This year, the Michigan Defense Expo (MDEX) is co-located with XPONENTIAL 2026, bringing together the full autonomy ecosystem and the defense innovation community in one powerful venue in Detroit, May 11–14, 2026.
MDEX, hosted by NDIA’s Michigan Chapter, is one of the premier defense industry events, bringing together DoD buyers, prime contractors, small businesses, and academic partners. Attendees gain direct access to government briefings, industry exhibits, and one-on-one matchmaking with military and procurement leaders. Partnering with MDEX provides unparalleled visibility and connections across the defense supply chain, making it a powerful platform for growth and collaboration.
This co-location marks a powerful alignment of two complementary ecosystems. XPONENTIAL attendees gain:
- Expanded reach into additional defense and government circles.
- Deeper, purpose-driven networking opportunities.
- Enhanced program relevance with broadened defense-informed content.
DON'T MISS OUR VNX+ PAPER PRESENTATION
Monday, May 11, 3:20 - 3:50pm, Room 140D
Mark Littlefield, director of system products, will be presenting a paper titled "Applying MOSA to Uncrewed Vehicles by Leveraging VITA 90 (VNX+) and VITA 93 (QMC) Standards". As one of the primary authors of the VNX+ standard, you will learn:
- How the Sensor Open Systems Architecture Technical Standard, or SOSA® has incorporated VNX+ as a key element of its architecture
- How components based on these standards can be brought together to form systems
- How QMC I/O mezzanines play a critical role in these systems
- By leveraging VNX+ and QMC as part of a MOSA system design approach, integrators can realize dramatically better time to deployment and lower cost versus a custom design approach.
