Electrical, Electronics, and Avionics
Fiber optics

Latest Stories

Articles
Photonics/Optics

Positioning to Centimeter Level Improves Ag Productivity

Precision navigation, which is essential to autonomous machines, is knowing a moving vehicle’s absolute and relative position in 3D space accurately, reliably and repeatably....

Feature Image

Articles
RF & Microwave Electronics

The Next Generation of Mission-Critical Communications Infrastructure is Here

The critical role of spectrum superiority in the success of battlefield campaigns is evidenced by the enormous investments being made in electronic warfare (EW)...

Feature Image

Briefs
Test & Measurement

Multimode Optical Fiber Sensing

Although a vast majority of fiber optic strain sensors use single mode fiber, multimode fiber has a higher nonlinear threshold that enables higher light levels and lower noise.

Feature Image

News
Imaging

Smart Tech Revolutionizing the Traffic Light

Every motorist has experienced the frustration of waiting at a red light when there is no traffic in sight. These days, countless household devices use sensors, cameras and connectivity to...

Feature Image

Articles
Photonics/Optics

Photonic Microwave Generation Using On-Chip Optical Frequency Combs

A key building block of microwave photonics is optical frequency combs, which provide hundreds of equidistant and mutually coherent laser lines.

Feature Image

Articles
Test & Measurement

Speeding AV Testing with a Digital Twin

A European company has developed time-saving simulation software for users of the University of Michigan’s Mcity CAV (connected and autonomous vehicle) testing facility in Ann Arbor. It has...

Feature Image

Articles
RF & Microwave Electronics

Ruggedizing Coaxial and Fiber Optic Cable Assemblies from Mechanical Strain

Learn how to protect critical conductors, dielectric, and optical fibers from deforming, cracking, or unraveling

Feature Image

Articles
Photonics/Optics

Understanding Fiber Optic Transceiver Design and Test Rules

The design of avionics systems must balance several factors. First, engineers want to increase the performance of the systems installed in aircraft or spacecraft. Second, they want...

Feature Image

Technical Innovation
Mechanical & Fluid Systems

SKF Employs Digital Tools to Enhance Bearing Design, Performance

It began with spherical roller bearings more than 100 years ago and now SKF finds itself amid a digital transformation. Over the years the bearing company has expanded...

Feature Image

News
Photonics/Optics

The Rodney Dangerfield of Automated-Driving Sensors?

The emerging era of highly-automated driving comes courtesy of much-vaunted sensor technology—spinning lasers, penetrating radar and sonar blips. But the sensor that gets the least...

Feature Image

Articles
Aerospace

Optical Interconnect Design Challenges in Space

More and more aerospace applications are incorporating fiber optics technology into their designs due to its many advantages over copper. The thinner fiber solutions provide higher speed over a...

Feature Image

Articles
Communications

Laser-Based System Could Expand Space-to-Ground Communication

A new research project announced recently as a collaboration between the Georgia Institute of Technology and satellite communications provider Xenesis could help open the...

Feature Image

Articles
Robotics, Automation & Control

Validation of Ubiquitous 2D Radar

Seastema SpA, a company owned by Fincantieri (Genova, Italy), designs, develops, and supplies integrated automation systems for different areas of the marine industry. The company established an Innovation...

Feature Image

Articles
Electronics & Computers

New Technologies Tackle UAV Challenges

Unmanned vehicles for air, land, and water represent an increasingly-important capability for virtually all military services worldwide. Because each new generation of device technology promises...

Feature Image

Articles
Electronics & Computers

Communications in Space: A Deep Subject

Transmitting and receiving radio signals between spacecraft in deep space is a snap compared with getting those signals back to Earth, especially when the spacecraft is 120 billion miles away.

Feature Image

Articles
Photonics/Optics

Identifying and Isolating Signals Using Radio Frequency Photonics

A single antenna can be used for both transmission and reception. To accomplish this, the transmission must be isolated from the reception. In Figure 1, a radio frequency...

Feature Image

Briefs
Aerospace

Laser Integration on Silicon Photonic Circuits Through Transfer Printing

The purpose of this project was to develop a transfer printing process for the massively parallel integration of III-V lasers on silicon photonic integrated circuits....

Feature Image

Articles
Aerospace

Flat Cable Technology for Aerospace Applications

There are those who think all cables are created equal. Well, they're not.

Feature Image

Articles
RF & Microwave Electronics

EMI Analysis Software Helps Telescope Group Simulate RFI Mitigation

Challenging Einstein’s seminal theory of relativity to the limits, how the very first stars and galaxies formed just after the Big Bang, the study of dark energy and the...

Feature Image

Articles
Unmanned Systems

Achieving Performance Advantages in Unmanned Systems

Unmanned Vehicle Systems (UVS) are reaching new levels of functionality and performance, and it’s not just for air vehicles either. Ground and underwater UVS programs are all taking...

Feature Image

Articles
Aerospace

COTS Embedded Systems and Link Budgets

The days of proprietary embedded computing systems in military systems are numbered. Proprietary systems, with the attendant vendor lock-in, tend to be platform specific, increasing the development and...

Feature Image

Briefs
Manufacturing & Prototyping

Silicon Microsphere Fabrication

The efficiency and methodology of coupling light into microcavities has improved exponentially in the last decade. One such advancement is coupling light onto silicon microspheres. The material, size, and...

Feature Image

Articles
Defense

RF Photonics for Avionics Signal Processing

The maturity of RF photonic components has reached the point where fiber optic links are being system-tested to replace traditional copper coax links on avionic platforms. Many demonstrations of RF...

Feature Image

Briefs
Physical Sciences

Automatic-Alignment Fiber Optic Coupling System for Optimal Signal Transmission

Using the current method of characterizing waveguides manufactured for research in optical communications, it can take up to 8 hours to characterize the...

Feature Image

Articles
Data Acquisition

Small Form Factor Strategies for Military Embedded Systems

The proliferation of unmanned military vehicles tasked with critical communications and radar requirements drives the need for powerful data acquisition and signal processing...

Feature Image

Articles
Defense

Free Space Optical Communications System for Advancing Superiority on the Battlefield

Fixed and tactical information networking, especially for defense applications, has begun to require increasing data transmission capacity as the...

Feature Image

Articles
Photonics/Optics

Beam Irradiance on Target System (BITS)

The Beam Irradiance on Target System (BITS) is a high energy laser (HEL) sensor array that directly measures the beam irradiance profile of HEL weapons. The BITS is a sensor array composed of 105...

Feature Image

Briefs
Physical Sciences

Distributed Fiber Optic Sensing for Homeland Security

To address the need to protect our borders and critical infrastructure, fiber optic sensing technology developed for antisubmarine warfare applications has been adapted to homeland...

Feature Image

Briefs
Photonics/Optics

Rare-Earth-Doped Soft Glass Optical Fibers for Coherent Wavelength Sources Above 2 Microns

Rare-earth-doped soft glass optical fibers were developed and characterized for fiber lasers emitting at wavelengths longer than 2 microns to allow...

Feature Image