WASHINGTON, 21 Feb. 2012. The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) budget for research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) would continue its decline next year if Congress approves the DOD's fiscal 2013 request for $69.65 billion for military-related research. Next year's Pentagon RDT&E request is down nearly 14 percent from recent-year peak spending of $80.92 billion in 2010, according to DOD budget documents.

PRODUCT INTELLIGENCE, 21 Feb. 2012.There’s one thing all electronics need, and that’s power. Power supplies and converters are important parts of the system they inhabit, and as such need to meet rigorous standards lest the entire system shut down for want, or excess, of power. Systems integrators who are looking to purchase power supplies and converters need to weigh reliability, weight, power and cost carefully.

QUIMPER, France, 20 Feb. 2012. Interface Concept in Quimper, France, is introducing the IC-INT-VPX3a 3U OpenVPX single-board computer for demanding military embedded systems applications like radar processing that require performance, flexibility, and reliability. The embedded computing module based on the Intel second-generation Core i7 processor.

PATUXENT RIVER NAS, Md., 19 Feb. 2012. U.S. Navy aircraft specialists needed several sizes of advanced multi-purpose displays for the avionics systems of the Navy Lot 35 F/A-18F jet fighter-bomber and EA-18G electronic warfare aircraft. They found their solution from the Honeywell Inc. Defense & Space Electronic Systems segment in Albuquerque, N.M.

HAUPPAUGE, N.Y., 19 Feb. 2012. Behlman Electronics Inc. in Hauppauge, N.Y., is introducing the model BL1500 rugged power supply for extremely hostile operating environments, especially down-hole oil exploration, drilling, evaluation, completion. and intervention. Behlman's BL1500 unit is powered from 115-volt AC, 47-63 Hz and provides two ranges of high-voltage AC at 60 Hz. Units can be stacked for increased power.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala., Feb. 18, 2012. The U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command (USASMDC/ARSTRAT) successfully completed a flight test of the new Economical Target-1 (ET-1) at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla.

WASHINGTON, 17 Feb. 2012. Electronic warfare and electro-optics-related countermeasures are shaping up to be among the few real growth areas of the Pentagon's fiscal 2013 budget, which the Obama Administration submitted to Congress this week. Leaders of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) plan to spend $4.95 billion next year for electro-optic and electronic warfare work, which represents growth of 7.6 percent over the $4.6 billion DOD has budgeted for electronic warfare and electro-optics countermeasures this year.

PRODUCT INTELLIGENCE, 16 Feb. 2012. Demands are high on rugged laptop computers for military applications. On the network-centric battlefields of today, users rely on rugged laptops to deliver and process mission-critical information quickly. New applications are being designed as soldiers, sailors, and airmen carry these rugged computers on the front lines to provide intelligence and ever-increasing functionality for warfighters.

HIAWATHA, Iowa, 16 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.

WASHINGTON, 15 Feb. 2012. Leaders of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) plan to spend at least $31.6 billion next year for activities related to command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR), according to Pentagon budget documents released this week. The $31.6 billion the military plans to spend on C4ISR in fiscal 2013 is down 10.92 percent from the $35.47 billion in the Pentagon's current-year budget, and is down 16.8 percent from 2011 C4ISR spending levels.

ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md., 15 Feb. 2012. U.S. Army officials needed micro unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) to equip four-to-six-soldier fire teams with video reconnaissance and situational awareness during route- and compound-clearing operations. They found their solution from ReconRobotics Inc. in Edina, Minn. The Army Contracting Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., awarded ReconRobotics a $14 million contract Monday to supply micro robots for video reconnaissance missions.

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.

ANNAPOLIS, Md., 12 Feb. 2012. Radio communications experts at ARINC Inc. in Annapolis, Md., are using supercomputers to help systems integrators design and analyze the performance of complex antennas. Complex Antenna Engineering and Analyses. The ARINC Advanced Systems Engineering and Integration Division has installed a Linux-based supercomputer to support engineering analyses for ARINC’s external customers. The company’s previous supercomputer also remains available.

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.

ARLINGTON, Va., 10 Feb. 2012. Military communications experts at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va., are asking for industry's help in providing pervasive, high-throughput military communications to deployed military units by using a mobile backbone that provides communications over long distances to military units on the move.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., 10 Feb. 2012. The Microsemi Corp. SoC Products Group in Mountain View, Calif., is introducing ceramic quad flat pack (CQFP) packaging for the company's radiation-tolerant RT ProASIC 3 family of field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), which are designed for applications involving orbiting satellites, manned spacecraft, and aircraft that operate at high altitudes for prolonged periods.

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.