CEO of Oculii. “We look forward to working with our customers and silicon partners to deliver complete AI perception solutions, based on the combined strengths of our innovative engineering teams and advanced radar and computer vision technologies.”

Oculii’s superior resolution and sensitivity can unlock the potential of everything from advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous vehicles to robotics and security, by providing radar with a dynamic waveform that uses AI to learn from and adapt to the environment. The result is an extended operating range of up to 400 meters with a wide field of view.

To date, Oculii is engaged with 10 of the top 15 tier 1s on software licensing and has commercial development contracts with leading OEM and AV companies. Oculii is generating pre-production revenue today, with production programs expected to commence in CY2023.

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Bell Completes First Bahrain AH-1Z Viper

Bell Textron Inc. celebrated the completion of the first AH-1Z Viper attack helicopter for the Kingdom of Bahrain on Sept. 30. Bell delivered the first of 12 production aircraft to Naval Air Systems Command as part of the 2019 foreign military sales (FMS) contract.

Foreign military sales of the AH-1Z bring the advanced, dedicated capabilities of the aircraft directly to international operators and help increase interoperability and amplify the effectiveness of allied forces. The helicopter will be prepared for shipment to Bahrain with the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA)

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before being transported to Bahrain in 2022.

“This is an extraordinary achievement by the H-1 Program and brings the Royal Bahraini Air Force a step closer to fielding the advanced capabilities of the AH-1Z,” said Mike Deslatte, Bell H-1 vice president, and program director.

“The men and women of Team Viper, a group of premier suppliers, have done an exceptional job of delivering to the U.S. Government, on time and contract.”

Bell designed the AH-1Z Viper specifically to meet the stringent operational requirements of the U.S. Marine Corps, which focus on full marinization and a reduced logistical footprint.

The aircraft has a fully integrated glass cockpit

and the ability to carry a wide variety of munitions.

The composite rotor system further enhances the Viper’s ability to provide close air support to ground forces in any environment, while the fully integrated Target Sight System (TSS) enhances pilots’ capabilities to identify, acquire, track and engage targets beyond maximum weapon range.

“The Viper will provide significant benefits to the Bahrain Defence Force as they modernize their fleet of attack helicopters,” said Deslatte.

“Having a proven state-of-the-art platform will help contribute to the security of Bahrain while improving interoperability with U.S. forces.”

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CSUG & Teledyne e2v Unveil AI-Enabled Smart Nanosatellite with On-Board Imaging Processing at Space Tech Expo 2021

The Centre Spatial Universitaire de Grenoble (CSUG), in partnership with Teledyne e2v, will be using this year’s Space Tech Expo to provide visitors with a detailed demonstration of a high-performance image analysis system for CubeSat deployment. Intended for Earth observation tasks, this system will process the images on-board to build simplified binary maps of the areas before transmitting back from space, thereby significantly reducing the bandwidth overhead involved.

Designed for implementation in a 6U CubeSat (of 10cm x 20cm x 30cm dimensions), the QlevEr Sat demo is the latest development in an ongoing collaboration between CSUG and Teledyne e2v that was first established four years ago. Central to the system’s hardware is a Teledyne e2v quad-core 1.8GHz Qormino QLS1046-Space processing module. This compact space-grade unit leverages 64-bit Arm Cortex A72 processor cores and features 4GB of co-packaged DDR4 memory capacity too. The imaging data is captured using a 16Mpixel Emerald

CMOS image sensor also provided by Teledyne e2v.

Large area images are firstly acquired by the QlevEr Sat system, then converted via the onboard processing resource with an advanced tailor-made artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm incorporated into it. The AI algorithm was specifically developed by the Multidisciplinary Institute in Artificial Intelligence (MIAI), to optimize execution on embedded targets. There is scope for this arrangement to be employed in a broad range of potential applications. These include deforestation tracking which is the primary use case, but also the monitoring of volcanic activity, evaluation of damage caused by natural or manmade disasters, growth in urbanization, glacial movement analysis, and oceanic investigation, as well as possible defense-related tasks.

To ensure that Qormino is robust enough to deliver long-term operation when exposed to uncompromising space conditions, and mitigate the threat of errors occurring, modules are subjected to extensive qualification, screening, and radiation characterization procedures. These cover both the processor element itself and the accompanying DDR4 memory too. The modules can cope with total ionizing dose (TID) levels above 100kRad and have single event latch-up (SEL) resilience beyond

60MeV.cm²/mg. An operational temperature range of -55°C to +125°C is also supported to ease integration into spacecraft.

“Integrating AI capabilities directly into CubeSats will dramatically reduce the amount of bandwidth needed for data transmission, which is beneficial given the rising number of satellites now in orbit. This QlevEr Sat demo provides a radiation-tolerant processing capability without taking up much PCB area,” states Tania McNamara, Project Manager at CSUG. “We envisage the system being utilized to address numerous use case scenarios where changes on the Earth’s surface need to be surveyed.”

“Space deployments set limitations in terms of the power budget and room available in which electronic hardware can be fitted,” adds Thomas Porchez, Application Engineer at Teledyne e2v.

“By combining our next-generation processing, memory, and optoelectronic devices with the cutting-edge AI technology developed, QlevEr Sat overcomes these challenges. It enables image capture and subsequent processing to be carried out in even the smallest of satellite designs. Consequently, we see a lot of opportunities emerging for it.”

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McObject Collaborates with Wind River to Deliver First-Ever Deterministic Database System for VxWorks-based Real-Time Embedded Systems

McObject has collaborated with Wind River® and announced the availability of McObject’s revolutionary eXtremeDB/rt database management system (DBMS) for VxWorks®-based hard real-time embedded systems. eXtremeDB/rt supports hard real-time system requirements through the introduction of a new time-cognizant transaction manager. Time-cognizance guarantees predictable execution of transactions, ensuring that tasks involving database activity (reading and/or writing) successfully commit or successfully abort within their deadlines, and never miss (run past) deadlines.

Real-time determinism is increasingly critical in systems like autonomous driving, positive train control, defense, and other systems where failure can result in material damage or put lives at risk.

In its first release, eXtremeDB/rt is an in-memory DBMS; support for persistent databases will

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follow in 2022Q1.

Like conventional eXtremeDB, it provides critical data management features, including transactions, concurrent access, and a high-level data definition language. As an in-memory database system (IMDS), eXtremeDB/ rt eliminates indeterminant file I/O and streamlines processing by foregoing caching logic. This enables it to deliver the highest level of real-time responsiveness with minimal code size. eXtremeDB/rt also provides sophisticated development capabilities, such as support for varied data and query types, native APIs, and a powerful debugging environment that includes a self-diagnostic API to catch costly defects before they slip into production code.

The market-leading VxWorks real-time operating system (RTOS) from Wind River has been used to ensure the security, safety, and reliability needed to design and build mission-critical embedded systems that simply must work. VxWorks is a deterministic, priority-based preemptive RTOS with low latency and minimal jitter. It is built on an upgradeable, future-proof architecture to help you

rapidly respond to changing market requirements and technology advancements.

“Real-time embedded and IoT applications require a powerful, small, real-time database system. McObject has been a leader in this space for over 20 years and is pleased to continue it’s near 20-year partnership with Wind River and support the industry-leading VxWorks RTOS as the initial launch platform for eXtremeDB/rt” said Chris Mureen, McObject chief operating officer.

“Through our work with McObject, we’re helping customers modernize and accelerate the delivery of reliable intelligent systems that demand real-time requirements,” said Michel Chabroux, Senior Director, Product Management, Wind River. “We look forward to building on our proven track record of success with McObject to help advance the next generation of cloud-connected intelligent systems with increasingly challenging edge compute needs.”

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Jankel and Williams Advanced Engineering collaborate to bring EV technologies and capabilities to the US Defence market

Jankel, a world leader in the design and manufacture of high-specification defense, security, and NGO protection systems, are collaborating with Williams Advanced Engineering (WAE); born out of the UK Formula 1 Williams Racing Team, to provide services and technologies to prime contractors in the US defense market. The partnership will see Jankel and Williams Advanced Engineering working on joint projects to electrify legacy and new military vehicle fleets across the US DoD. Jankel’s US-South Carolina-based company Jankel Tactical Systems takes the lead in the USA with extensive experience designing, manufacturing, and delivering vehicle-related technology and integration solutions in the US defense market.

Williams Advanced Engineering is renowned for providing world-class technical innovation, en-

Galvion wins $5.8 million contract to supply US Army with EOD Tools and Equipment Kit (ETEK) Galvion, a world leader in the design and manufacture of military power and data management solutions is pleased to announce that its Squad Power Manager™ (SPM) kit will be included in the U.S. Army EOD Tools and Equip-

gineering, and specialist electric vehicle solutions across multiple applications. Proven out in the Formula E and Extreme E arena, WAE is a pioneer in battery systems, battery management, and EV drivetrain solutions across a wide range of sectors including motorsport, transport, mining, and defense.

The partnership will combine complementary technologies and capabilities to help progress military hybrid and electrification projects no matter what the size, from a light tactical vehicle to the main battle tank. The experience, innovation, and engineering expertise of both companies will be combined to leverage the integration, problem-solving, and tailored approach required to solve the military problem set, essential to help meet the military engineering challenges of the 21st century - mobility, sustainability, and efficiency.

Craig Wilson, CEO, Williams Advanced Engineering said: ”This partnership is well placed to support the integration and delivery of EV solument Kit (ETEK). A $5.8 million contract from Program Manager Close Combat Systems (PM CCS) was awarded to supply an EOD-tailored SPM™ system to all active EOD units starting in December 2021. The Squad Power Manager is a core element of Galvion’s Nerv Centr® Active Systems range, which provides scalable power and data solutions to the dismounted soldier. Galvion will be exhibiting the SPM, along with their full range of active systems and their next-generation head systems, in booth 3817 at the AUSA exhibition, taking place in Washington DC, 11-13 October 2021.

EOD teams use specialized equipment that requires sustainable and lightweight power when off-grid. The US DoD was seeking to upgrade their entire EOD dismounted kit and needed a single, customizable solution that could recharge the batteries for EOD tools and scavenge power from multiple sources such as solar, vehicle power, or AC mains. The SPM ETEK Kit includes multiple cables and accessories that offer operational flexibility, allowing EOD units to harvest, scavenge and provide power to mission-critical equipment. The SPM requires no special configuration or programming, converting and managing power as efficiently as possible depending on power sources and equipment needs. This allows teams to minimize weight and logistical burden by carrying fewer batteries

tions and we look forward to working with the team at Jankel, combining our individual areas of expertise to deliver innovative and advanced solutions for the US defense market” Andrew Jankel Chairman of the Jankel Group said “Jankel is historically known around the world for providing outstanding vehicle survivability conversions and complex systems integrations. However, in line with our new company strategy, we are also expanding our expertise to incorporate advanced technologies including remote autonomous systems, cyber security, and platform electrification”. He added: “We are delighted to announce this collaboration with Williams Advanced Engineering to capitalize on some world-leading technologies and bring the very best to the US military by delivering potential EV solutions across its whole range of vehicles both old and new – driving mission success.” while increasing operational efficiency through active monitoring and management of power usage.

Kristen Lomastro, President of Active Systems, said: “We are a company that is dedicated to delivering mission success by fully understanding not just the military requirement, but the environment, the conditions, and the additional circumstances that the dismounted soldier may encounter. We pride ourselves on providing the very best technical and engineering solutions possible and by reducing the physical, cognitive and logistical burden for the warfighter, we increase their agility, lethality, and survivability. Galvion is extremely pleased to announce this new contract for ETEK with US Army EOD units, and to continue in our mission to protect and support those who protect us.”

Galvion’s modular and scalable power management systems are battle-ready, flexible, and easily integrated with commonly fielded equipment. The Squad Power Manager is a field-proven system, with customized kits in use across all U.S. DoD branches, including units of the U.S. Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, and SOCOM. In addition, Galvion’s power management systems are being used by allied forces in Canada, the UK, Australia, France, Denmark, and Sweden, among others.

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KDPOF Presents Reliable and Costefficient Multi-gigabit Connectivity System at ELIV VDI Congress

Together with several industry leaders, KDPOF – the leading supplier for gigabit connectivity over fiber optics – is working on an optical automotive multi-gigabit system that will fulfill the needs of future connected and automated vehicles. Instead of various port components, the new solution provides a single, complete package. “As the auto industry approaches the 50 Gb/s*m speed-length threshold, the move from copper to optical physical data transmission media is becoming mandatory,” stated Carlos Pardo, CEO, and Co-founder of KDPOF. “Optical is the engineering-wise path for higher data rates.”

The new connector systems are very small, lightweight, and extremely inexpensive compared to the previous ones. With the comprehensive EVK9351AUT evaluation kit, automotive manufacturers and suppliers can already test the new configuration at 1 Gbit/s today.

KDPOF thus supports easy project entry into optical gigabit connectivity for a secure Ethernet backbone and ADAS sensor connections in vehicles.

KDPOF will present their optical Multi-gigabit Ethernet Connectivity System at ELIV (Electronics In Vehicles) International VDI Congress on October 20 to 21, 2021 at stand 38 in Bonn, Germany, and online.

Off-the-shelf System Solution for In-vehicle Networking The key advantages of the optical solution, among others, are superior Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) thanks to the inherent galvanic isolation, low weight, and low cost.

The optical cables are reliable and at least as flexible as copper cables in the same bandwidth range. They allow fast, dynamic, and tight bending as well as immersion in dark liquids. In addition, optical connectivity guarantees easy engineering for seamless implementation. The ecosystem already exists since the system leverages well-proven technologies, such as VCSELs (Vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser), multimode fibers, and photodiodes already developed for the data centers industry. The technology will be scalable to enable even higher data rates, such as 50 and 100 Gb/s, in the future. Standardization processes are ongoing with IEEE 802.3 Automotive Ethernet and ISO PWI 24581 in progress. The robust and reliable system

Optical Automotive Ethernet with 50 Gb/s - Demo Setup 14

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solution provided by KDPOF and industry leaders thus offers the future-proven path to high speeds.

Reliable, Robust and Cost-efficient The proposed Multi-gigabit system supports Energy-Efficient Ethernet (EEE) tailored for automotive applications and wakes up in less than 100 ms. The target BER is better than 10-12 with ambient operating temp from -40ºC up to 105ºC (AEC-Q100 grade 2) in harsh automotive environments. High reliability (15 years operation, less than 10 FIT) and outstanding EMC compliance are also fulfilled. The technology in development is based on advanced digital signal processing, using high-speed DAC and ADC to implement all needed algorithms such as equalization or pre-coding. A new optical automotive IVN communication standard IEEE 802.3cz is currently in the task force phase and is targeting data rates of 2.5, 5, 10, 25, and 50 Gb/s.

It is supported by several industry-leading companies. First engineering samples of the new automotive, single-chip, fully integrated Fiber Optic Transceiver package solution for 10 Gb/s will be available from KDPOF in fall 2022.

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Bloomy and NI Announce HIL Technology Evolution Center for Aerospace and Defense Organizations .

ground to manage customers’ hardware and software obsolescence issues and develop proven deployment plans so that existing test assets remain fully operational for the program’s lifecycle.

New Joint Test Center to Rapidly Progress HIL Test Hardware, Software, and System Interoperability

“Building a test system in aerospace and defense is not a one-time event. Considerations need to be put in place for 10-15 years, or more, to support technology insertions, code migrations, and other maintenance,” said Luke Schreier, vice president, and general manager of the Aerospace, Defense, and Government business unit at NI. “As NI’s offerings have evolved to address complex LRUs and the digital transformation initiatives of our customers, so have our partnerships in delivering this long-term value. We’re excited to work with Bloomy to establish this center as a way to help reduce overall program risk and cost for our mutual customers.”

Bloomy Controls Inc. and NI, experts in aerospace and defense test systems, announced the Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) Technology Evolution Center. The center, an industry-first initiative, will be hosted by Bloomy at the company’s headquarters in South Windsor, Connecticut.

Line replaceable units (LRUs) with integrated electronic controls and computers are ubiquitous in nearly all aerospace and defense applications. To ensure reliable operation across all mission scenarios, these components are thoroughly tested using HIL test systems in systems integration labs (SILs) which simulate the vehicle IO during a mission. These test systems often contain a mixture of custom, legacy, and commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies and must remain in operation for decades.

The HIL Technology Evolution Center helps aerospace and defense organizations reduce the risk and cost of migrating test assets to updated technologies including the adoption of transformative new COTS hardware and software like NI PXI, SLSC, and VeriStand, all present in the Bloomy Simulation Reference System. It also facilitates the evaluation of novel test approaches without risking existing in-operation test assets. The center also serves as a low-risk proving

At the core of the HIL Technology Evolution Center is a system comprised of a wide variety of the most advanced HIL/SIL technologies from multiple suppliers. Bloomy and NI engineers can work alongside customers and use this system to collaborate in real-time, conducting interoperability and integration testing with COTS technologies and customer components, models, and simulations. The system can be customized to reproduce customer configurations—everything from fixed-wing or rotary-wing aircraft to unmanned underwater vehicles. This flexibility is key for Bloomy’s customers to evolve their systems to adopt new technologies which can increase fidelity, streamline workflows, and interact with a digital twin - all key initiatives of model-based systems engineering (MBSE) and digital transformation. The center also enables Bloomy to fulfill long-term service agreements according to customer lifecycle and uptime requirements.

“Our customers are facing numerous challenges in maximizing their use of current test assets, including digital transformation, interoperability, obsolescence, and retiring experts,” said Peter Blume, president and founder of Bloomy.

“Not only do they want the latest and greatest COTS technology and benefits, but they also need long-term stability, uptime, maintenance, and support. The HIL Technology Evolution Center is the only lab of its kind that allows aerospace and defense companies to reap the benefits of new COTS test technologies in a controlled environment while also ensuring long-term supportability and stability. Offering this unique capability to Bloomy and NI customers demonstrates the mutual commitment we have to our customers’ long-term success.”

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SPECIAL FEATURE

Bringing AI to the Rugged Edge

By Jim Ison, Vice President, One Stop Systems

Bridging the gap between sensors and highperformance compute power is a growing challenge, especially in systems where quick, complex decisions are vital The concept of “the edge” in embedded systems has taken on new urgency in the federal space. The need to address the burgeoning amount of high-speed, vital data with powerful AI processing for immediate complex decision and reaction could be likened to the idea of stuffing a data center under the seat of a helicopter (if only!). “The edge” can be defined as “where it’s happening” and in government systems, that’s the field. Traditionally, the problem of linking high-speed sensors and actuators with super-powerful AI resources has been addressed with high-speed data communications. But that has serious limitations in terms of field operations where package size, speed, mobility, and reliability are paramount.

This compound challenge involves a combination of truly enormous processing power with vast multiple terabyte data storage, internal data routing, external high-speed data acquisition bandwidth and blazing high-speed networking capability. All this must then be packaged into a standard rack mount with cooling capability for the truly large amount of heat that will be generated. In addition, the packaging must be ruggedized for shock and vibration, capable of a variety of power source connections and designed for easy setup and installation. It literally 16

COTS Journal | November 2021

involves making data center hardware available at the rugged edge.

There have, of course, been previous efforts to meet the demands of AI at the edge but so far none of the attempts have managed to meet all the challenges facing true “under the seat” implementation. There have been several that have incorporated sufficient computing power— mostly in the form of graphic GPUs that can handle the parallel inferencing inherent in AI. However, some have not managed to meet the small form factor size requirements. Those that have, have not been able to package enough hardware nor supply the needed cooling. Still missing from

some that may meet many of the needs is the necessary ruggedization required for land vehicles and aircraft.

One feature they all do seem to agree on, and implement is the use of a high-performance graphic processor, or GPU. GPUs are not only superior for floating point operations needed in graphics but also for the parallel inference operations required by AI. The GPU that almost all AI at the edge implementations are focusing on is the NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPU (Figure 1).

The A100 implements seven GPU cores per unit and offers up to 2 terabytes per second of memory bandwidth.

Figure 1: The NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPU provides up to 20X higher performance over the prior generation and can be partitioned into seven GPU instances to dynamically adjust to shifting demands. It is available in 40GB and 80GB memory versions.

Deep learning and AI algorithms depend highly on parallel processing and the A100 can implement up to 384 NVIDIA(r) CUDA(r) cores, which harness the increase in parallel processing power of the GPU for distributed algorithms where each unit works independent of other units and the results are combined and coordinated to produce complex decisions and inference results. It is also largely becoming the processor of choice in actual data center implementations. That opens a world of portable and easily adaptable software.

Enter the OSS Rigel System First the major news: One Stop Systems has managed to fit a fully functional 4-GPU system with networking, storage, and power supply into a 4U air-cooled ruggedized package, two of which mounted side-by-side take up a single rack width (Figure 2). Named the Rigel Edge Supercomputer, the result can be called “AI on the Fly.” The 4U chassis is divided into three layers.

The bottom power layer contains two redundant power supplies: 2 each of a 24V 1300 W supply and 2 each of a 54V 2000W supply for a total of 3300 Watts supply. Each of these has several external connection possibilities to accommodate different application installation scenarios. The extended vehicular input power range includes 48 to 270 VDC, 110 to 220 VAC, and three-phase power at 400-800Hz. The bottom power layer alone presents its own cooling challenges, which will be addressed by the overall fan/fan control system.

The middle layer is the server layer providing switching services and control for the main GPUs and for the PCIe and network interfaces.

Figure 2: The Rigel Edge Supercomputer from One Stop Systems combines a GPU layer with a Middle Server layer and a bottom power layer in a 4U ½ -width air-cooled chassis.

It uses two Broadcom PEX 88080 switches for a PCIe Gen. 4 Express Fabric matrix. The switches enable I/O sharing with standard SR-IOV or multifunction capability, allowing multiple hosts (such as here, the GPUs) to reside on a single PCIe Fabric topology. Hosts communicate through generic DMA or NT with other standard hosts and end points using application software.

The PCIe networking interfaces and traffic are controlled by an AMD EPYC 7003 series processor which provides a full feature set across the stack with industry leading I/O, 7nm x86 CPU technology, and an integrated security processor on die. That CPU also has access to 512 GBytes of DDR4 dynamic RAM. EPYC 7003

CPUs provide up to 32MBytes of L3 cache per core, 4-6-8 memory channel interleaving designed for better economies and performance in multiple DIMM configurations, plus synchronized clocks between fabric and memory, all driving better, faster, more efficient data flow.

The 7003 in Rigel offers 82 lanes. The result is massive data acquisition bandwidth for large scale sensor data flows up to 32GBytes/sec via PCIe along with high-speed network connectivity up to 800GBits/sec.

The four NVIDIA A100GPUs on a single board represent a monumental concentration of compute power along with a power and heat dissipation challenge, which is solved by the Rigel de-

The PCIe networking interfaces and traffic are controlled by an AMD EPYC 7003 series processor which provides a full feature set across the stack with industry leading I/O, 7nm x86 CPU technology, and an integrated security processor on die.

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sign. The integrated server board with four GPUs can accept high resolution image data from 1600 1Gbit high-resolution sensors, and then process, analyze, and perform Fast Fourier Transforms for frequency domain calculation before converting the data back into the time domain, and storing 264TB. All this at a rate of up to 5 PetaOPS—that’s 5 x 105!

Each of the A100 GPUs has seven Multi-Instance GPU or MIG cores. Those are full physical processor cores for a total of 28. The software-implemented CUDA cores can amount to a total of 384, all directed by the algorithms and fed by the 7003-powered data flow system, which includes the network connected sensors and brings together edge and AI as never before. The combination of the CPU-controlled data traffic, the PCIe-enabled data acquisition, the GPU processing power, and the software implemented massive parallelism combine to make an awesome mix in a small box. It’s that small box that highlights the final achievement of Rigel’s realization of AI on the Fly. And that is AI couldn’t fly if it overheated. Mechanical and thermal design are vital to realizing the size/performance goals of such an ambitious system that is required to work reliably in transportable environments where shock and

Figure 3: Air cooling in the Rigel includes directed air flow over specially designed multi-level heat sinks for the GPUs as well as directed flow over all three layers.

vibration are a given. These include autonomous vehicles and government aircraft where they are deployed under a seat or in a utility/trunk area.

For mobility and use in fixed installations, they need to fit standard equipment racks as well as transit cases—all with sufficient power access and cooling (Figure 3).

The fans used are 80x38mm and are specifically offset from the chassis centerline to align with the heat sink inlets. Sheet metal ducting is used to even more effectively direct air flow. Current design data indicates that providing 50 CFM or more to the GPU inlet would be sufficient to cool the 500 W GPU at an ambient temperature of 35C under constant max power draw. This is some-

thing that many experts were skeptical about but was possible.

The Rigel design is also forward looking in the sense that it uses the already widely implemented NVIDIA and ASRock/AMD Gen4 technology, which makes it readily scalable to Gen5 and Gen6. It is also pre-fitted out-of-the box with simple set up and unified management GUI that allows ready access to both hardware and software upgrades. This is in line with the demands of information officers for a “single pane of glass” monitoring and management system supporting the most recent APIs such as Redfish for a truly software defined datacenter. AI on the Fly is now ready to take off.

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SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT

MOSA Standards Gain Momentum in the Market

By John Reardon, Editor SOSA announces SOSA 1.0 If you are still trying to figure out what the 3rd “C” in C4ISR is, this is for you. Acronyms should not slow you down as they are prevalent and many still in use have lost their original meaning.

An example that comes to mind is the VME International Trade Association that we now refer to as VITA. The ideas are to introduce you to some new standards, why they came about, and their importance to the segments of the market they address.

The idea of an open standard is nothing new and has throughout history been driven by the idea of inoperability, lowering costs, and broadening the availability to multiple sources. History is littered with Open Standards that never reached critical mass or found themselves not advancing with the times. It is tempting to go through the history of architectures such as Multibus, Versabus, VME, G64, Futurebus, Compact PCI along with the many others to review what

precipitated their rise and fall, but we should probably look to the future.

The move today to an open standard is very similar to the needs of history, but with one important distinction. In the past, the vendor community would join ranks and create an open standard that they felt might best advance their companies profit motives. This created debates about connectors, CPU choices, and other features that were at times politically charged to advance a companies IP expertise. Today users within the Department of Defense and to a lesser degree the vendors are driven by the application to employ advanced architectures that are SWAP-C optimized.

This inverted style has challenged the norms and has created a whole new library of open standards described within MOSA or Modular Open Systems Approach. The idea is to address the applicational needs of the modern, joint

Figure 1: Annapolis Microsystems announces The WILD100 7-Slot 3U OpenVPX SOSA-Aligned Chassis (WC3170) is a COTS benchtop 3U VPX Chassis and Backplane that was specifically designed to economically speed the development of SOSA-aligned 100Gb Ethernet boards and systems.

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domain battlefield with advanced open architectures that are defined and proven. To cherry-pick those that are optimized to the applicational needs of the market.

But before we get ahead of ourselves let’s look at the MOSA. MOSA is not by itself a technical standard. It should be thought of as a technical and acquisition strategy for the future warfighter.

A few years ago, the DoD issued a memorandum entitled “Modular Open Systems Approaches for our Weapon Systems is a Warfighting Imperative.” Within the memo, it described how vital to our success the use of open standards would be. It went on to mandate that MOSA supporting standards be included in all future requirements for weapon systems. Now by itself, this is not too earth-shaking as it was vague on details and seemingly stated the obvious advantages of adopting an open architecture for defense compute platforms. But things accelerated quickly as several supporting standards began to address the specific applicational needs. These are: SOSA – The Open Group Sensor Open System Architecture FACE – Future Airborne Capability Environment VICTORY – Vehicular Integration for C4ISR/ EW Interoperability CMOSS – C5ISR/EW Modular Open Suite of Standards GVA – Generic Vehicle Architecture HOST – Hardware Open Systems Technologies MORA – Modular Open Radio Frequency Architecture OMS/UCI – Open Mission Systems/Universal Command and Control Interface In developing MOSA and the underlying standards, starting from a white sheet of paper to re-create the wheel was not seen as a winning strategy. What was decided is that they would draw upon industry standards already in existence to rally the best possible. This strategy seemed sound enough when determining an in-

The Future Airborne Capability Environment addresses the same need for open standards to support inoperability for lower costs of implementation.

terconnect, but in addressing a bus architecture or form factor, the political landscape had the potential to grow exponentially. It is unclear how disputes about future iterations of a standard will be decided. Will the MOSA Technical working groups mandate future feature sets to the underlying standards group, or will a harmonious relation emerge?

On the other side of the equation, is the adoption across all services. The needs of the Space Force are significantly different attributes than those of the Navy. Will the ability of the standards to draw from a plethora of proven standards take the day, or will this be their downfall?

The idea that the delta of applicational needs from one space to other leads to such a diluted standard as to leave it inconsequential. In numerous conversations on the topic, there was no clear consensus. It was clear that the DoD was incorporating MOSA compliance into RFQs, but it wasn’t clear whether the standard definitions would meet the array of applications that need to be addressed.

The importance of SOSA Sensor Open Systems Architecture recently released SOSA 1.0 this past November. Defining a common technical standard defines common software and hardware components for seniors

processing systems at the edge. The standard provides a hardware foundation for the next generation defense capabilities involving Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. In complimenting industry standards such as VITA’s Open VPX, SOSA has found numerous vendors who want to pursue opportunities that require SOSA compliance. Members of SOSA on next page.

Addressing Avionics with FACE The Future Airborne Capability Environment addresses the same need for open standards to support inoperability for lower costs of implementation. Focused specifically on the needs of Aircraft, FACE too has seen several vendors with previous avionics experience, rush to affirm their products followed the new specification.

Green Hills Software, for example, has added Intel® architecture to the certifications of conformance for its INTEGRITY®-178 Time-Variant Unified Multiprocessing (tuMP™) RTOS to FACE Technical Standard edition 3.0. The certification covers both the Safety Base and Security profiles and includes verification for C, C++, and Ada support for both profiles. The INTEGRITY-178 tuMP RTOS was the first software component of any type to be certified conformant to edition 3.0, and this latest certification extends that commitment to open standard certification. Members of FACE on page 23.

Figure 2: General Micro Systems (GMS) Announces “Apex” Dual Intel Xeon® OpenVPX Server Developed in Alignment with SOSA™ Technical Standard.

In Conclusion Open architectures have ebbed and flowed throughout our history as technologies have evolved. For a standard to thrive it must meet the broadest possible set of applications without diluting its technical merit. It must meet the applicational needs of the market without costly and unnecessary features. This same course of action has occurred before with standards such COTS Journal | November 2021

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as ATCA and VME, but not seemingly with the broader support that MOSA is enjoying. In each case, the life cycle of these standards was impacted by a different threat. In the case of ATCA, the specification was so broad and feature-rich, that the average sale price became prohibitive in the market. As for VME, the strength of knowing what it was and wasn’t allowed it to have a long and successful history, but in the end, it fell to the side in favor of technical advancements better suited to a new architecture.

The lofty goals of open standards of the past to become the Swiss Army Knife of the military has had their successes. The ambitious goal of MOSA to address the entire applicational needs of the military space has significant challenges that will be tested as commercial advancements may challenge their direction. Questions as to how systems will evolve at the edge, how Inference-based architectures and Computational Storage will integrate, along with many others, all hang over the traction and longevity of MOSA.

Members of SOSA

Ball Aerospace USA Behlman Electronics USA CACI USA CAES USA Chameleon Consulting Group USA CodeMettle USA Comtel Electronics USA Concurrent Technologies Inc. USA CoreAVI USA COTSWORKS, Inc. USA Critical Frequency Design USA Crossfield Technology USA Cynosure, Inc. USA Dawn VME Products USA Delta Information Systems USA Digital Receiver Technology USA DornerWorks USA DRS Signal Solutions USA EIZO Rugged Solutions USA Elma USA ENSCO Avionics USA EPI USA Epiq Solutions USA FEI-ELCOM TECH, Inc USA FiberQA USA Freedom Power Systems USA General Micro Systems, Inc. USA Georgia Tech Research Institute USA Herrick Technology Laboratories, Inc. USA IDEAS Engineering & Technology USA iRF Solutions USA ITZ, LLC USA Jacobs USA Jovian Software Consulting USA Kontron America USA LCR Embedded Systems, Inc. USA Lead Dog Technologies USA Leidos USA Leonardo Electronics USA Meritec USA Micro Focus (USA) Inc. UK Micropac Industries, Inc. USA Midwest Microwave Solutions USA Milpower Source USA

SOSA Sponsor Members Total members: 9 Air Force Life Cycle Management Center USA Collins Aerospace USA Joint Tactical Networking Center USA Lockheed Martin Corporation USA NAVAIR USA U.S. Space Force Space and Missile Systems Center USA US Army CCDC C5ISR Center USA US Army PEO Aviation USA US Army Project Manager Electronic Warfare and Cyber USA SOSA Principal Members Total number - 17 BAE Systems Inc USA Booz Allen Hamilton USA Cubic Corporation USA Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions USA Elbit Systems of America USA FLIR Systems USA GE Aviation Systems USA General Dynamics Mission Systems USA Huber+Suhner Astrolab USA Intel Corporation USA L3Harris USA Mercury Systems USA Northrop Grumman Corporation USA Raytheon Technologies USA Sierra Nevada Corporation USA SRC, Inc. USA VadaTech USA SOSA Associate Members Total number - 100 Abaco Systems USA Acromag, Inc. USA Aegis Power Systems USA AirBorn, Inc. USA Aitech Defense Systems, Inc USA Amphenol USA Ampro ADLINK Technology, Inc USA Anduril Industries USA Annapolis Micro Systems Inc. USA AREA-I, Inc. USA Ascendant Engineering Solutions LLC USA Atrenne USA 22

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Figure 3: Systel Successfully Demonstrates AiTR Rugged Computing Capabilities at U.S. Army Project Convergence Event

Motorola Solutions Inc. USA New Wave DV USA North Atlantic Industries, Inc USA NVIDIA USA Orion Technologies, LLC USA Orolia Defense & Security USA PacStar USA Parry Labs, LLC USA Pentek USA Perspecta Labs, Inc. USA Pixus Technologies USA QRC Technologies USA RADA Technologies USA Radiall USA, Inc. USA Rantec USA Real-Time Innovations, Inc. USA Red Rock Technologies USA REDCOM Laboratories USA Riverside Research USA RTD Embedded Technologies, Inc. USA Saab, Inc. USA Samtec, Inc. USA Sciens Innovations USA ScioTeq USA Sealevel Systems USA Skayl LLC USA Smiths Interconnect USA Southwest Research Institute USA Spectranetix, Inc USA Spirent Federal Systems USA SR Technologies USA StreamDSP, LLC USA Systel, Inc. USA TE Connectivity Corporation USA Technology Service Corporation USA Tektronix USA Telephonics USA Tomahawk Robotics USA Tucson Embedded Systems, Inc. USA University of Dayton Research Institute USA ViaSat, Inc. USA VITA USA W.L. Gore & Associates USA Wolf Advanced Technology USA

Members of FACE

FACE Sponsor Forum Members List Total members: 8 Air Force Life Cycle Management Center USA Boeing USA Collins Aerospace USA Joint Tactical Networking Center USA Lockheed Martin Corporation USA NAVAIR USA Raytheon Technologies USA US Army PEO Aviation USA FACE Principal Members Total number - 20 AdaCore USA AeroVironment, Inc. USA Bell USA Cubic Corporation USA Elbit Systems of America USA FLIR Systems USA GE Aviation Systems USA General Dynamics Mission Systems USA Green Hills Software USA Honeywell Aerospace USA IBM USA L3Harris USA Mercury Systems USA Northrop Grumman Corporation USA Parry Labs, LLC USA Raytheon Technologies USA Sierra Nevada Corporation USA Sikorsky Aircraft USA US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation and Missile Center USA Wind River Systems USA

EXB Solutions USA GaN Corporation USA General Atomics USA General Micro Systems, Inc. USA Infinite Dimensions Integration, Inc. USA Integrated Solutions for Systems, Inc. USA Inter-Coastal Electronics, LLC USA ITZ, LLC USA Jovian Software Consulting USA Kearfott Corporation USA KIHOMAC, Inc USA LDRA Technology USA Leidos USA Leonardo Electronics USA Lynx Software Technologies, Inc. USA Micro Focus (US) Inc. UK Moog, Inc. USA North Atlantic Industries, Inc USA OAR Corporation USA Parasoft USA Performance Software Inc. USA Presagis USA, Inc USA Rapid Imaging Technologies USA Rapita Systems, Inc. USA

RDRTec, Inc. USA Real-Time Innovations, Inc. USA Riverside Research USA Rogerson Kratos USA SAIC USA Skayl LLC USA Southwest Research Institute USA Terma North America Inc. USA Textron Systems Unmanned Systems USA Thales Avionics USA Trideum Corporation USA TTTech North America Inc. USA Tucson Embedded Systems, Inc. USA Twin Oaks Computing USA United Electronic Industries USA University of Dayton Research Institute USA Vector North America USA Verocel, Inc. USA ViaSat, Inc. USA wolfSSL USA Zodiac Data Systems USA

FACE Associate Members Total number - 63 Abaco Systems USA Adventium Labs USA Aitech Defense Systems, Inc USA Alta Data Techologies USA Ampro ADLINK Technology, Inc. USA ANSYS USA Avalex Technologies USA Avilution, LLC USA BAE Systems Controls Inc USA Carnegie Mellon University, Software Engineering Institute USA CoreAVI USA Craft Designs USA CS Communication & Systems USA CTSi USA Cyient, Inc. USA DDC-I, Inc. USA Draper Lab USA ENSCO Avionics USA COTS Journal | November 2021

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November 2021

COT’S PICKS Avnet Edge AI Development Kit Enables High-Performance Edge Processing with Low-power On-chip Accelerators The kit features Avnet Embedded’s SMARC computing platform based on NXP’s i.MX.8M Plus, a 10.1-inch touch display, and a dual-camera vision board supporting interchangeable IAS camera modules Avnet’s new development kit enables OEM design engineers to deploy autonomous artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to embedded applications, thereby reducing or eliminating the dependency on cloud connectivity or processing. The Avnet Edge AI Development Kit features Avnet Embedded’s robust SMARC Computer-on-module (COM), based on NXP’s i.MX 8M Plus applications processor, combined with a production-ready SimpleFlex Carrier and a long-term available 10.1 touch display, provides a cost-effective, high-performance computing solution for machine learning (ML) edge applications. Rounding out the kit is a dual camera vision board that can support single or dual IAS camera modules based on onsemi image sensors.

The hardware is compliant with the new SMARC 2.1.1 module standard. The embedded computing solution fits within compact external dimensions of 146mm (h) x 80mm (w) and is suitable for operation over a -40C to +85C industrial temperature range.

“This new Edge AI development kit allows designers to augment existing applications with new features like face recognition, voice command processing, and other compute-intensive machine learning algorithms while still bringing their applications to market quickly,” said Jim Beneke, vice president of Products and Emerging Technologies. “Our new kit enables advanced AI and ML applications to run faster at the edge through the power-efficient neural processing unit (NPU) included in NXP’s i.MX 8M Plus MPU. This also enables more autonomous systems where cloud connectivity is not required or can supplement the system’s capabilities with higher-level functions.”

NXP

“Avnet Embedded is a Gold Partner with with many years of design experience designing and manufacturing

computing modules to industry standards,” said Tim Jensen, senior director of product innovation at Avnet Embedded. “The SMARC module hardware, which is designed and created inhouse by Avnet Embedded, unlocks a vast array of potential for designers to leverage a system built on our in-house expertise.”

Along with the kit, Avnet provides example applications that leverage the NXP i.MX 8M Plus NPU core, with 2.25 TOPS of performance, to accelerate deep learning neural network inference and delivery of better performance for practical applications like face recognition for access control lockout.

“The i.MX 8M Plus applications processor, with its compute resources, connectivity options and especially with the dedicated NPU accelerator, is ideal to deploy machine learning applications for secure and accurate decision-making at the edge,” said Ali Osman Ors, director of AI Machine Learning Strategy and Technologies at NXP. “With the i.MX 8M Plus applications processor and the Avnet Edge AI Development Kit, we are supporting and enabling our customers to move to the ‘intelligent’ edge.”

“Fast time to market is an essential business need for emerging vision applications,” said Guy Nicholson, marketing director, industrial and commercial sensing division at onsemi. “The onsemi IAS module ecosystem has brought the mobile-style image sensor format to the broad industrial market. Through our collaboration with NXP and Avnet, we are now also providing a platform for camera system OEMs to rapidly develop and get to production with an industry-leading AI and machine learning solution.”

Avnet Embedded https://embedded.avnet.com

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November 2021

COT’S PICKS RadioWaves Adds New GPS/GNSS Timing Antennas

RadioWaves, an Infinite Electronics brand has just released a new series of GPS/GNSS timing antennas that cover L1 and L5 GPS bands RadioWaves’ new series of GPS/GNSS timing antennas provide a top-of-the-line axial ratio and higher accuracy for the reception of satellite timing signals and reference frequencies for enhanced phase synchronization in precision network deployments.

of less than 1.8:1 and are compatible with several existing mounting brackets. In addition, these fully ruggedized, weather-sealed antennas are IP67 compliant and perfect for use in outdoor and marine environments.

These antennas come equipped with built-in surge protection and support a wide range of GNSS including GPS, GLONASS, BEIDOU, GALILEO, and IRIDIUM. Increased position accuracy in densely populated urban areas, flexible installation, and improved system security make RadioWaves’ latest antenna offering a critical system component.

The high gain, low noise figure of 2 dB, and high out-of-band rejection provided by these antennas allow for the use of longer and cost-effective cables for easy and flexible installs. They also feature a VSWR

“Our timing antennas with dual feed and dual-band capability provide top-of-the-line axial ratio and higher accuracy for the reception of satellite timing signals and reference frequencies for use in advanced network applications. These rugged out-

Seeq Announces Expanded Microsoft Azure Machine Learning Support

frontline OT employees can enhance their decision-making and improve production, sustainability indicators, and business outcomes.

New Seeq Azure Add-on feature enables rapid deployment of Azure Machine Learning algorithms to frontline plant employees Seeq Corporation announced additional integration support for Microsoft Azure Machine Learning. This new Seeq Azure Add-on announced at Microsoft Ignite 2021, an annual conference for developers and IT professionals hosted by Microsoft, enables process manufacturing organizations to deploy machine learning models from Azure Machine Learning as Addons in Seeq Workbench. The result is machine learning algorithms and innovations developed

by IT departments can be operationalized so

Seeq customers include companies in the oil & gas, pharmaceutical, chemical, energy, mining, food and beverage, and other process industries. Investors in Seeq, which has raised over $100M to date, include Insight Ventures, Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures, Altira Group, Chevron Technology Ventures, and Cisco Investments.

Seeq’s strategy for enabling machine learning innovations provides end-users with access to algorithms from a variety of sources, including open-source, third-party, and internal data science teams. With the new Azure Machine Learning integration, data science teams can

door antennas are suitable for use in all outdoor and marine environments,” said Kevin Hietpas, Antenna Product Line Manager.

RadioWaves www.radiowaves.com

develop models using Azure Machine Learning Studio and then publish them using the Seeq Azure Add-ons feature, available this week on GitHub. Using Seeq Workbench, frontline employees with domain expertise can easily access these models, validate them by overlaying near real-time operational data with the model results and provide feedback to the data science team. This enables an iterative set of interactions between IT and OT employees, accelerating time to insight for both groups while creating the continuous improvement loop necessary to sustain the full lifecycle of machine learning operations.

“Seeq and Azure Machine Learning are critical and complementary solutions for a successful machine learning model lifecycle,” says Megan Buntain, Director of Cloud Partnerships at Seeq. “By capitalizing on IT and OT users’ strengths, the Seeq Azure Add-on expands the Seeq experience and creates new opportunities for organizations to scale up model deployment and development.”

Along with increased access to machine learning models through this integration, Seeq’s self-service applications enable frontline employees to perform ad hoc analyses and use the models themselves, rather than rely on an IT team member for support. As the models yield results, Seeq empowers users to scale them across the organization to improve asset reliability, production monitoring, optimization, and sustainability.

Seeq Corporation www.seeq.com

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November 2021

COT’S PICKS Supermicro Enhances Broadest Portfolio of Edge to Cloud AI Systems with Accelerated Inferencing and New Intelligent Fabric Support

Super Micro Computer, Inc. announces the enhancement of the broadest portfolio of Artificial Intelligence (AI) GPU servers which integrate new NVIDIA Ampere-family GPUs, including the NVIDIA A100, A30, and A2.

Supermicro’s latest NVIDIA-Certified Systems deliver ten times more AI inference performance than previous generations, ensuring that AI-enabled applications such as Image Classification, Object Detection, Reinforcement Learning, Recommendation, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) can produce faster insights with dramatically lower costs. In addition to inferencing, Supermicro’s powerful selection of A100 HGX 8-GPU and 4-GPU servers delivers three times higher AI training and eight times faster performance on big data analytics compared to previous generation systems.

“Supermicro leads the GPU market with the broadest portfolio of systems optimized for any workload, from the edge to the cloud,” said Charles Liang, president, and CEO of Supermicro. “Our total solution for cloud gaming delivers up to 12 single-width GPUs in one 2U 2-node system for superior density and efficiency. In addition, Supermicro also just introduced the new Universal GPU Platform to integrate all major CPU, GPU, and fabric and cooling solutions.”

The Supermicro E-403 server is ideal for distributed AI inferencing applications, such as traffic control and office building environmental conditions. Supermicro Hyper-E edge servers bring unprecedented inferencing to the edge with up to three A100 GPUs per system. Supermicro can now deliver complete IT solutions that accelerate collaboration among engineering and design professionals, including NVIDIA-Certified servers, storage, networking switches, and NVIDIA Enterprise 26

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Omniverse software for professional visualization and collaboration.

“Supermicro’s wide range of NVIDIA-Certified Systems are powered by the complete portfolio of NVIDIA Ampere architecture-based GPUs,” said Ian Buck, vice president and general manager of Accelerated Computing at NVIDIA. “This provides Supermicro customers top-of-the-line performance for every type of modern-day AI workflow —- from inference at the edge to high-performance computing in the cloud and everything in between.”

Supermicro’s powerful data center 2U and 4U GPU (Redstone, Delta) systems will be the first to market supporting the new Quantum-2 InfiniBand product line and the BlueField DPUs. The NVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBand solution includes high-bandwidth, ultra-low latency adapters, switches and cables, and comprehensive software for delivering the highest data center performance, which runs across the broad Supermicro product line.

The Quantum-2 InfiniBand-based systems will provide 400 Gb/s, 2X higher bandwidth per

port, increased switch density, and 32X higher AI acceleration per switch than the previous generation of InfiniBand communication adapters and switches and offer both Intel or AMD processor support.

With hybrid work environments becoming the norm, new technologies are required to ensure a workforce’s technical parity. The combination of NVIDIA’s Omniverse Enterprise and Supermicro GPU servers will transform complex 3D workflows, resulting in infinite iterations and faster time-tomarket for a wide range of innovative products. In addition, NVIDIA’s Omniverse Enterprise, and AI Enterprise on VMware for integrating AI into their enterprise workflows, are optimized and tested on Supermicro’s NVIDIA-Certified Systems, enabling geographically diverse teams to work together seamlessly.

Super Micro Computer, Inc. www.supermicro.com

Pixus Offers 1U High Chassis With Dual AC Input and Chassis Monitoring Pixus Technologies has announced a new option for its 1U high OpenVPX, CompactPCI, and VME64x enclosures for power and monitoring.

The 1U chassis supports various configurations of 3U/6U OpenVPX, or 6U CompactPCI, or VME64x backplanes. The enclosure provides dual, non-redundant AC inputs with 12V power which can be converted to 5V and 3.3V as well. A chassis monitor is located in the rear of the chassis to report the status of the voltages, fans, and temperature. The data is accessible via a USB interface and the unit sets one of three relays if an event occurs.

The Pixus 1U chassis supports Rear Transition Modules (RTMs) and various backplane configurations. Card guides for conduction-cooled boards are available. Pixus offers backplane/chassis systems in commercial, development, and MIL rugged formats. The company also provides IEEE and Eurocard components for the embedded computer market.

Pixus Technologies https://pixustechnologies. com

November 2021

COT’S PICKS V1161 Programmable 100G Ethernet XMC ACAP Card

The V1161 is a next-generation high performance embedded computing XMC featuring the Xilinx® Versal™ Adaptive Compute Acceleration Platform (ACAP), the NVIDIA® Mellanox® ConnectX®-5 (MCX5) network interface device, and rugged optical and electrical IO options. The V1161 is specifically targeted at applications requiring a combination of high-speed interfaces, network offloads, and onboard payload processing resources. Use cases include sensor interface design with on-board data processing (or pre-processing), multi-level secure networking, and protocol bridging applications.

Radar, SIGINT, video, storage, medical imaging, and embedded communications systems all can benefit from the V1161 module.

Electrical I/O via Pn6 is also available.

• Xilinx® Versal® ACAP (FPGA) • NVIDIA® Mellanox® ConnectX®-5 Network Interface Device • Hardware offloads for UDP, TCP, RoCE v2, DPDK, GPUDirect, NVMEoF, +more • Supports PCIe Gen4 x16, Gen4 x8, Gen3 x16, Gen3 x8

• Onboard embedded PCIe Switch device • Advanced APIs that support multi-core and multi-processor architectures • Wide range of operating system software support New Wave DV https://newwavedv.com/

The V1161 is a proven high-bandwidth and low-latency performance leader in 10/25/40/100Gbs Ethernet applications. The V1161 includes hardware offloads for UDP, TCP, RoCE v2, DPDK, GPUDirect, NVMEoF, and many other protocol stacks. The combination of the MC-X5 device and the ACAP device allows for system designers to leverage the off-the-shelf world-class Ethernet performance while deploying unique data processing and security algorithms in the onboard ACAP device. This combination maximizes the effectiveness of the deployed algorithms while eliminating design efforts required to establish high bandwidth Ethernet, PCIe controllers, efficient DMA engines, or low overhead software drivers.

In addition to the Ethernet interfaces described, the FPGA fabric provided within the ACAP part is capable of hosting New Wave DV IP cores for Fibre Channel, ARINC-818, sFPDP, Aurora, and others.

This makes the V1161 an ideal hardware platform for mixed interface protocol needs or protocol bridging applications.

The convenient XMC form factor and rugged design of the V1161 can turn a VPX-based single-board computer into a single-slot sensor interface and heterogeneous computing solution. The V1161 mounted on an x86 based single board computer will provide 100G optical interfaces, FPGA fabric, ARM processor cores, and x86 processor cores all in a single slot solution. V1161 is also available from New Wave DV in a 3U VPX form-factor instead of XMC if desired.

FEATURES • Up to eight (8) 1G to 25G optical ports via MPO front panel I/O or VITA 66 optical backplane I/O. COTS Journal | November 2021

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November 2021

COT’S PICKS congatec and MATRIX VISION present PCIe based high-speed vision technology

congatec and MATRIX VISION will showcase their new SMARC Computer-on-Module platform with PCI Express (PCIe) based camera module extension for the first time at Vision in Stuttgart. With no overhead and no need for additional interfaces such as GbE, USB, or MIPI CSI, image data are written directly into the RAM of the SMARC module with virtually no latency and higher bandwidth [1]. MATRIX VISION’s Sony Pregius sensor-based camera modules deliver image data to congatec’s Intel Atom processor-based SMARC module at speeds of up to 226.5 frames per second (FPS) and with 1.6-megapixel resolution. Such high-speed transmission enables hard real-time at clock rates of approximately 4 milliseconds. This clocking is also a great fit for actuator commands over TSN (Time-Sensitive Networking) based Ethernet, which provides hard real-time at clock rates <1 millisecond. Typical use cases are found in industrial machine vision applications in electronics and semiconductor manufacturing, the automotive industry, food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, packaging, and printing. Other markets include healthcare, intelligent transportation systems (ITS), as well as airport security and surveillance systems.

“PCIe-based camera implementations are predestined for ultra-low-latency, high-speed, real-time vision applications. One reason is that – unlike GbE, USB or MIPI – there is no overhead in the protocol.

Secondly, the interface is always natively supported by the processor, which is not always the case with GbE, USB, or MIPI,” explains Martin Danzer, Director Product Management at congatec.

“The ability to use multiple lanes in parallel makes PCIe performance highly scalable across multi-camera system solutions while keeping overall system costs low. PCIe also offers high investment security into the future as this bus is inextricably linked to the x86 processor bus,” explains Uwe Hagmaier, Head of R&D at MATRIX VISION. The live demo, which can operate with up to four camera modules, is designed for SMARC modules with Intel Atom, Intel Pentium, and Intel Celeron processors (code names Elkhart Lake and Apollo Lake). Variants featuring NXP i.MX8 M Plus processor-based SMARC modules are also available. The MATRIX VISION mvBlueNAOS camera module family uses the latest global shutter sensors from the Sony Pregius and Pregius S series. Providing high image quality, small pixel sizes, and high transfer 28

COTS Journal | November 2021

rates, they are a perfect fit for this camera platform.

To support the various processor architectures available on SMARC, a mvIMPACT Acquire SDK is part of the package. The GenICam GenTL producer ensures compatibility with existing developments and guarantees a smooth switch between different hardware platforms. Additional packages for LabVIEW, DirectShow, VisionPro, and Halcon are also available.

Developers interested in evaluating the PCIe vision cards of the mvBlueNAOS family in combination with congatec SMARC modules based on Intel Atom, Intel Pentium, and Intel Celeron processors as well as NXP i.MX8 M Plus processors can choose between 6 different camera models with resolutions ranging from 1.6 MP (1456 x 1088) to 24.6 MP (5328 x 4608) and frame rates from 226.5 to 24.1 FPS. congatec www.congatec.com

November 2021

COT’S PICKS Marvin Test Solutions Announces New 16-Channel PXI Device Power Supply (DPS) Unique High-Density Flex-Power Architecture Offers High Performance and Multi-Channel Configuration Flexibility Marvin Test Solutions, Inc. announced the release of the new GX3116e, 16-Channel Device Power Supply (DPS) / Source Measure Unit (SMU).

The GX3116e DPS is the highest density, most flexible multichannel semiconductor device power supply solution available. The true 4-quadrant operation, isolated outputs, ganging capabilities for higher current, and extensive health monitoring and alarms make this the ideal solution for a multitude of semiconductor test applications.

Kelvin connection sensing on a per-channel basis ensures that the Device Under Test (DUT) receives the expected excitation levels, independent of cabling and other interconnects, while over-current sensing and programmable alarms

protect the device under test. Electrically isolated outputs, grouped in banks of eight channels, can be ganged together to achieve higher current levels, and both banks can be ganged together to extend the total overall output current.

“This latest addition to our Semiconductor product portfolio delivers the performance and flexibility that our customers demand their evolving semiconductor test needs,” said Major General Stephen T. Sargeant, USAF (Ret.), CEO of Marvin Test Solutions. “The GX3116e combines unmatched channel density with exceptional source/measure performance, making it ideal for a wide range of current and emerging semiconductor test applications.”

The GX3116e is supplied with a full-featured virtual instrument panel that can be used to interactively program and control the instrument, as well as full documentation and online help files.

We also deliver GtLinux, a software package providing support for Linux 32/64 operating systems.

Marvin Test Solutions, Inc. www.marvintest.com

COTS Journal | November 2021

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November 2021

COT’S PICKS Fungible Advances Data Center Economics by Simplifying Secure Disaggregation of High-Performance Scale-Out Flash Storage Using Open Standards

Fungible Inc. announced it is adding new capabilities and products to its Fungible Storage Cluster product portfolio. The Fungible Storage Initiator (SI) cards allow standard servers to access NVMe over TCP (NVMe/TCP) storage targets using the world’s fastest and most efficient implementation of NVMe/ TCP, provide enhancements to the security and usability of the entire data platform, and make deploying NVMe/TCP effortless in existing data centers.

Data centers have harbored inefficiencies for decades. Silos of resources create stranded capacity, while at the same time creating overhead for managing each silo independently. While silos have proliferated due to the unique needs of each application, workloads have also grown more and more data-centric. This has fueled the accelerated growth of infrastructure spending, while generalized hardware has become less effective at meeting the needs of these modern workloads.

Fungible has answered these challenges by creating the world’s most powerful Data Processing Unit, the Fungible DPU™, a new category of processor

purpose-built for data-centric workloads. Fungible offers technology to unlock the capacity stranded in silos by disaggregating these resources into pools, and composing them on-demand to meet the dynamic resourcing needs of modern applications.

While pooled storage has long been an answer to eliminating local storage silos, it is typically implemented at the expense of performance. This tradeoff is no longer necessary. Built to run on standard NVMe/TCP, The Fungible Storage Cluster enables the benefits of pooled storage without sacrificing performance. Now, with the announcement of Fungible’s Storage Initiator, NVMe/TCP is even easier to adopt, easier to deploy, and even more powerful.

The Fungible Storage Initiator solution is delivered on Fungible’s FC200, FC100, and FC50 cards.

Each of these cards is powered by the S1 Fungible DPU, and a single FC200 card is capable of delivering a record-breaking 2.5 million IOPS to its host.

These cards, and the Fungible Storage Cluster, are managed by Fungible Composer™, which orchestrates the composition of disaggregated data center resources on demand.

Fungible’s SI solution offers a hardware-accelerated, high-performance approach to disaggregating storage from servers. The SI cards are available in a standard PCIe form-factor, allowing effortless deployment into existing servers. The cards manage all NVMe/TCP communication for the host and in turn

present native NVMe devices to the host operating system using standard NVMe drivers. This approach enables interoperability with operating systems that do not natively support NVMe/TCP. When paired with a Fungible FS1600 or other non-Fungible NVMe/TCP storage targets, the SI cards enhance the performance, security, and efficiency of those environments as well as providing the world’s highest performance implementation of standards-based NVMe/TCP. The benefits of the Fungible Storage Initiator solution include: Simplicity - Allows modern data center compute servers to finally get rid of ALL local storage, even boot drives, allowing the complete disaggregation of storage from servers.

Security - Seamless, high-performance, multitenant encryption of data from the moment it is first transmitted over the network through its lifetime retention on the Fungible storage target.

Flexibility - Expands the usability of NVMe/TCP to a broader set of customer environments, even those without native NVMe/TCP support.

Savings and Performance - Offloads the processing of NVMe/TCP from the host, freeing up approximately 30% of the general-purpose CPU cores to run applications. This provides significant cost and environmental savings to customers.

“With our high-performance and low-latency implementation, Fungible’s disaggregated NVMe/ TCP solution becomes a game-changer. Over the last five years, we have designed our products to support NVMe/TCP natively to revolutionize the economics of deploying flash storage in scale-out implementations,” said Eric Hayes, CEO of Fungible. “In addition to industry-leading performance, our solutions offer more value and the highest levels of security, compression, efficiency, durability, and ease of use. At Fungible, we continue to disrupt the traditional rigid models by disaggregating compute and storage using available industry standards like NVMe/TCP.” “NVMe/TCP is rapidly gaining adoption and is a key driver in storage innovation today,” said Ashish Nadkarni, Group Vice President, Infrastructure Systems, Platforms, and Technologies Group at IDC. “It excels in highly demanding and compute-intensive enterprise, cloud and edge data center environments. Companies, such as Fungible, are leveraging NVMe/TCP to deliver the highest throughput, fastest response times, and unrivaled economics for all types of workloads.”

Fungible Inc. www.fungible.com

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COTS Journal | November 2021

COTS COTS

ADVERTISERS

Company Page # Website Annapolis Micro Systems ........................................ 27 ........................................ www.annapmicro.com Diamond Systems ................................................... 15/29

................................. www.diamondsystems.com

GET Engineering .................................................... .

IFC

............................................... www.getntds.com

Great River Technology ...........................................

4

..................................... www.greatrivertech.com

Holo Industries ......................................................

5

................................................ www.holoind.com

Pentek ..................................................................

BC

................................................. www.pentek.com

Per Vices Corporation ............................................

18

................................................ www.pervices.com

Index

PICO Electronics, Inc ............................................. 9/IBC ..................................... www.picoelectronics.com Pixus Technologies .................................................

23

................................ www.pixustechnologies.com

Sealevel .................................................................

12 ................................................ www.sealevel.com

SECO ...................................................................... 19

..................................................... www.seco.com

Versalogic .............................................................. IBC

............................................. www.versalogic.com

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