The McHale Report Podcast

How artificial intelligence (AI) at the edge is defined often depends who you are speaking with and their market. For military electronics I think the best definition comes from Jake Braegelmann, Vice President of Business Development at New Wave Design, who says the edge is where the sensor collects the data and AI can enable the filtering of that data in real-time to get actionable intelligence to decision makers. In this podcast...

The defense technology community has a recruitment challenge on its hands when it comes to competing with the commercial technology world for engineering talent; this reality is especially true when it comes to growing the pool of women engineers. In this podcast with Maria Ho, Deputy Director for Government and Strategic Programs, Aerospace & Defense at Analog Devices, we discuss how to encourage female students to explore eng...

Leveraging metamaterials for radar designs, engineers at Echodyne are enhancing the capability of small radars for applications such a counter-UAS [uncrewed aircraft systems] in military applications. In this podcast with Tom Driscoll, Co-founder and CTO of Echodyne, he and I discuss how his team’s metamaterials electronically scanned array (MESA) radar system does thing that traditional active electronically scanned array (AESA) r...

Modular open system approach (MOSA) strategies such as the Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) Technical Standard are changing how the Department of Defense acquires technology. In this podcast with Tim Reed, Chief Executive Officer for Lynx Software Technologies, he and I discuss how MOSA benefits the warfighter and what it means to be certified conformant other the FACE Technical Standard. Tim also dives into the impact...

Rebranded after being bought by Veritas Capital from CAES, Frontgrade Technologies is now a stand-alone company focused on the space market - military and commercial. In this podcast, Frontgrade President and Chief Executive Officer Mike Elias discusses how the acquisition and rebranding impacts the company and its clientele. We also discuss how supply chain headaches impacted the military space electronics, how space platforms are...

The procurement challenges facing defense technology companies range from a slow U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) acquisition process to supply chain headaches to when and where to leverage commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS)technology and open architectures. In this podcast, Mike McCormack, President & CEO of CP North America and Mark Kempf, VP Of CP technologies & CP Systems at CP North America discuss how those in the defens...

Defense integrators are starting to adopt 5G technology for satellite communications (SATCOM) on the move applications through various programs aimed at deploying commercial innovations more quickly to warfighters. In this podcast,  Rajeev Gopal, Vice President, Advanced Systems for Hughes Defense Intelligence Systems Division, goes in depth on military 5G solutions as well as SATCOM trends from this month's Satellite 2022 sho...

Complex radar and electronic warfare systems drive innovation from RF and microwave designers while supply chain shortages continue to give them headaches. In this podcast, Bryan Goldstein, VP, Aerospace and Defense, Analog Devices, tackles these trends while also exploring how the defense industry will begin adopting 5G technology and where it will likely deploy first. He also shares his passion for recruiting young engineering ta...

Supply chain bottlenecks, small satellites, complex adversarial threats in space and electromagnetic spectrum domains are all driving innovation at the microelectronics level. In this podcast, Dave Young, CTO of CAES, formerly Cobham, discusses how these challenges impact microelectronics solutions for military programs, how the defense industry is coping with the semiconductor supply chain headaches through investment and a plan f...

This spring Mercury Systems acquired Pentek, a designer of FPGA single-board computers, data-acquisition boards, recording systems, and other products for radar, signals intelligence (SIGINT), and electronic warfare (EW) applications. In this podcast, Neal Austin, Vice President and General Manager of the Mixed Signal Business Unit within Mercury Systems and Rodger Hosking, co-founder and Vice President of Pentek Systems, deep dive...

The ARINC 818 digital video interface and protocol standard is used throughout commercial and military cockpits for avionics display applications. As military video systems continue to increase in complexity in and out of the cockpit, for example in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) sensor systems, the demand for ARINC 818 solutions is growing. In this podcast, Tim Keller, Chief Operations Officer at Great River ...

Reduced size, weight, and power (SWaP) requirements are pervasive throughout defense electronics platforms. Electronic footprints continue to shrink so much that traditional small form factors like 3U VPX or 3U CompactPCI are considered too big. So, it's not surprising that the VITA Standards Organization (VSO) is looking at new form factors, such as Short VPX. In this podcast, Jay Grandin, Vice President of Product Developmen...

Ultra-wide band radar systems are generating unprecedented amounts of data and require storage systems that can handle the high bandwidth and what can seem like information overload. In this podcast, Chris Tojeira, Recording Systems Director at Pentek discusses the Department of Defense's current ultra-wideband radar requirements, how to capture signal data, PCI Express, FPGA advantages, and latency issues. He also takes a loo...

Counter-Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) systems are pivotal players on the electromagnetic spectrum. In this podcast, Emma Helfrich, guest host and associate editor with Military Embedded Systems, talks with Ryan Hurt, vice president of business development at Liteye Systems, to discuss the C-UAV systems that equip the U.S. Army. Helfrich and Hurt cover the Electronic Warfare (EW) capabilities, like radar and sensors, that power C-UA...

Modern battlefields present many complex challenges for Army soldiers, one of which is how to operate in GPS-denied environment. In this podcast, George Hsu, CTO, founder, and board member of PNI Sensor Corp., discusses the challenges in designing sensor solutions for warfighters in these environments like sensor stabilization for moving soldiers and power efficiencies as how PNI leverages artificial intelligence (AI) for their sen...

Small satellites and their reduced size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C) requirements are challenging microelectronics suppliers to deliver the performance of commercial technology while also maintaining reliability. In this podcast, I discuss these challenges with Tom Smelker, vice president and general manager for Mercury Systems Custom Microelectronic Solutions in Phoenix, Arizona. We also cover sensor processing tends and how ...

Electronic warfare and radar solutions are being driven by signal processing innovations such as the Xilinx RFSoC FPGA and OpenVPX computing solutions. These solutions are also enabling artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities for electronic warfare, radar, and other military applications. In this podcast, Haydn Nelson, principal marketing manager for wireless prototyping deployment at National Instruments, discusses with me how A...

Defense companies, be they prime contractors, system integrators, or third-party commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) suppliers, are deemed essential businesses and allowed to operate during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this doesn't mean that their employees and bottom lines are not feeling the impact of this global crisis. In this podcast, Mark Aslett, CEO of Mercury Systems, discusses how the the nationwide shutdown is impacti...

The Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) Technical Standard, created to enable reuse of software components across multiple avionics platforms, enables avionics systems designers to greatly reduce the cost of software development over the platform's life cycle. This will save hundreds of millions of tax payer dollars in the long run. Adoption of the FACE Technical Standard continues to grow -- it's in version 3.0...