Daily Briefing: News Snippets INCLUDING: John McHale NGSIS common standards for satellites Field Intelligence COTS for UAVs Mil Tech Insider Military Trends spawn COTS renaissance Legacy Software Migration VOLUME 7 NUMBER 7 RoweBots Research Inc.: EMBEDDED SYSTEMS OCTOBER 2011 Migration sans virtualization MIL-EMBEDDED.COM COTS suppliers see unmanned systems as long-term growth area The U.S. Army’s ability to “see first, shoot second” rolls on with UGVs An interview with Robert Moses, President of iRobot’s Government and Industrial Robots division Also: VPX standard updates The next big thing... ...is much smaller than you’d expect Announcing the AB3000 Rugged Computer The new AB3000 from Ballard Technology is small, lightweight and Small size loaded with capabilities for easy integration into today’s modern Big performance aircraft, UAVs, and ground mobile platforms. 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Smooth Durable Housing Easy hose down; salt fog resistant Installation Flexibility Models for horizontal or vertical mounting The Avionics Databus Innovators AS9100 / ISO 9001 Registered www.ballardtech.com/AB3000 BT_AB3000_Mil-Emb_Full_Pg.indd 1 9/8/2011 1:50:00 PM LF_HMIad_MES_PS1101.pdf 1 08/07/11 4:12 PM STACKED IN YOUR FAVOR ACCELERATE YOUR EMBEDDED GRAPHICS DELIVERY WITH PRE-INTEGRATED SOFTWARE DEVELOPING GRAPHICS ON-TIME AND ON-BUDGET IS KEY FOR MISSION AND SAFETY CRITICAL AVIONICS. PRESAGIS OFF-THE-SHELF SOFTWARE HELPS YOU COMPLY WITH STANDARDS AND SPEEDS DEVELOPMENT OF THE EMBEDDED DISPLAY STACK FOR DELIVERY OF NEXT GENERATION FIXED OR ROTARY WING COCKPIT AVIONICS. VAPS XT, THE LEADING SOFTWARE FOR RAPIDLY DEVELOPING HMI, HAS BEEN CERTIFIED ON MAJOR AIRCRAFT WORLDWIDE. ENGINEERED FOR SAFETY, PERFORMANCE AND CERTIFICATION, SEAWEED SEAWIND DRIVERS FROM PRESAGIS ARE ALSO AIRBORNE AND SUPPORT A WIDE RANGE OF GPUS. LEARN MORE AT WWW.PRESAGIS.COM/EG OR CALL +1-800-361-6424 | +1-514-341-3874 © 2011 PresagisTM Canada Inc. and/or PresagisTM USA Inc. All rights reserved. Presagis, the Presagis logo, Seaweed, SeaWind, and VAPS XT are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Presagis in Canada and/or other countries. All other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners. Special Report: Market watch on DoD COTS 20 COTS vendors, while concerned about extensive DoD budget cuts, see opportunities for retrofits, unmanned systems Military By John McHale Software: Synergy meets out-of-the-box EMBEDDED SYSTEMS thinking October 2011 Volume 7 Number 7 24 The impetus for the Quantum3D product lines acquisition, in one word: “Synergy” Q&A with Ray Niacaris, Director of Operations and COLUMNS Sales at IData Visual Systems Inc., a subsidiary of ENSCO Inc. 28 Enhanced frequency analysis improves data Editor’s Perspective acquisition 8 Creating common standards for satellite By Steve Zachman, NEXTXEN payload designs By John McHale 32 Solving the processor challenges for safety-critical software Field Intelligence By Tim King, DDC-I 12 COTS technologies ready for UAV deployment By Duncan Young Hardware: Data acquisition and display 36 COM Express enables application-specific data Mil Tech Insider acquisition systems 14 Defense trends lead to a COTS renaissance By Earle Foster, Sealevel Systems, Inc. By Steve Edwards 40 Streaming real-time video with CPUs/GPUs Legacy Software Migration By Dr. David G. Johnson, Cambridge Pixel 16 Legacy system migration without virtualization Technology: The ever-expanding By Kim Rowe, RoweBots Research Inc. VPX standard 44 VPX standards keep pace with faster fabrics By Bob Sullivan, Curtiss-Wright Controls Electronic Systems DEPARTMENTS and Ivan Straznicky, Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing 18-19 Daily Briefing: News Snippets 48 Expanding options in VPX connectivity By Sharon Hess By Gregory Powers, TE Connectivity 56-57 Editor’s Choice Products Mil Tech Trends: Robots safeguard soldiers 52 The U.S. Army’s ability to “see first, shoot second” rolls on with UGVs An interview with Robert Moses, President of iRobot’s Government and Industrial Robots division E-CASTS http://ecast.opensystemsmedia.com Planning for Change at the System Level: Interoperable Open Architecture November 9, 2011 • 11:00 a.m. EST EVENTS www.opensystemsmedia.com/events Presented by: Real-Time Innovations, Inc. MILCOM 2011 November 7-10, 2011 • Baltimore, MD www.milcom.org Daily Briefing: News Snippets J o h n Mc H a l e F i e l d I n t e l l i g e n c e Militar y M i l T e c h I n s i d e r Legacy Software Migration ON THE COVER: EMBEDDED SYSTEMS V O L U M E 7 N U M B E R 7 SDR’11 – WInnComm OCTOBER2011 M I L - E M B ECO DM D E D . The Global Hawk Unmanned Aerial Vehicle COTS suppliers see November 29-December 2, 2011 • Washington, DC unmanned systems as (UAV) from Northrop Grumman makes use long-term growth area http://conference.wirelessinnovation.org of Commercial Off-the-Shelf technology. Global Hawk photo courtesy of Northrop Grumman. The U.S. Army’s ability to “see first, shoot second” rolls on with UGVs Published by: An interview with Robert Moses, President of iRobot’s Government and Industrial Robots division Also: VPX standard updates ISSN: Print 1557-3222 All registered brands and trademarks within Military Embedded Systems magazine are the property of their respective owners. © 2011 OpenSystems Media © 2011 Military Embedded Systems 4 October 2011 MILITARY EMBEDDED SYSTEMS ADVERTISER INFORMATION Page Advertiser/Ad title 42 ACCES I/O Products, Inc. – MES Editorial/Production Staff USB embedded I/O solutions 41 AdaCore Technologies – John McHale, Editorial Director Terri Thorson, Senior Editor (columns) Safety, security, reliability [email protected] [email protected] 47 Aitech Defense Systems – NightHawk RCU rugged computer unit Sharon Hess, Managing Editor Steph Sweet, Creative Director 29 Alphi Technology Corporation – [email protected] [email protected] Looking for a MIL-STD-1553 solution for your mission computer Sales Group 5 Annapolis Micro Systems, Inc. – High performance signal and data Patrick Hopper, International Sales processing Vice President Marketing & Sales Elvi Lee, 2 Ballard Technology – The next [email protected] Account Manager – Asia [email protected] best thing Dennis Doyle, 39 Curtiss-Wright Controls Electronic Senior Account Manager Regional Sales Managers Systems – OpenVPX today [email protected] Barbara Quinlan, Midwest/Southwest 60 Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded [email protected] Computing – Speed your time to market Tom Varcie, 17 D-TA Systems – Recording at record Senior Account Manager Denis Seger, Southern California breaking speed [email protected] [email protected] 7 DRS-RSTA Division – The new Rebecca Barker, Sydele Starr, Northern California Tamarisk thermal camera Strategic Account Manager [email protected] 37 Elma Electronic – The leader in profiles [email protected] 50 Elma Electronic – Systems – Ron Taylor, East Coast/Mid Atlantic Hybrid 10 GigE & PCIe networking Eric Henry, [email protected] switches blade level VME and VPX Strategic Account Manager 23 Excalibur Systems, Inc. – Dragon [email protected] Reprints and PDFs 58 Extreme Engineering Solutions – Christine Long, Nan Holliday VPXpert – we’ve earned the title Online Manager 800-259-0470 59 GE Intelligent Platforms, Inc. – [email protected] [email protected] Leadership and experience in avionics bus protocols 13 General Micro Systems, Inc. – OpenSystems Media Editorial/Production Staff Rugged computing systems for OEM 26 Hartmann Elektronik – OpenVPX 9 Hypertronics – Hypertronics rugged connector series Rosemary Kristoff, Sharon Hess, Managing Editor 43 Interface Concept – Switches and Vice President, Editorial VME and Critical Systems IP routers [email protected] 45 LCR Electronics – Military/aerospace Mike Demler, Editorial Director backplanes, enclosures and EMI DSP-FPGA.com Monique DeVoe, Assistant Managing Editor filter solutions [email protected] PC/104 and Small Form Factors DSP-FPGA.com 30 Microhard Systems, Inc. – Joe Pavlat, Editorial Director [email protected] Wireless innovation CompactPCI, AdvancedTCA, 10,11 Microsemi – We’ve created a & MicroTCA Systems Brandon Lewis, Associate Editor whole level of SSD security [email protected] CompactPCI, AdvancedTCA, 54 Nallatech – One stop SWaP & MicroTCA Systems Jerry Gipper, Editorial Director 35 North Atlantic Industries – [email protected] Up to 136 programmable discrete VME and Critical Systems I/O channels ... on one rugged board [email protected] Curt Schwaderer, Technology Editor 55 North Atlantic Industries – Warren Webb, Editorial Director Christine Capuano, Web/Editorial Assistant The only compact, rugged chassis Embedded Computing Design David Diomede, Art Director offering 300 I/O pins