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In challenging and demanding environments, the need for rugged, military-grade devices is paramount. These devices are specifically designed and tested to withstand extreme conditions, ensuring reliability and durability in the field. ... read more

Autonomous vehicles serve in frontline combat. The Robotic Combat Vehicle (RCV) is being developed as part of the Army’s Next Generation Combat Vehicle (NGCV) family of vehicles: light, medium and heavy. The Army reportedly envisions employing RCVs as “scouts” and “escorts” for manned fighting vehicles to deter ambushes and guard the flanks of mechanized formations, marking a significant shift in the way we approach warfare.RCVs are intended to be controlled by operators riding in NGCVs, but the Army hopes that improved ground navigation technology and artificial intelligence (AI) might eventually permit a single operator to control multiple RCVs or for RCVs to operate in a more autonomous mode.... read more

Understanding the terminology and requirements related to the "holdup" time parameter can be valuable for system designers in the airborne industry.... read more

MIL-STD-461 is a military and defense equipment testing standard that is used by the US military and defense industry to verify the electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) of electrical and electronic equipment. The standard specifies requirements for testing and evaluating the electromagnetic interference (EMI) emissions and susceptibility of equipment, to ensure that the equipment can operate effectively and safely in a wide range of electromagnetic environments.... read more

In a liquid cooling system, cold plates are in charge of transferring heat from high-heat load surfaces to the fluid used. To select the best liquid cooling solution for your application, you must determine the cooling fluid flow rate, fluid inlet temperature, the heat load of the devices attached to the cold plate, and maximum desired cold plate surface temperature Tmax. From these values, you can calculate the cold plate's maximum allowable thermal resistance.... read more

Alternating current (AC) power supply can be classified into single-phase and three-phase sources. Knowing the difference can help us determine when and where to use which. Requirements in airborne and ground applications utilizing AC sources of supply are becoming more frequent. In some cases, the traditional 28VDC direct current (DC) bus is at maximum current capacity and is not available, especially for higher power applications. The AC bus is often readily available for use and makes sense for upgrade and modernization programs to enhance capability on a platform.... read more

Gallium Nitride (GaN) technology brings significant advantages to the military electronics market in the area of miniaturization and efficiency. The electron mobility of GaN allows engineers to design devices with extremely high switching frequencies, resulting in high power densities, high performance, and higher operating temperatures, all at a lower cost compared to alternative technologies.... read more

Over the past few decades, the global ground vehicle community has seen a dramatic increase in the application of capabilities to the platform. These capabilities may be in the form of more effective protection equipment, more capable sensors, improved mobility, strengthened communications, or upgraded lethality technology. In the vast majority of these cases, power demand emanating from such improvements has increased orders of magnitude on board ground vehicles.... read more

PDU devices serve as a ‘circuit breaker’ to protect expensive and sensitive loads designed into the system. Such loads may include computers, displays, control devices, sensors, and weapons systems. Like the circuit breaker in homes, a PDU is a necessary tool to protect against current inrush or spikes, short circuit conditions, and other electronic maladies. In today’s market, power management devices, such as PDUs, may be referred to as circuit breakers, power distribution units (PDU), remote power control (RPC), and other trade names. PDUs can come in many different shapes and sizes based on the requirements of the military system, but not all are designed for use in a military or aerospace environment.... read more

MIL-STD-704 is an Aircraft Electrical Power Military Standard that defines a standardized power interface between a military aircraft and its equipment. The purpose of this standard is to ensure compatibility between the aircraft power system (including external power) and the utilization equipment (with connected power supplies). A power supply running directly from a generator, or its AC/DC rectifier must be able to handle the various transients from these “dirty” power sources.... read more

In our previous Blog on Power and Networking Solutions for Sensor Fusion Systems we’ve talked about the importance and value of sensor fusion in today’s battlespace. Bringing together diverse, disparate, and geographically displaced sensor data provides battlefield commanders with an unprecedented view of the battlefield. This ensures rapid and informed decision making to maintain an advantage and protect the warfighter.

Our military and military suppliers must continue to advance capabilities to outpace enemies’ threats. The Drive released a fantastic interview earlier this month highlighting a key naval sensor directly supporting sensor fusion and pressing the art of the possible in support of the broader picture in the seaborn battlespace. Two systems directly supported by Milpower Source are highlighted in this interview. The AN/SLQ-32(V)7 Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP) Block III is a perfect example of how the US Navy and its industry partners have improved the defensive and offensive electronic warfare (EW) capabilities aboard US naval assets for decades to come.... read more

The VITA standards group has existed for many years now, developing the VME, VXS, XMC, VPX, and VNX standards as common physical and electrical formats to enable the development of modular systems. In military systems, the need for using open-architecture systems approaches became a priority, so the HOST, FACE, CMOSS, MORA, RedHawk and other initiatives were formed by various branches of the US army.... read more

Sensors have become ubiquitous on the battlefield to detect and track everything from aircraft to dismounted soldiers, and from enemy radar systems to covert communications. Electronic Warfare (EW) represents the ability to either disrupt or use electronic signals attacks. Aircraft and unmanned systems perform reconnaissance missions and pass data back to field-deployed personnel and naval platforms being protected just outside contested environments. Mapping and surveillance aircraft share data back to centralized command posts around the globe for intelligence on enemy stockpiles, troop movements and missile defense systems that share target data with central command and anti-aircraft systems to help lock down the exact location of any missile fired for acts of aggression.
This collective battlefield picture and information sharing, along with accurate and real-time location mapping starts with sensors.... read more

Due to a UAV's compact and sensitive platform, there is no room for a bulky synchronous generator that allows a fixed voltage output. Likewise, the opportunity for a fixed speed engine to feed the UAV's permanent magnet generator to create a constant voltage output does not exist. A GCU (Generator Control Unit) functions as a mediator between the variable voltage and frequency alternator/generator and the stabilized DC bus requirement set by the payload. Its non-isolated topology provides high efficiency, light weight and a small form factor which makes the GCU power supply very attractive for systems that are powered by Permanent Magnet Generators (PMG) such as light weight UAVs, avionics, electronic warfare and other military applications.... read more

Managed ethernet switches are the solution for scenarios that involve multiple devices, or require redundancy, monitoring, and control over the application network. Managed switches are remotely programmable via Web or programmatic interfaces to allow pre- and dynamic configuration. These switches provide key features to support today’s UAV applications. primary among these are quality of service, VLANs, spanning tree, and redundancy.... read more

The armed forces see Software Defined Radios (SDR) as an optimal solution to combat the ever-changing communications technologies surrounding traditional manpack radios that are used in today’s ground vehicles. SDRs enables the radio chassis to run multiple wavelengths or can accept an upgrade capability by simply changing out payload cards. By using a single chassis as the base platform, there have been significant size, weight, and power (SWaP) improvements for the vehicle and platform integrations. This enables the combination of shared resources and, by reducing the amount of man-pack radios, decreases the tax on the vehicle’s electrical system.... read more

Every electrical system created for the battlefield poses its own unique set of challenges that require difficult design decisions. We know that design engineers all too well understand about the trade-offs between requirements of the system and those of its components. The same is true for industry standards that apply at the system level versus those that apply to its components. When faced with what to do when overlapping standards don't agree, sometimes the answer is -- do more.... read more

Customization. That word triggers fear in the hearts of design engineers, with thoughts of schedule slips and delays, increased technical risk, and the oh-so-frightening ka-ching of increased costs. But in reality, collaborating with a power supply manufacturer who can work with you to tailor key features can actually reduce cost and schedule risk for the most complex power supply requirement. Technical risk is mitigated even further when designing from a field-proven, existing product or circuit topology. Starting from the 60% or 80% solution, a power supply manufacturer's engineering team can collaborate with you to tailor to your specific and unique design needs and make it unequivocally right; the 100% solution!... read more