Advanced seeker production for next-generation precision-guided missile

On the same subject

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  March 26, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  Spirit AeroSystems temporarily suspends Boeing work in some facilities

  By: The Associated Press WICHITA, Kan. — Aircraft parts maker Spirit AeroSystems announced Tuesday that it is temporarily halting work for Boeing that is performed in Wichita, Kansas, and two Oklahoma facilities amid an outbreak of the new coronavirus. The move came after Boeing announced Monday that it was suspending operations at its Seattle, Washington, area facilities. At least 110 people have died from COVID-19 in Washington state, mostly in the Seattle area. Boeing employs about 70,000 people in the region. The company said 32 employees have tested positive for the virus, including 25 in the greater Seattle area. At Spirit, military, non-Boeing work and other programs will continue. In Oklahoma, the suspension affects facilities in Tulsa and McAlester. Spirit will continue to support 787 work for Boeing's Charleston, South Carolina, facility. Spirit did not say how many employees would be affected, but the suspension begins Wednesday and will last until April 8. Employees will continue to be paid during the two-week period. Deep cleaning of work spaces and facilities also is planned. https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2020/03/24/spirit-aerosystems-temporarily-suspends-boeing-work-in-some-facilities

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  May 8, 2019 | International, Naval

  The US Navy is eyeing a big change to its new stealth destroyers

  By: David B. Larter NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The U.S. Navy is considering a significant change to its new stealth destroyers, one driven by the change of mission announced in last year's budget documents, the head of the program said May 7 at the Sea-Air-Space conference. The service has been struggling to find a use for the ship's advanced gun system — the largest of its type fielded by the service since World War II — and now is considering stripping them off the platform entirely, said Capt. Kevin Smith, the DDG-1000 program manager at Program Executive Officer Ships. The Navy sidelined the guns after the service truncated the buy to just three ships, and after the ammunition, called the Long-Range Land-Attack Projectile, ballooned in price to more than $800,000 per round. "The guns are in layup,” Smith said. “We're waiting for that bullet to come around that will give us the most range possible. But given that that is offensive surface strike, we're going to look at other capabilities potentially that we could use in that volume.” The ships shifted missions from land attack to ship-hunting and -killing last year. The Navy is integrating the SM-6 missile, which has a surface-attack mode, and are integrating the maritime strike Tomahawk to fill out the new capabilities. In April testimony, the Navy's top requirements officer, Vice Adm. William Merz, told Congress that the slow development of the Advanced Gun System was holding back the Zumwalt. “Even at the high cost, we still weren't really getting what we had asked for,” he said. “So what we've elected to do is to separate the gun effort from the ship effort because we really got to the point where now we're holding up the ship.” The Navy has touted the ship's excess space, weight, power and cooling as advantages the service would want throughout the ship's life. Everything from directed energy and electromagnetic rail guns to electronic warfare equipment has been floated as add-ons to the Zumwalt-class destroyers. The Navy got in its present pickle with the 155mm/.62-caliber gun with automated magazine and handling system because the service cut the buy from 28 ships, to seven, and finally to three. The AGS was developed specifically for the Zumwalt class, as was the LRLAP round it was intended to shoot. There was no backup plan, so when the buy went from 28 to three, the costs remained static, driving the price of the rounds through the roof. The program itself is coming along, said Smith. The Zumwalt is going through trials as its combat system installation wraps up; the Michael Monsoor is heading into the yards for its combat system installation; and the Lyndon B. Johnson is nearly 85 percent complete. The remaining work on Johnson involves running cables, painting spaces and otherwise putting the finishing touches on the ship. The ship will then leave Bath, Maine, and head toward its home port of San Diego, California. “We're going to energize high voltage in September, lighting off the generators in the spring, then we'll be going to test and activation for the [hull, mechanical and electrical systems], trials in the fall, then delivery.” https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/navy-league/2019/05/07/the-us-navy-is-eyeing-a-big-change-to-its-new-stealth-destroyers

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  June 18, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  Israel’s Rafael integrates artificial intelligence into Spice bombs

  By: Seth J. Frantzman and Kelsey D. Atherton Rafael Advanced Defense System's Spice bombs now have a new technological breakthrough as the Israeli company enables its Spice 250 with artificial intelligence alongside automatic target recognition to be used with scene-matching technology. The Spice 250, which can be deployed on quad racks under the wings of warplanes like the F-16, has a 75-kilogram warhead and a maximum range of 100 kilometers with its deployable wings. Its electro-optic scene-matching technology — which involves uploading terrain data onto the bomb and combining it with real-time electro-optic imagery — allows the weapon to work in GPS-denied environments. And the bomb can use this autonomous capability to navigate and correct its location, according to Gideon Weiss, Rafael's deputy general manager of marketing and business development at the company's air and C4I division. With its AI and “deep learning” technologies, the weapon has the ability to identity moving ground targets and distinguish them from other objects and terrain. This is based on 3D models uploaded to the bomb as well as algorithms. As the weapon identifies and homes in on its target, such as a convoy of vehicles, it separates the convoy of interest from other vehicles it has “learned” to ignore. “The deep-learning algorithm is indifferent to the actual data fed to it for modeling targets of interest and embedding their pertaining characteristics into the system," Weiss said. "However, the more the data used for modeling is representative of the target of interest, the more robust the recognition probability will be in real life.” Rafael has completed the development and testing phase of the Spice 250, including flight tests, which have “proven the robustness of the ATA and ATR, so it is mature for delivery,” Weiss said, using acronyms for automatic target acquisition and recognition. Asked if the ATR algorithm will select a secondary target if the computer cannot find the initial human-selected target, Weiss said: “This goes into the area of user-defined policies and rules of engagement, and it is up to the users to decide on how to apply the weapon, when and where to use it, and how to define target recognition probabilities and its eventuality.” Automatically selecting a secondary target may eventually become part of the upgrade profile for the munition, if customers express significant interest in the feature. With a two-way data link and a video-streaming capability, the bomb can be aborted or told to re-target up until a “few second before the weapon hits its target,” Weiss explained. That two-way data-link, enabled by the weapon's mounting on a Smart Quad Rack, or SQR, will enable future deep learning to be based on data extracted from earlier launches. Data recorded will include either live-streaming video or a burst of still images of the entire homing phase up until impact. “These are automatically and simultaneously recorded on the SQR — enabling two functions: (a) real-time and post-mission BDI (Bomb Damage Indication); (b) post-mission target data extraction for intel updates, etc.," Weiss said. "The ATR capability, including its deep learning updates, must be more agile than the enemy's ability to conceal and/or change its battlefield footprint, tactics, appearance or anything else which might impede the ATR from accurately recognizing and destroying targets.” The Spice family of weapons is operational with the Israeli Air Force and international customers. https://www.defensenews.com/artificial-intelligence/2019/06/17/israels-rafael-integrates-artificial-intelligence-into-spice-bombs/