Military and Aerospace Cable Assembly Market Trends
By David Pheteplace, Bishop & Associates Inc.

The military/aerospace market has been the place to be during the last five years, at least on the military side. Spending has been strong, and there have been several geopolitical and technological trends that have driven the market.

Worldwide military spending began dropping off in the early 1990s with the end of the Cold War. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, spending dropped from a high of $1.2 trillion in 1988, during the Reagan build-up, to a low of just over $800 billion in 1996 through 2000. In the same time period, U.S. defense spending dropped from a high of $500 billion to a low of approximately $350 billion. U.S. expenditures picked up in 2002 after the 9/11 attacks, exceeding $500 billion in 2004 and $550 billion in 2007. The Rand Corporation reported that U.S. aerospace expenditures during the 1990s also dropped off. Meanwhile, NASA and the Department of Defense (DoD) saw R&D expenditures for missiles and airframes drop significantly. In 2003, however, these expenditures began to increase. New commercial programs, such as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, will also increase expenditures, although they are somewhat delayed from their original schedule.

Technological trends in military/aerospace cable assemblies over the last five years have included weight reduction, increased use of bus architectures, denser electronic packaging, increased transmission speed requirements, and the increased use of fiber optics.

Weight reduction, particularly in airframe design, has been key to increasing performance and fuel efficiency. The Boeing 787 is composed of 50 percent composites, 20 percent aluminum, 15 percent titanium, and 15 percent other materials. This has translated into composite MIL-DTL 38999 connectors from Souriau being used in the wire harnesses. Amphenol supplies special high-performance, thermoplastic cable bundle clamps. Lisa Lambros, global product manager for harness management products at A.E. Petsche Co. Inc., says this has led to both the use of lighter weight and thinner wall insulation in mil/aero cable products, and the downsizing of connectors to smaller shell sizes.

Bus architecture is another major trend in airframes. Using the Boeing Dreamliner as an example again, the 787 is utilizing a version of Ethernet—Avionics Full Duplex Switched Ethernet (AFDX), ARINC 664—to transmit data between the flight deck and the aircraft systems. AFDX can be run on either twisted-pair copper cable or fiber optic cable. This topology has reduced the number of wire harnesses/wire runs, and has eliminated the use of hydraulic power (and thus hydraulic lines) to control the plane. This has the further advantage of not draining power from the engines for the hydraulics. Overall, Boeing eliminates 60 miles of copper wire on each plane, compared to the wiring requirements of older airframes.

Denser packaging of the electronics into mil/aero products has also led to more potential electro-magnetic interference (EMI). Fiber optics is one approach to solving some of these problems, and has the added benefit of being immune to electronic countermeasures and electro-magnetic pulses (EMP). Lambros said she has also seen an increased use of filter connectors to deal with the EMI issue.

Increasing requirements for transmission speed and bandwidth improvements are frequently met by fiber optics. It is more difficult to meet the requirements with copper wire, however. This has required the use of better insulation materials, better shielding, precise twisting of pairs, and contact design that minimizes signal loss and interference. The RJ45 connector is a good example of the difficulties of using copper connections. As Ethernet speeds increase, the RJ45 has had difficulties keeping up with the demands. Some companies have come up with alternative designs, including Siemen’s TERA connector, Nexans’ GG454, and ERNI Electronics’ RJ45 with integrated capacitors and resistors to meet all gigabit Ethernet requirements.

On the business side, many of the OEMs on mil/aero programs are subcontracting a significant portion of the build. This has resulted in some purchasing volumes for components subdivided over several subcontractors. A.E. Petsche Co. has gotten around this by purchasing components in the total contract volumes for the OEMs to extend better pricing and availability to the subs. Another aspect of the subcontracting is the complexity that it can add to a program. Part of the delay on the Boeing 787 has been due to coordinating the activities of their subs, and the subs grappling with building more complete subsystems for delivery to the Boeing’s assembly facility in Washington state.

What does the future hold? From a technology standpoint, the current trends will continue and will present more challenges to the connector, cable, and cable assembly manufacturers. They will not only need to understand the technology, but be able to measure and verify the performance of the assemblies to make sure they meet the strict parameters and rigors of the mil/aero environments. We will also likely see the increased use of standard commercial topologies, such as USB 2 and 3, Firewire, and HDMI.

From an economic standpoint, the next five years should prove interesting for the military-based industry. On one hand, the U.S. is still waging two wars that are taking a toll on existing equipment and using up expendable assets. On the other hand, the new administration will be under significant political and economic pressure to reduce current military expenditures. It is likely that we will see defense spending remain constant or increase for repair and replacement of existing basic equipment, such as Humvees, tanks, transport, and munitions. Research and development programs, and new program start-ups, such as the anti-missile defense system, are likely to suffer under the new administration, as they will be easier to cut politically.

It will be interesting to see how the Congress addresses new aerospace initiatives, such as Bush’s program to return to the moon by 2020 and reach Mars in the 2030s. This will require a new booster and other significant developments, which are not within the current NASA budget. It is unlikely that they will be funded over the next few years, given the other fiscal priorities.

The commercial aerospace industry should do fairly well over the next five years. If driven by nothing else, the current fleets of airplanes around the world are aging quickly and will require replacement. Despite the economic pressures on the industry, the airlines will also have to continue to update their fleets to achieve better fuel economies.

David Pheteplace Bishop & Associates Inc., Market Segment Director - Cable Assemblies David Pheteplace joined Bishop & Associates in 2008 as its market segment director for cable assemblies. Pheteplace, a management consultant for the electronic and interconnect industry, specializes in operational and strategic analysis, problem solving, and solution implementation. He has more than 20 years of experience in the connector industry, including managing divisions for Amphenol, Cinch, and Robinson Nugent. Pheteplace can be reached at www.pheteplace.com.