Authored by: John McHale for Military Embedded Systems
Every month the McHale Report will host an online roundtable with experts from the defense electronics industry – from major prime contractors to defense component suppliers. Each roundtable will explore topics important to the military embedded electronics market. This month we discuss the unmanned systems market and trends at the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International’s (AUVSI) Xponential show held this month in New Orleans, which focused on this technology.
This month’s panelists are Mark Littlefield, Head Vertical Product Manager, Defense, Kontron; Chip Downing, Senior Director Business Development, Aerospace and Defense, Wind River Systems; Scott Unzen, Market Development, Omnetics Connector Corp and Mike Southworth, Product Marketing Executive, Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions.
Excerpt from the MCHALE REPORT:
Where do COTS technology and open architectures fit in with unmanned systems? Are the platforms themselves becoming COTS, not just the payloads?
UNZEN: With COTS and open architectures, we see the beginnings of very rapid assembly of tailored size, shape, and formats using current standard subparts. Distributors and manufacturers will still have COTS listed but the trend is to offer fast turn application-specific shapes and products built from established sub-assemblies.
SOUTHWORTH: The importance of COTS for UASs differs greatly depending on the platform size and the use case. Many military program integrators are seeking COTS-based open-architecture solutions for their platforms, but in some cases, their application or platform may have special requirements that ultimately preclude them from finding that solution off the shelf. These requirements could include safety certifiability, harsh environmental operation, or longevity of supply. And in some cases, the environmental performance or limited lifespan of some COTS technology, along with the ever-shrinking physical constraints for size and weight onboard the UAS platform could make it increasingly unlikely to find something that meets their exact needs with an off the shelf solution. On the consumer application side, cost constraints tend to be higher, but so do the production quantities. I believe that COTS is desirable (for both time-to-market and cost reasons), but I don’t see many generic platforms being sold as COTS. Instead, you’re more likely to see some COTS-based payloads.
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