BATTLESPACE Editor, Julian Nettlefold interviewed Chris Wiltsey, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Curtiss-Wright Defense Electronics Segment

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

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.

Size, weight, power consumption, and cooling technologies today block quantum computing from the embedded world, but new generations should yield advances in artificial intelligence and computer security.

In the defense industry, AI is on the path to becoming a loyal companion to the warfighter and manufacturers alike. As technology progresses, so does the range of defense capabilities that AI could not only supplement but eventually manage.

The latest generation of unmanned vehicles operating on land, in the air, and at sea no longer simply are remotely operated. These advanced systems have built-in intelligence to learn from their experiences and make their own decisions.