Military-display designers continue to face stringent size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C) constraints while integrating commercial innovations like HD – and soon 4K – into systems that must work with legacy sensors and interfaces while also complying with a variety of open architectures and standards.

Today’s modern warfighters have grown up with smartphones and tablets with intuitive, multitouch projected capacitive (PCAP) touch screens. They rely heavily on these devices in their personal lives and they expect to have access to the same capabilities and conveniences in the field.

Analysis of the latest technologies being developed by avionics OEMs for the emerging eVTOL market.

New computer boards offer high performance, thermal management, and peripherals in a smaller size than 3U VPX, with artificial intelligence (AI) and GPGPU processing.

In order to keep up with the continued acceleration of new technology and to be able to protect the warfighter from the latest threats, it is essential that we can turn our deployed platforms into adaptable entities that can evolve over time and are not static. The SOSA [Sensor Open Systems Architecture] Technical Standard is the next major step in realizing this goal.

Thanks to parallel advancements in battery technology and autonomous vehicles resulting from Tesla and other pioneering electric automobile manufacturers, we are rapidly approaching the era of the unmanned flying taxi.

Tammy Carter and David Jedynak discuss how huge data demands are pushing radar and electronic warfare (EW) developers to seek new ways to deliver multifunction systems that also meet strict size, weight, and power (SWaP) requirements.

Rick Hearn explains how the key computing elements of an avionics system must all be designed with safety in mind and endure stringent testing to prove they can meet the required Design Assurance Level (DAL).