Embedded Computing

WASHINGTON, 20 Feb. 2012. The U.S. Air Force's plan to upgrade the Lockheed Martin C-5 Galaxy cargo jet with new avionics and new engines is among the top defense systems upgrades and technology-insertion priorities for the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) 2013 budget request submitted to Congress last week. The Air Force C-5M Super Galaxy project is part of the $14.44 billion that DOD officials plan to spend for systems upgrades and technology insertion next year, according to DOD budget documents.

SINGAPORE, 20 Feb. 2012. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner, now traveling through the Asia-Pacific region in the third segment of its worldwide Dream Tour, sports the Brake Control and Antiskid System from Crane Aerospace & Electronics in Lynnwood, Wa. Crane’s Brake Control and Monitoring System on the 787 combines the company’s brake control and antiskid technologies, SmartStem wireless tire pressure sensing, and brake temperature monitoring into a single system.

HIAWATHA, Iowa, 15 Feb. 2012. Crystal Group Inc in Hiawatha, Iowa, is introducing the RE0412 rugged embedded computer for airborne and ground-mobile applications in which performance, ruggedness, and reliability are imperative. The RE0412 features an Intel mini-ITX board, i3 (Desktop) CPU, DC power inputs from 18 to 36 volts DC, one fan for air-over-components cooling with 8000-hour mean time between failures, and conformal coating options for humidity protection.

SUNNYVALE, Calif., 15 Feb. 2012. Real-Time Innovations (RTI) in Sunnyvale, Calif., is introducing the RTI Connext family of software-engineering tools to connect real-time software applications across an enterprise. RTI Connext is a service-oriented architecture (SOA) tool designed to help provide enterprise-wide integration to improve efficiency, responsiveness, and real-time business intelligence, RTI officials say.

WASHINGTON, 14 Feb. 2012. Officials of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) plan to spend at least $5.78 billion to buy and develop unmanned vehicles and unmanned vehicle payloads next year, according to data in the Pentagon's budget documents released this week. This figure is down 13.14 percent from the same levels of spending this year, and is down 16.9 percent from unmanned vehicles procurement and research in 2011.

THE MIL & AERO VIDEO BLOG, 14 Feb. 2012. The Pentagon's proposed 2013 budget may not be the best news for military platforms like new plans, ships, and tanks, but among the brightest opportunities for aerospace and defense electronics suppliers involves military systems upgrades and technology insertion, with several new contracts and solicitations issued recently, reports John Keller this week in the Mil & Aero Video Blog.

DALLAS, 13 Feb. 2012. Eurocopter announced its newest helicopter and latest addition to the company’s lightweight single-engine product line, the EC130 T2, designed to offer comfort, operational performance, and versatility. The EC130 T2, revealed during a curtain-dropping, well-attended ceremony at Heli-Expo 2012, already boasts seven launch customers for the rotary-wing aircraft with a total of 105 bookings.

DALLAS, 13 Feb. 2012. The new Bell 525 Relentless super-medium helicopter, unveiled by Bell Helicopter, a Textron Inc. company (NYSE:TXT), during Heli-Expo 2012 in Dallas, features a state-of-the-art flight deck, ARC Horizon, that takes advantage of the Garmin G5000H integrated avionics suite. Larry D. Roberts, senior vice president of Bell Helicopter's Commercial Business characterizes the Horizon flight deck as "one of the most compelling elements of the new Bell 525 Relentless."

MIDDLETON, Wis., 10 Feb. 2012. Extreme Engineering Solutions Inc. (X-ES) is introducing the XPand4201 sub-half ATR forced-air-cooled embedded computing enclosure for conduction-cooled modules in military embedded systems and similar applications like command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; avionics; helicopters; fixed-wing aircraft; and unmanned vehicles.

SEATTLE, 10 Feb. 2012. The Boeing Company in Seattle revealed a team of suppliers that will provide key components for the U.S. Air Force's KC-46A tanker. The aircraft manufacturer won a U.S. Air Force contract valued at more than $30 billion last year.

PRODUCT INTELLIGENCE, 9 Feb. 2012. CompactPCI has been a staple of many military computers for more than fifteen years. The venerable computer bus interconnect was ratified in 1995, and is still used today in applications where size and cost matter more than moving huge volumes of data.

SIDNEY, N.Y., 9 Feb. 2012. Amphenol Aerospace, a provider of interconnect systems, has unveiled a series of rugged, micro-miniature connectors designed to maximize size, weight, and power (SWaP) in high-reliability, harsh environments, as well as to deliver power throughput and consistent coupling by incorporating more electrical connections in a compact form factor. The company’s new 2M Series are available in shell sizes from 5 to 23, weigh 72 percent less and is 52 percent smaller than standard MIL-DTL-38999 connectors, and are intermateable and intermountable with existing micro-miniature, high-density connectors typically used in aerospace and defense applications.

BOHEMIA, N.Y., 8 Feb. 2012. North Atlantic Industries (NAI) in Bohemia, N.Y., is introducing the VPX55-3 3U rugged VPX power electronics device for harsh-environment aerospace and defense applications on land, in the air, and at sea. The VPX55-3 provides as much as 300 Watts of power with six outputs and complies with MIL-STD-704F.

SANTA BARBARA, Calif., 8 Feb. 2012. Green Hills Software in Santa Barbara, Calif., is introducing software- and runtime-development tools for the IBM Cell Broadband Engine Architecture (CBEA), which is a multicore microprocessor that includes a 64-bit Power Architecture processor (PPE) core and eight synergistic processor (SPE) cores that is appropriate for applications like digital signal processing (DSP), graphics, and similar complex computational tasks.

WOBURN, Mass., 6 Feb. 2012. Concurrent Technologies Inc. in Woburn, Mass., is introducing the PP 81x/x9x single-slot air-cooled 6U CompactPCI single-board computer for high-performance systems upgrades that contain earlier generations of 6U CompactPCI embedded computing boards.

MONKS FERRY, U.K., 2 Feb. 2012. The LDRA tool suite from LDRA--maker of standards compliance, automated software verification, source code analysis and test tools--now supports direct integration with Altera’s Embedded Design Suite (EDS) for Nios II soft core processors.

AMBLER, Pa. 2 Feb. 2012. MEN Micro Inc. in Ambler, Pa., is introducing the semi-custom MM2 small computer-on-module (COM) with an application-specific carrier board and upgraded processor for use in industrial, harsh, mobile, and mission-critical environments in applications such as avionics, railway, agricultural and construction machines, medical engineering, and industrial automation.

IRVINE, Calif., 1 Feb. 2012. The United States Air Force has, for its Quantum Enterprise Buy (QEB) program, selected the Getac B300 rugged notebook computer from Getac, maker of rugged computers for field-based applications, and NCS Technologies, a manufacturer of mission-specific computers and some Getac products under a licensing agreement.

SANTA BARBARA, Calif., 1 Feb. 2012. Green Hills Software in Santa Barbara, Calif., is introducing the end-to-end ISS Security Solutions software engineering tools suite for the company's Integrity real-time operating system (RTOS). ISS Security Solutions consists of Suite B-Compliant Security Protocol Toolkits and Device Lifecycle Management (DLM) system.