The McHale Report Podcast

Defense companies, be they prime contractors, system integrators, or third-party commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) suppliers, are deemed essential businesses and allowed to operate during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this doesn't mean that their employees and bottom lines are not feeling the impact of this global crisis. In this podcast, Mark Aslett, CEO of Mercury Systems, discusses how the...

The Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) Technical Standard, created to enable reuse of software components across multiple avionics platforms, enables avionics systems designers to greatly reduce the cost of software development over the platform's life cycle. This will save hundreds of millions of tax payer dollars in the long run. Adoption of the FACE Technical Standard continues...

Open architecture initiatives such as the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) effort are showing tremendous momentum at the start of 2020, as demonstrated by the turnout and enthusiasm of attendees at the Tri-Services Open Architecture Interoperability Demonstration at the Georgia Tech Research Institute in January. Our editors John McHale and Emma Helfrich along with guest Rodger Hosking, Vic...

Today the U.S. military and its allies face adversaries who are much more sophisticated in electronic warfare, signals intelligence (SIGINT), radar jamming, and other areas. To counter these threats designers of U.S. command and control, communication, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems are adding more innovation in C4ISR designs through RF and embedded compu...

Thermal management of electronics in military systems is a continuous challenge for designers as the aircraft, ground systems, and naval platforms become more complex. In this podcast with thermal management expert Gerry Janicki, Vice President, Meggitt Defense Systems, he discusses challenges, requirements, and design trends trends in military-electronics thermal management. He also details how t...

The military unmanned aircraft market is considered a mature market, but a market that is growing in the U.S. and globally thanks to the increases in defense spending worldwide. The U.S. has made cyber and unmanned technology a priority, says Mike Blades, Vice President of Research and Consulting for Aerospace, Defense, and Security in the Americas at Frost and Sullivan, in this podcast. He also c...

Open architectures will make tech refreshes such as the latest avionics modernization (Technology Refresh 3 (TR3)) on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and other platforms much more efficient and cost effective in the long run. In the latest McHale Report Podcast, Bryant Henson, vice president and general manager for Harris Corporation’s Electronic Systems Avionics Business Unit details how through th...

Lessons learned in combat situations like Ukraine and anti-access area denial (A2/AD) environments have given U.S. defense planners a better understanding of the technological capabilities of near peer adversaries such as Russia and China, how the U.S. falls behind these threats, and an understanding of how they can catch up by leveraging technology such as distributed computing, artificial intell...

The insatiable need for bandwidth and data from military radar and electronic warfare systems is continuing to put pressure on embedded signal processing designers to deliver innovation at the board and chip level. In this podcast, our guest, David Gamba, Aerospace and Defense Core Vertical Markets Director at Xilinx discusses how FPGAs enable this innovation especially from an RF system-on-chip (...

The U.S. Department of Defense Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 budget request is considerably higher than last year with more funding slated for upgrades of air, land, and sea platforms. In this podcast with Mike MacPherson, Vice President, Strategic Planning, Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions, he discusses the impact for the budget increase on the defense electronics industry and what applications -- radar,...

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones are proliferating beyond the battlefield into the commercial and consumer markets. However, many see them as more a threat than a benefit. As a result a market for counter-UAV technology has spun out and is growing fast. In this podcast with Mike Blades, Research Director, North America, for Frost & Sullivan, he discusses the two different markets for...

Cognitive radio and spectrum management continue to drive innovation among military communication system designers to enable more capability and faster decision making for warfighters. Efficient spectrum management is becoming especially important as the spectrum gets more crowded and as the U.S.Department of Defense is considering naming the spectrum as another warfare domain like cyber. In this...

The Department of Defense (DoD) continues to embrace open architecture designs and open standards to enable more commonality in military sensor systems, vehicle electronics, radar, electronic warfare, and others. This was quite evident during the Embedded Tech Trends (ETT) conference last week in Austin, Texas, where representatives of the Navy and Air Force updated the attendees on updates to sta...