International Battery has been given a contract from the U.S. Army’s Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) to develop a hybrid energy storage system for combat tanks and Stryker armored vehicles. The hybrid battery system incorporates lithium iron phosphate cells (for energy) and ultracapacitors (for power).

Lansmont Corp. engineers have developed the active impact surface design technology for several test machines currently installed at the Army Research Laboratory in Adelphi, Maryland and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) located at Valparaiso, Florida’s Eglin Air Force Base.

For more than two decades, single board computers (SBCs) built on open standards have been largely based on specifications from two preeminent industry organizations, VITA and PICMG. For the 6U Eurocard format, each organization has developed a platform that has provided the basis for standardized SBCs; where VITA introduced the VMEbus standard and derivatives, PICMG introduced CompactPCI bus and its derivatives. Both bus structures use a parallel bus architecture, which has its performance limitations, hence the recent movement to use fabric-based technologies.

Modern software development and test processes encompass a wide range of best practices and development methodologies. Personal preferences and lessons learned — both good and bad — dictate most workflows. Customized tools and scripts are frequently cobbled together with internal and external automation tools. However, at the core there are a set of proven development and test methods that enable deployment of high quality software with, ideally, no defects. Adherence to coding standards, performing software verification early in the development process, checking against an established set of quality metrics, and identifying software operations that are known good or known to contain faulty code will bring quality and consistency to critical embedded software.

Sealevel Systems was selected to design and manufacture docking stations for VT Miltope’s At-Platform Automatic Test Systems (APATS) Integrated Family of Test Equipment (IFTE) Maintenance Support Device — Version 3 (MSD-V3) tool. The project is part of the Hope Hull, AL-based, rugged computer supplier’s five year Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract, which was awarded in September 2009 by the Test, Measurement and Diagnostic Equipment (TMDE) Product Directorate of the U. S. Army. Sealevel Systems will design and manufacture the docking stations used with VT Miltope’s latest ruggedized laptop computer core.

The US Army Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Center (AMRDEC), the Army’s focal point for aviation and missile platform research, has replaced its aging projectors with six Matrix StIM™ projectors from Christie, a company that specializes in simulation and visualization displays. The LED-illumination display tools will be used in AMRDEC's Battlefield Highly Immersive Virtual Environment Laboratory, or BHIVE Lab, which simulates various cockpit and flight scenarios.

Kollmorgen has released an in-line variant of its lightweight, low voltage Power Generation System, which will be used by the United States Army to deliver onboard vehicle power (OBVP) generation to the military’s Fuel-Efficient Ground Vehicle Demonstrator (FED). The Kollmorgen system enables the FED Alpha vehicle to provide 30 kW of power at 28 VDC, over a wide engine operating band.