SPYNEL sensors are passive wide area surveillance systems with automatic intrusion detection and tracking capabilities. The 360° thermal sensors offer 24/7 situational awareness by detecting and tracking an unlimited number of targets in real time, on land, air and sea. HGH Infrared Systems recently won a multi-million contract from a leading shipyard, to equip three new warships with the latest generation of SPYNEL panoramic thermal cameras.

WOLF Advanced Technology
Stouffville, Ontario, Canada
905-852-1163
https://wolfadvancedtechnology.com

WOLF Advanced Technology (“WOLF”) recently announced that NASA has chosen two WOLF video graphics modules to take part in the development of NASA's X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology (QueSST) aircraft. Now under construction by Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company at its famed Skunk Works plant in Palmdale, California, the X-59 is designed to reduce the noise generated by a sonic boom. Once fully tested and pronounced safe to fly within the National Airspace, the X-59 in late 2022 will begin making supersonic flights over select communities to measure residents’ reactions to any noise they might hear.

Citadel Defense
San Diego, CA
760-224-3393
www.dronecitadel.com

Citadel Defense has developed a Counter-drone (CUAS) technology called Titan that reliably detects, identifies, and defeats unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV's or “drones”) and swarms threatening combat troops, critical infrastructure, or information espionage. The company recently manufactured a first-of-its-kind solution designed to protect troops, vehicles, and permanent structures from threat drones.

Field Aerospace
Oklahoma City, OK
405-219-3400
www.fieldaero.com

Field Aerospace recently completed the first flight of a U.S. Air Force (USAF) T-1A aircraft with a modernized flight deck. The first fully modified Combat System Officer (CSO) aircraft flew two successful consecutive check flights from Field Aerospace's Oklahoma City facility.

Lange Couplers

The construction and port orientation of the Lange Coupler from SemiGen (Londonderry, NH) makes it useful as both a power combiner and splitter for RF and microwave applications. It is a specific type of directional coupler, which allows passive coupling of a defined amount of electromagnetic power. The sweet spot for Lange Couplers has traditionally been UHF to Q-band; the limit becomes frequency. Substrate height and strip width are inversely related to frequency, increasing loss due to the reduced amount of metal available to act as a conductor.

There is increasing demand for high-quality High Definition (HD) video for airborne applications such as Flight Test Instrumentation (FTI). Ideally, such new camera solutions can reduce the weight and difficultly of installing wiring, and enable data to be coherently combined with image data. Ethernet cameras can address these needs with built-in compression and multiple output streams. Additionally, as Ethernet-based networks have become an attractive choice for FTI applications, we see increased requirements for integrating Ethernet-based cameras with FTI data acquisition equipment, network recorders, and telemetry systems as this removes duplication of wiring and devices.

The rise of titanium for aerospace applications has been well documented in recent years. Equally, the challenges associated with the efficient, productive and high-quality machining of this popular material, have also been a topic of debate and scrutiny. Of course, every machine shop wants optimized performance from its cutters when milling titanium, but this can prove less than straightforward without the right technology and know-how in place. Today, however, thanks to a breakthrough in this area, things are beginning to change.

Quality assurance and flight certification of critical aerospace parts and assemblies have reached new levels of sophistication in recent years. Leading aerospace and defense manufacturers worldwide now consider computed tomography (CT) scanning to be an essential part of their non-destructive testing (NDT) toolkit. Far more powerful than the CT used to scan the human body, industrial CT can penetrate almost every material, from superalloys to lead, revealing hidden details that previously could only be found by cutting and destroying finished parts.

For maintenance personnel in the aerospace industry to do their jobs effectively, they need to be able to get physically close to the equipment they are working on. This statement sounds obvious, but in order to meet this requirement, it is very important to utilize quality work platforms. Although most people are familiar with the basic uses of work platforms, there is not always much thought given to everything that goes into their design and fabrication.

To the passing optical signals, fiberoptic rotary joints (FORJs) are nothing more than fiber connectors, which provide connection between one or multiple fibers. Their unrestricted ability to rotate, however, gives them a critical role in many sensing, mobile, and robotic fiber systems such as ROVs (remotely operated vehicles), aerostat radars, submarines, satellite antennae, OCT (optical coherence tomography), mining vehicles, cranes, wind turbines, robotic vehicles, broadcasting (mobile cameras), etc. This article discusses some of the applications where optical rotary joints are indispensable.

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