The advent of unmanned systems reflects a huge aspect of warfare – that of protecting the warfighter – through the development of platforms that can be operated by humans from a distance, keeping them out of harm’s way.

As the U.S. Navy increases its investment in its fleet of unmanned undersea vehicles (UUV), suppliers of rugged commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) subsystems, providing solutions for mission computers, network switches, and routers, and data storage are meeting the needs of these unique platforms.

Military experts are developing new enabling technologies to help unmanned aircraft, ground vehicles, submarines, and surface vessels swarm and make decisions without human intervention.

Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and virtual reality are becoming essential parts of today’s military simulation and mission rehearsal to keep warfighters on the cutting edge.

Additive manufacturing, also called 3D printing, is having an influence on military logistics, and helps supply personnel get replacement parts where and when they’re needed — even on the front lines.

The wave of commercially developed communications and remote-sensing satellites seeks to balance costs, capability, size, weight, and power consumption in the latest new space designs.

Contested space, where nations compete for military dominance outside Earth’s atmosphere, is driving many military space platforms, but commercial space and small satellites continue to change the way the military suppliers of space electronics approach radiation-hardened component design from testing to deployment.

A bewildering array of tactical datalinks are used on today’s battlefield and help is at hand to ensure that information can be moved across an array of disparate protocols.