Due to the rising level of our Federal debt, and the resulting pressure to bring spending in line with tax revenues, there has been a great deal of discussion over the past few months with regard to military spending and, more specifically, what the 2012 defense budget will ultimately look like. John Keller, editor-in-chief for Military & Aerospace Electronics Magazine, analyzed the proposed budget and has some insights with regard to military computing needs and funding of high-tech hardware.
In summary, while the total budget is trending down due to reduced battlefield operations, the need for advanced technology remains quite high, and these needs will result in a stronger emphasis on computer system upgrades and technology insertions designed to enhance the capability of existing infrastructure. (For more information, John posted an article on the 2012 DoD Budget Request which outlines spending shifts.)
Technology Spending Patterns
When I spoke with John about how this impending technology refresh might play out he commented that while replacing older systems with newer technology provides increased CPU performance, main memory and disk space, the changes don’t stop there. Recent advances in FPGAs, Video Processing and GPU Computing hardware translate to significant increases in data processing power in the same footprint, an important SWaP consideration.
As to spending levels, most sectors will see budgets similar to 2011, with UAVs an exception to the rule. By John’s calculation, total purchases of unmanned aerial vehicles in 2012 could increase to 1,395 – up sharply from the 2011 request for just 459 UAVs. Expected UAV purchases in 2012 include three Global Hawk and Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) UAVs, 84 Predator UAVs, and 1,308 smaller UAVs.
Another capability that John predicts will receive more attention in 2012 involves high-speed serial switch fabrics. Fast serial technologies, such as PCI Express, Gigabit Ethernet and Serial RapidIO, are needed to feed the multi-core parallel processing architectures found inside high-peformance computer systems.
Trenton Systems Designed for Military Computing
Mission critical applications, such as UAV ground control stations, video and audio processing servers, telemetry systems and manned airborne surveillance platforms, will benefit greatly from the use of high-performance systems, and Trenton remains the vendor of choice for the design and manufacture of military computing platforms that use PICMG 1.3 single board computers, embedded motherboards and PCI Express Gen 2 backplanes.
If you’re involved with system upgrades or technology insertion projects, call Trenton at 770-287-3100, and let us build a customer-driven computing solution tailored to your specifications.
