BOSTON -- Brig. Gen. (S) Gary Connor, newly appointed commander of the Command and Control, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Systems Wing (C2ISR) Systems Wing at the Air Force Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., will give the keynote address at the Military Technologies Conference March 15-16 at the Hyatt Regency in Boston.
Connor has also headed the Joint STARS Program office at Hanscom and the Reconnaissance Systems Program office at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, prior to returning to Hanscom as director of the Battle Management Systems Wing, Hanscom officials say.
The Military Technologies Conference, sponsored by Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine, highlights business opportunities and technological solutions in three modules Transformational Communications; Command and Control: Sensor Fusion; and Directed-Energy Weapons.
Wayne Bonser, Technical Advisor for the Connectivity Branch, at the Air Force Research Lab's (AFRL) Information Directorate in Rome, N.Y., will discuss "Future Capabilities for the JTRS Community" for his lead presentation in the conference's Transformational Communication module. Below is a synopsis of his talk.
"AFRL research and development investments via the 1980's Integrated Communications Navigation Identification Avionics (ICNIA) and 1990's SPEAKeasy efforts led to the current OSD Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) acquisitions programs," Bonser writes.
"AFRL is approaching the development of future military communications capabilities with the paradigm that JTRS can be thought of as 'the PC of the radio world' providing diverse and individually tailored capabilities beyond existing communications functions. Using its own 'in-house' developed software radio testbed, AFRL is currently evolving hardware and software enhancements, for software defined radios, that will enable significant improvements in communications as well as dramatic changes in operational concepts."
Other speakers in this module include Bruce Fette, Chief Scientist, Communication Networks/General Dynamics C4 Systems who will speak on spectrum utilization and cognitive radio; Paul Ekman, director, JTRS Solutions and Band Engineering, Rockwell Collins, who will discuss software defined radio and waveforms; Manuel Uhm, DSP marketing manager at Xilinx Inc., who will present on the advantages of FPGAs for Software Defined Radio; Reese Bovard, director, application engineering services, Spectrum Signal Processing, who will speak on the application of SCA 3.0 in advanced MILSATCOM applications; and Ric VanderMeulen, director of ViaSat's Government Broadband Group will speak discuss TCP/IP for Satellite Communications.
Leading the Command and Control: Sensor Fusion module is Dr. Paul Phister, air and space strategic planner at the Air Force Research Laboratory's Information Directorate, Rome, New York.
Also highlighting this module are: John Johnson, vice president of advanced development programs, Northrop Grumman Corp., who will speak on how to blend, make sense of, and present the information from sensors and other sources of information; and Roger Joel, vice president of sales and marketing, Octec, LTD., who will be speaking on the latest solutions for combining information real-time video tracking and forward-looking infrared (FLIR) sensors for sensor fusion and command and control.
Leading the Directed Energy module is Dr. Roy Hamil, technical advisor, Laser Division at the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory's Directed Energy Directorate in at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M.
Other speakers in this module are Dr. Jackie Gish, director of directed energy technology at Northrop Grumman Space Technology; Dr. Bryce Sampson, vice president, business development at Nufern, on Fiber lasers: An Emerging High-Power Laser Technology for Military Directed-Energy Applications and a speaker from Raytheon Missile Systems in Tuscon, Ariz., on thermal management issues.
The Military Technologies Conference, which details the hottest and most promising technologies that will make military transformation a reality, is for program managers, engineering managers, and engineers at prime defense contractors as well as second- and third-tier military subcontractors.
The conferences charts the technological roadmap of the U.S. military's transformation to a more rapidly deployable and responsive force, is a revamping and overhaul of the Military & Aerospace Electronics Show. Its content is based on extensive industry research to provide attendees precisely what they need in a technical conference.
Presentations are geared specifically for program managers, engineering managers, and engineers at first- second- and third-tier defense contractors who need to understand the programs, opportunities, and enabling technologies involved with military transformation.
For more information on attending the Military Technologies Conference, contact conference manager Allison Foster by phone at 918-831-9443 or by e-mail at [email protected]. Also visit the conference page on the World Wide Web at www.miltechconference.com
By John McHale
