Worry-Free Integration of COTS in Critical Applications

As industries race to adopt Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) products for faster innovation and reduced cost, ensuring the reliability, integrity, and security of these components has never been more critical. At Palitronica, we recognize both the opportunity and the risk.

COTS: The Good

Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products provide excellent value for money, delivering cutting-edge technologies at the speed and price made possible by mass production. For example, an AI-enabled control board for unmanned systems becomes significantly more cost-effective when produced at a scale of tens of millions, rather than in small contract batches of just a hundred units.

As concrete case in point, COTS products such as the SpeedyBee flight controller, Cube Orange autopilot, and BeagleBone Black SBC are transforming product development lifecycles. These platforms offer powerful capabilities out of the box—minimizing time-to-market and development overhead.

COTS: The Bad

The benefit that COTS are manufactured in the millions is also its main drawback: It’s manufactured in the millions for a general customer base. This implies that you will have to build their product around the COTS as the vendor will not make changes to the COTS product for individual customers. This includes creating compromises and workarounds for quicks of the COTS product.

COTS: The Ugly

The fact that you must build your product around the COTS product leads to the ugly truth of integrating COTS products: you do not have control, the vendor may change their product at any time, which may break your product.

When you designed your product, made compromises, and worked around the quirks of the other COTS products, you created dependencies. For example, you may have assumed a maximal thermal design power when you integrated the system-on-module (SOM), or you assumed a maximal latent fault rate for your safety-critical application. If any of these dependencies change, your product will fail in unexpected ways, lowering customer satisfaction and even placing operators in danger.

“I'm altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.” Darth Vader, The Empire Strikes Back.

The Imperative for Testing For Changes When Integrating COTS Products

While the COTS manufacturer may have tested their product and provide a guarantee that the product functions as expected, these guarantees might not cover all dependencies that your product relies on. This can lead to financial damages and loss in reputation. Palitronica is not the only one advocating for this:

• At CERN, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experienced failures due to variability in COTS components. Specifically, two MOSFETs with similar specifications exhibited vastly different sensitivities to radiation. One type experienced 22 destructive events before a maintenance period, while the other had only one. These discrepancies, often due to unannounced changes in manufacturing batches, led to unexpected system failures in the high-radiation environment of the LHC. This was reported by the Raffaello Secondo et al. From the Radiation to Electronics (R2E) group.
  

• The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) conducted a study on the use of complex COTS components in airborne electronic hardware. The group emphasized the need for thorough evaluation and mitigation strategies when incorporating COTS hardware into critical applications due to the risk undocumented alterations that have to trigger a Change Impact Analysis.
  

• General Dynamics warned that COTS suppliers can change products without notice, and may not inform everyone. General Dynamics acknowledges this as a major risk for mission-critical systems with long lifecycles, like military electronics.

When looking at the literature, all major aerospace and defense companies have worked on the challenges of safety and securely integrate COTS products into their applications. Searches on google scholar show applications in air platforms, C4ISR, space, ground platforms, sensor platforms, and many more. The list includes Boeing, Airbus, Rheinmetall, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Gruman, Thales, Anduril, etc.

“Configuration Management, including device data change information and description... Additional Verifications based on Change Impact Analysis (CIA) when device is changed.” EASA 2012-04 Final Report, Section 1.2 Recommendations

The Anvil Checkpoint Enables Safe Integration of COTS Products

The Anvil Checkpoint leverages radio frequency (RF) measurements to build detailed, non-invasive profiles of COTS products. By measuring RF response from the product on standard ports, the Anvil Checkpoint reaches internal electrical components and constructs a unique electromagnetic signature that reflects the product’s makeup and configuration. This profile enables real-time detection of deviations when the COTS manufacturer changes the configuration – all without additional requiring product changes or notification from the supplier.

The Anvil Checkpoint provides a clear pass/fail result within seconds for a tested COTS product. In case of a clear, you know that the internal makeup has not significantly changed. In case of a fail, you follow a change impact analysis workflow to ensure that your product remains safe and secure when integrating the altered COTS product.

Hands-On Testing: SpeedyBee, Cube Orange, and BeagleBone Black

To evaluate Anvil’s performance, we sourced batches of these three COTS devices and conducted a real-world validation exercise:

1. Created a Reference: We began by profiling pristine units of each product to establish a “known-good” Anvil signature.

2. Introduced Controlled Modifications: We then intentionally altered some units using a wide range of defect and tamper scenarios:

   1. Manufacturing/assembly faults: tombstoned components, flipped ICs, shorts

   2. Environmental damage: heat-stressed or burnt components

   3. Malicious/hardware tamper scenarios: counterfeit ICs, component removal

   4. Mechanical damage: physically cracked or crushed parts

3. Tested with Anvil: Finally, each modified unit was scanned and compared to the reference.

Anvil consistently identified these deviations with clear signal anomalies—validating its role as a powerful tool for pre-deployment screening and supply chain risk management.

Real-World Use, Real-World Relevance

Each of these COTS platforms represents a growing segment of embedded systems users:

• SpeedyBee: Popular among FPV drone builders, who need compact and configurable flight control systems.

• Cube Orange: Trusted in UAV research, defense-grade autonomy projects, and robotics.

• BeagleBone Black: Widely adopted in industrial control, IoT, and rapid prototyping environments.

By proving that Anvil can reliably verify these devices, we're empowering integrators to confidently leverage COTS tech—even in mission-critical contexts.

Why It Matters for the Industry

• Assurance at Scale: Anvil enables rapid batch screening of units, without needing to power on or disassemble products.

• Cyber-Resilient Design:Catching tamper attempts or supply chain attacks before devices go live.

• Transparency for Customers: Manufacturers and integrators gain audit-ready validation of their incoming hardware.

Closing Thoughts

Integration of sophisticated COTS electronics is the future—but only when paired with the right validation tools. The Anvil Checkpoint provides the capability that you can integrate COTS into your product without compromising speed, & affordability, safety or security.

Whether you’re building drones, deploying industrial controls, or securing autonomous systems— Palitronica’s Anvil Checkpoint offers the assurance you need to move forward with confidence.