AOC 2022 took place in Washington DC last week and was successful in gathering more than 2,600 EMSO professionals with a program focused around the "EMSO Playbook" theme. There were more than 140 exhibiting organizations and the symposium program had 84 keynote speakers, presenters, panelists and moderators. Keynote session topics ranged from NATO transformation and DOD acquisition developments for EMSO to Information Operations and Artificial Intelligence.
In the exhibition, we visited many of the RF and microwave companies – here is what we saw:
Anritsu Company introduced the Field Master™ MS2080A, a multi-functional spectrum analyzer that combines nine instruments into a single solution for time and cost efficiencies in the most demanding field environments. Covering 9 kHz to 4 GHz, the MS2080A has excellent performance and features for a compact and portable spectrum analyzer, bringing distinct benefits to interference hunting and 5G/LTE base station installation and maintenance applications. The MS2080A combines fast sweep speed of 45 GHz/s, advanced user features such as AM/FM audio demodulation, and best-in-class RF performance, including +/- 1 dB amplitude accuracy. Additionally, it supports a cable and antenna analyzer, power meter, and 5G/LTE analysis to make it an ideal general-purpose instrument that addresses measurement requirements for legacy and emerging wireless networks.
American Standard Circuits can manufacture printed circuit boards on virtually any substrate. any size, and any shape. Technology types include but are not limited to RF/Microwave printed circuit boards, HDI PCB, Blind Via PCB, Micro Via PCB, Cavity PCB, Hybrid PCB, Embedded Passives, Back-drilling PCB, enig PCB, rigid printed circuit boards, metal clad boards, flex PCB, and rigid-flex circuits. They have a great series of books for circuit designers covering various topics.
Analog Devices was demonstrating a 2 to 24 GHz wideband transmitter and receiver front end that meets the specifications of typical EW systems. The latest generation of high-performance RF/microwave and mixed signal components from ADI are used to reduce system SWAP. They have a reference design to make it easy to setup and test and can be pared with the AD9082 digitizer.
Apitech is working toward digitally enabled, standardized products for the future. They are developing super components like active preselector for EW, wideband dual mixer and wideband/high linearity IF plus VPX products like 2-18 GHz down converter (3U), 2-18 GHz 4 channel transceiver and mmWave IBW transceiver. These SOSA-aligned, digitally enabled solutions will have a dramatic improvement in cost per channel. It will be exciting to see these products released.
CAES enables customers to fully exploit the electromagnetic spectrum and work as a trusted partner with the United States Department of Defense and prime system integrators to ensure that our technology development roadmaps are in alignment; that our products integrate well for optimum performance; and deploy modeling and simulation tools for design optimization and development speed. The company works in many areas such as Advanced Engineering Solutions, Additive Manufacturing/3D Printing, Advanced Missiles and Guided Munitions Technology, Antennas and Apertures, Artificial Intelligence Technology, Cable Assemblies, Communications, Navigation and Identification Products, Digital Electronics, Electronic Warfare and Electromagnetic Spectrum Solutions, Hypersonics, Ka-Band Arrays, Machine Learning, Manufacturing Services, Motion Control Solutions, Precision Positioning Systems, Radar Electronics, RF Assemblies and Subsystems, RF, Microwave and Millimeter wave Components, Radiation Hardened and High Reliability Components, Rotary Joints, Space Qualified Components, Systems Engineering Expertise, Testing and Tuning Services and Waveguides. Here is a link to our Fabs and Labs on the 3D Manufacturing Facility. They attracted the most attendees in the afternoon with the bourbon and whiskey tasting!
Curtiss-Wright’s Defense Solutions demonstrated its VPX3-E320 ruggedized universal software-defined radio (SDR) card, a 3U OpenVPX module developed under agreement with NI. Curtiss-Wright’s VPX3-E320 Rugged SDR module is an OpenVPX functional equivalent variant of the Ettus Research USRP E320 and is fully compatible with the USRP Hardware Driver (UHD). It features a flexible 2 x 2 MIMO RF Agile Transceiver with 12-bit ADCs and DACs. Using an NI Commercial Ettus E320 USRP unit, functionally equivalent to the rugged VPX3-E320, system designers can quickly and cost-effectively develop SDR applications for deployment on a VPX3-E320 in OpenVPX environments.
Elite RF is a leader in designing and manufacturing RF and Microwave Power Amplifiers with best-in-class customer service and had a booth right in the front. They have over 250+ documented and verified amplifiers which can cover a wide array of output power requirements in medical, military, consumer, communication, commercial and industrial products. The company specializes in frequencies from 1 MHz to 18 GHz with power levels up to and exceeding 100 kW. All amplifiers come with an industry leading 5 Year Warranty.
Empower RF has a unique design architecture yielding high performance and scalability for liquid cooled SSPA’s delivering hundreds of kilowatts of pulse and CW power from HF to X-Band. This design is being fielded using both LDMOS and GaN on SiC devices for user applications that include EW, Radar, Directed Energy, Satcom, EMC and RF Product Testing. Each amplifier “building block” includes an integrated power supply in its 2U chassis. This arrangement improves pulse droop performance while eliminating the risk of a single power supply failure taking the entire amplifier offline. Narrow and broadband configurations are available for CW or Pulsed. The architecture is the same regardless of frequency – RF configurations driven by output power requirements. Each amplifier drawer is fully “hot swappable” with proven dripless technology. You can increase output power to an existing amplifier by adding 2U amplifier building blocks (in even numbers) or adding additional complete racks.
Epirus and General Dynamics Land Systems recently announced the introduction of Stryker Leonidas. After signing a strategic teaming agreement in October 2021, the companies have successfully integrated Epirus’ high-power microwave array with the Stryker ground combat vehicle. Developed in under a year, Stryker Leonidas was recently field demonstrated at a U.S. government testing site successfully disabling individual drone targets and swarms of drones. The integration of Leonidas, the world’s most powerful HPM phased array, with Stryker, the U.S. Army’s largest and most reliable combat vehicle fleet brings counter-electronics capabilities to the frontlines – providing a proven and cost-effective layered defense solution for the maneuver force.
Knowles Precision Devices was featuring many new filters in their wide portfolio. One is an 8-50 GHz Wilkinson power divider covering C- to V-Band that simplifies feed network construction in a surface mount assembly to reduce board complexity. The acquisition of Integrated Microwave Corporation expanded their offerings into the lower frequency range from VHF to L-Band.
Lexatys started by supporting OEMs with EM simulated, laser machined planar filters and has grown into a full-service provider of frequency converter modules up to 50 GHz as well as offering frequency selective components and integrated microwave sub-assemblies. They had some great case studies of complicate integrated assemblies they have manufactured.
Menlo Microsystems is developing a power relay using Ideal Switch technology that reduces the size, weight and volume with a very low-height, surface mount package. The MM9250 family of relays can handle AC or DC loads of up to 300 V and 10 A and can be scaled up to higher ratings. The unique solution implements a bypass circuit in parallel with the Ideal Switch contacts. The bypass circuit ensures zero-volt conditions across the contacts during the open/close transitions. The Ideal Switch handles the steady state current providing exceptionally low on-resistance. The Ideal Switch technology endurance provides applications with high reliability without need for a heatsink remedy.
Mercury has released as advanced System-in-Package RFS1140 that consists of an AMD Versal® FPGA, Jariet high-speed data converters and integrated power and memory. This technology, combined with Mercury’s onshore design and manufacturing, brings commercial technology to mission-critical applications creating a trusted and secure solution for modern sensor processing at the edge. The RFS1140 offers direct digitization and massive processing while maintaining SWaP-C optimization through the reduction of multiple boards and reducing overall system cost. The on-chip memory and power management simplify system design and integration and contribute to overall system longevity. Included in the SiP is the AMD Versal ACAP for the heterogeneous integration of best-in-class technology for increased performance per unit area. With direct digitization up to 32 GHz and 4 channels each of ADC and DAC data conversion operating at 64 GSPS per channel, the RFS1140 offers advanced processing capability for applications where ultra-low data latency is critical for success.
Novator Solutions (Sweden) was showing off their HUGIN 4000 that provides an aggregated bandwidth of 960 MHz for monitoring anywhere between the frequencies from 2 MHz to 6 GHz. Each of the RF inputs has a real time bandwidth of 80 MHz and can be tuned individually anywhere between 2 MHz-6 GHz. In its full capacity, a single HUGIN 4000 simultaneously intercepts up to 6144 narrowband signals. Each of these digital drop channels are individually configurable during run-time. This feature enables the operators to adjust parameters like center frequency, bandwidth, gain, filter and choice of streaming IQ or demodulated data during run-time. HUGIN 4000 comes with a server application and client architecture that allows remote operations and seamless parallel streaming of all interceptions. In addition, it has an intuitive API that allows easy integration with any third-party COMINT monitoring software.
RADX Technologies announced the Trifecta-GPU™ Family of COTS PXIe/CPCIe GPU Modules. Trifecta-GPUs are the first COTS products that bring the extreme compute acceleration and ease-of-programming of NVIDIA® RTX® A2000 Embedded GPUs to PXIe/CPCIe platforms for modular test & measurement and electronic warfare applications. Designed to complement RADX Catalyst-GPU products announced earlier this year, Trifecta-GPUs deliver even greater compute performance by employing NVIDIA RTX Embedded GPUs. The Trifecta-GPU model introduced at AOC 2022 is based on the RTX A2000, which features 8 GB of GDDR6 DRAM, PCIe Express 4.0 and up to 8.3 FP32 TFLOPS peak compute performance.
Rohde & Schwarz IRAPS™ is an integrated, record, analysis, playback system. Platform verification with signals that reflect the real-world is difficult but is the best approach to the determine the true performance of the system. Performing testing in the real-world is not always possible for a number of reasons, so to overcome these challenges, R&S IRAPS enables the real-world RF spectrum to be captured, analyzed and played back in an efficient manner enabling quick and insightful analysis. The Erisys ZoomOut® software reduces the time it takes to identify the critical signal s of interest. With high dynamic range, and long capture time you can be sure of capturing the signals of interest. Scalable devices allow multiple channels of recording and playback / emitter / environmental simulation. Unique and powerful analysis tools enable quick and insightful analysis tools that will identify these critical signals. Then testing can begin, with the playback of high quality, complex scenario that reflects the true environment that the system under test will face when deployed.
Samtec recently released its 1.35 mm family of products suitable for millimeter wave applications to 90 GHz. The 1.35 mm family includes compression mount board connectors (135 Series), cable connectors (PRF13 Series) and .047″ low-loss flexible cable assemblies (RF047-A Series). 1.35 mm products are ideal for IEEE, E-band applications due to their high operating frequency and electrical precision. Samtec’s 1.35 mm board connectors are the industry’s only vertical compression mount product using the 1.35 mm interface. The solderless launch allows for easy, field-replaceable, cost-effective assembly to the board. Threaded coupling provides superior repeatability and mechanical stability. Microstrip and stripline options are available. The RF047-A Series cable assembly, using 1.35 mm cable connectors, provides a frequency range of DC to 90 GHz and a maximum VSWR of 1.5:1. It also features a 5 mm minimum bend radius and insertion loss of 5 dB/ft at 90 GHz.
Signal Hound recently released the SM435C, a high-performance spectrum analyzer and monitoring receiver with a 10 Gigabit Ethernet SFP+ port, which enables the SM435C to communicate with a PC over long distances using fiber optic cable. Tuning from 100 kHz to 43.5 GHz, the analyzer has 160 MHz of instantaneous bandwidth (IBW), 110 dB of dynamic range, 1 THz/sec sweep speed at 30 kHz RBW (using Nuttall windowing), and ultra-low phase noise to rival even the most expensive spectrum analyzers on the market. Signal processing is distributed between a powerful Intel FPGA and an external PC having an Intel Core i7 processor. The Signal Hound SM435C can be readily interfaced, using its local API, to an automated monitoring system or to automated test equipment. Here is a link to our recent video interview with the new CEO.
Synergy Microwave was featuring their broad portfolio of frequency sources. Synergy's high-performance oven-controlled crystal oscillators features exceptional phase noise, fast warm-up time, low power consumption, tight frequency stability, and excellent long-term stability. frequency tuning input, reference voltage output and small CO-8 or SMD package. Their high-performance dielectric resonator oscillators feature exceptional phase noise, lead free REL-PRO® patented technology and is available in both surface mount and connectorized package. We can also customize these high-performance dielectric resonator oscillators according to your specific requirements.
Teledyne RF & Microwave offers a broad portfolio of oscillators, bandpass filters, and super notch band reject filters designed and manufactured using YIG spheres. Ideal for electronic warfare applications, Teledyne’s newest super notch band reject filters feature patented shunt YIG resonator technology. This innovative technology delivers industry-leading performance with up to 120% improvement in 40 dB rejection bandwidth compared to conventional super notch band reject filters.