Need Insight Into the Whole Electromagnetic Spectrum? Multifunction Sensors Deliver

Channeling the Smartphone

Neebe compares the evolution of military multifunction sensors to that of smartphones.

"It used to be that consumers would buy a point-and-shoot camera, a GPS navigation system and a flip phone," says Neebe. "Today, we have a handheld device that performs all of those functions, and it can perform them all at the same time."

Neebe notes that smartphones were enabled by miniaturization technologies, the maturation of the Internet and giant leaps in display and battery technologies. Similarly, multifunction sensors owe their existence to significant advances in military technology, including:

• Shrinking microelectronics, which have allowed more functionality to be placed on the plane of an antenna, reducing the cost per unit area of processing real estate and enabling full spectrum digital operations
• Broadband antennas that can detect incoming signals across the electromagnetic spectrum, allowing multifunction sensors to conduct multiple missions in multiple frequency bands simultaneously
• The development of open architectures that enable new hardware to be added to older systems on a plug-and-play basis
• Portable software applications  — such as electronic warfare, fire control and communications — that can be installed and run on multifunction sensors