When Kevin Ashton coined the term “Internet of Things” in 1999, not many of us could envision exactly how connected the world would become. According to Statista, by 2025 there will be nearly six billion IoT connections in North America alone. The vast majority of these connections use BluetoothⓇ, Wi-FiⓇ, or cellular connectivity, so if part of your mission requirements is to understand and interact with your wireless environments, these are the protocols you need insight into.
Read More
If you are an RF engineer supporting government-focused mission requirements, you have probably at least considered the implications of moving toward compliance with the Sensor Open System Architecture (SOSA). If your responsibilities include signal intelligence (SIGINT), electronic warfare (EW), radar, and communications, then you are likely well on your way down this path already. We recently covered some background on SOSA and how it intersects the world of software defined radio (SDR) here. In this blog, we will take a look at some of the basics of RF I/O and how these I/O signals are expected to be deployed according to SOSA. We will work through the entire signal chain from the antenna to the chassis/backplane and finally to the RF transceiver card installed in the system.
Read More
Sun Tzu, in The Art of War, said, “The opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.” If any part of your mission involves protecting sensitive compartmented information facilities (SCIFs), then you understand how this philosophy can apply to safeguarding these areas from wireless device intrusion. Unauthorized portable electronic devices (PEDs), as well as Internet of Things (IoT) devices, pose risks to sensitive areas that are pervasive and always changing. But the RF signals that would carry a SCIF’s secrets away are also what let us know there’s a problem. With the right tools that constantly scan the environment to detect and locate these RF transmitters, the devices in question can’t hide.
Read More
Mission-critical defense systems are getting more complex every day, and as real-world wireless threats get more sophisticated, the integration of RF capabilities to counter those threats needs to happen fast. Rigid guidelines and an antiquated procurement culture have a tendency to make fleet-wide deployment of potentially life-saving systems painfully slow. Cutting down the number of required development cycles, driving reconfigurability and upgradability, encouraging the reuse of components, and reducing the time it takes to get new systems into the field are all part of the Sensor Open Systems Architecture (SOSA) Consortium’s mission. Over time, SOSA’s acceptance is expected to result not only in significant cost savings, but also highly flexible systems that enable rapid response in warfighter RF technology platforms.
Read More