Ralph Guevarez:             

Hello and welcome to MercuryNOW, a vodcast series brought to you by Mercury Systems. I am your host, Ralph Guevarez. Thank you for joining us.

Today I am coming to you live from Mercury booth 643 at the AOC annual symposium in downtown Washington, DC. Where the topics are not only the products that we're showcasing here today, but also the partnership with the Association of Old Crows and what are some of the benefits of being a goal sponsor here. So once again, thank you for joining us. Sit back, relax, enjoy the show.

Joining me today is Roger Hosking. Roger, how are you?

Rodger Hosking:             

Very well. Thanks, Ralph.

Ralph Guevarez:             

Good. Thank you for your time. So Roger, one of the focus products that we have here today is the 8256. Could you tell us about some of the functionalities and why it's such an important product to showcase here at AOC?

Rodger Hosking:             

Sure I'd be glad to. Today I'd like to show you a little bit more about the Model 8256 SOSA Development Platform. SOSA stands for a sensor open system architecture. And the hallmark of SOSA is vendor interoperability. So here we have four different SOSA aligned products from four different vendors. The first is an Elma chassis. That's a 3U, 8-slot, backplane chassis.

In the first slot, we have a Mercury RFSoC Model 5550 that acquires digital samples coming from a signal generator that's being connected through the backplane. Here we have a switch card from Interface Concept that connects ethernet traffic across the backplane, and also delivers two 40 gigabit ethernet optical links out through the front panel. Here is a single board computer from Concurrent that receives the samples from the switch card, does processing on it for signal analysis.

The two optical cables are connected up to an external ethernet switch on top. One of the ports of that switch is a one gigabit ethernet copper that goes down to our laptop computer. So I'm going to show you a little bit about the data flow of the system by pointing to this block diagram. This is our signal generator generating a 30 megahertz CW tone. This is the RFSoC processor, which digitizes that signal coming in, sends data across the data plane at 40 gigabit ethernet speeds, goes through the switch card and then down into the data plane of the single board computer. The single board computer runs a LabVIEW runtime application. The control plane of the single board computer comes back out through another port of the switch card, out through the front panel ethernet link, to copper and into the PC, which we see right here.

So on the PC, we're looking at the remote terminal of the single board computer, which shows you time samples here and a frequency domain spectrum shown over here. So this system represents a rather complete starter system for people who are doing a SOSA development project. It's a great way to get started because it contains all of the basic elements for you to get a running SOSA system to start with. And then iterate that system by adding your own cards, your own slots, as you see your development progress. It's a really great reference design and a good way to get started. If you'd like to get some more information on the Model 8256 from Mercury, please contact us and we'd be glad to talk to you. Thank you.

Ralph Guevarez:             

Thank you, Roger for that great demonstration. We appreciate your time. Joining me now is Mario LaMarche. Mario, hello, how are you?

Mario LaMarche:           

Hi, Ralph. I'm doing well. Thank you for having me.

Ralph Guevarez:             

Thank you for being here. So Mario, tell us about the partnership between Mercury and the Association of Old Crows. Why is it so important that we exhibit here every year?

Mario LaMarche:           

Yeah, so AOC is an excellent organization. They bring together the technology and industry leaders in the electronic warfare space. And as the challenges that this industry face are increasing with new electronic threats, it's especially important that industry come together to develop new solutions that can be very quickly to deploy to the field for our end users.

Ralph Guevarez:             

Great. Now there seems to be a large SOSA movement happening at the show. Tell our viewers about SOSA and a little bit about the concept of SOSA.

Mario LaMarche:           

Yeah, so SOSA, our sensor open system architecture, is a new open standard that allows us to work with our industry partners as we take new technology and quickly deploy it into systems that can be deployed to the field. And when we contrast this to other methods, for example, fully custom solutions that just take much longer to develop and deploy, and are also more challenging to maintain and upgrade. Now using a standard like SOSA, we're able to very easily work with our partners across industry to each take the latest technology, build it into systems, and then deploy those systems and update those systems with new technology insertion as needed. So it's a great way to very quickly provide our edge user with the technology and the differentiation they need for, to be successful.

Ralph Guevarez:             

Great. Thank you for that. Now let's talk about one of the products that we're showcasing here is the RFM3202. Could you tell our viewers a little bit about this product?

Mario LaMarche:           

Yes, happy to. This is the RFM3202 microwave transceiver. With its compact form factor and high bandwidth, it offers our customers very high spectral density for their systems. It's also in a very easy to integrate 3U VPX form factor. It has two up conversion channels and two down conversion channels, a tuneable range of 2 to 18 gigahertz with a bypass path for direct digitization. It also has a two gigahertz instantaneous bandwidth. To learn more about this product and see other Mercury products visit mrcy.com.

Ralph Guevarez:             

Thank you, Mario. We appreciate your insights. That's all we have time for today. We want to thank you for stopping by Mercury booth 643 at AOC 2021 in Washington, DC. We look forward to seeing you again soon. I am your host Ralph Guevarez signing off.