The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is investing heavily in airborne attritable systems as a cost-effective approach to project force and influence.

I am the Chief Technology Officer at Curtiss-Wright’s Defense Solutions Division and a Curtiss-Wright Technical Fellow. I joined with PacStar, now part of Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions, over 16 years ago. During this time, I have supported the development of our rugged, tactical hardware and IQCore software.

The Curtiss-Wright PacStar 453, VPX3-1262, and CHAMP-XD4 rugged computers are examples of how CPU, GPU, and FPGA technology can be packaged for different edge applications and operating environments.

Military and aerospace defense integrators, especially in the signal-processing application space, have typically turned to low-latency FPGA devices as coprocessors for signal-processing CPUs, forming the technical pillar for ingesting and processing massive amounts of time-critical radar and sensor data.

Hypersonic platforms provide a challenge for flight test campaigns due to the application's flight profiles and environments.

A recent military exercise in Germany trialled the interoperability of several tactical datalink and communications protocols used throughout NATO.

A successful model-based engineering effort for rugged system infrastructure design will result in shorter development cycles, fewer failures and rework, more innovation, and ultimately higher-quality products.

For effective multidomain operations, sensor data needs to be processed rapidly and shared across different military branches. Achieving this level of interoperability requires sophisticated technologies to handle vast and complex data streams in real time, particularly AI and parallel sensor fusion processing at the edge.