Air Force Uses AI to Accelerate Pilot Training

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  December 16, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  New, Low-Cost Air Force ISR Drone Prototype Flies 2.5 Days

  The Air Force Research Laboratory believes it's on to something when it comes to long-endurance drone flight. By THERESA HITCHENS WASHINGTON: While other commercial and military drones have flown longer, the two and a half day flight of the Air Force's latest unmanned aircraft prototype this week does represent a kind of breakthrough for the US military: proving that commercial technology can be adapted to build affordable long-endurance and highly capable surveillance drones. And the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) in Dayton, Ohio is convinced that the new, autonomous Ultra-Long Endurance Aircraft Platform (Ultra LEAP) will be able to stay in the sky for longer in future flight tests. “Developing a UAS with this level of endurance is an incredible achievement for future warfighting and battlefield success,” said Paul Litke, the AFRL project engineer for Ultra LEAP. In an Air Force announcement yesterday, Litke explains that since the system employs many commercial off-the-shelf components, Ultra LEAP will dramatically reduce the costs for high performance intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) drones. The “2.5-day Ultra LEAP mission is a significant milestone in solving the tyranny of distance problem for ISR systems,” said Dr. Alok Das, director of AFRL's Center for Rapid Innovation (CRI). “It will provide immediate benefit to our warfighters while at the same time paving the path for future low-cost, multi-day endurance ISR systems.” Ultra LEAP is based on a commercially available “sport-class” commercial airframe — sport aircraft cost anywhere between $20,000 and $140,000. An AFRL spokesman told Breaking D today that the service could not release the name of the company providing the chassis “for security reasons.” The basic airframe was souped up by AFRL to carry a “customizable suite of ISR tools” that feature “secure, easy to use navigation employing anti-jam GPS and full global operational access via a satellite-based command and control and high-rate ISR data relay link.” The aircraft body was further “converted to a fully automated system with autonomous takeoff and landing capabilities,” the press release said. The high level of automation it provides will enable greatly reduced operator training requirements for the Air Force. Smaller support crews will also lead to lower operating costs, according to AFRL. “As the Air Force balances current readiness with long-term modernization, Ultra LEAP represents an affordable approach that supports both existing and future force needs,” said Maj. Gen. William Cooley, AFRL commander, adding that the “enhanced UAS capabilities along with the cost savings offers the military a winning solution.” The Ultra LEAP effort evolved from an earlier AFRL experiment, just called LEAP but with the A standing for aircraft, started in 2016. Then AFRL Commander Robert McMurry testified to Congress in September 2016 that the program, managed by CRI, was designed to provide “a revolutionary, low-cost, low acoustic signature, persistent aerial ISR capability to address Combatant Command and U.S. Special Forces ISR gaps by converting a proven, fuel-efficient Light Sport Aircraft into an UAS.” Four of the original LEAP aircraft were deployed in early 2016 in conjunction with Special Operations Command, he said. McMurry added that “LEAP significantly bends today's ISR cost-performance curve and enables needed counter- insurgency capability and ISR capacity at a fraction of the cost of comparably performing systems.” The original LEAP was capable of missions up to 40 hours and has completed more than 18,000 combat flight hours. Using the same commercial customization strategy as the original LEAP, CRI developed Ultra LEAP from concept to first flight in less than 10 months, the AFRL release explained, and the system could be ready for operational fielding as soon as 2020. The Air Force is interested in developing a range of long-endurance ISR drones, and in August 2018 issued its Next Generation Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Dominance Flight Plan. The plan sets out the service strategy for “a shift from a manpower-intensive permissive environment to a human-machine teaming approach in a peer threat environment.” For example, the Air Force issued a $48 million contract to Boeing's Aurora Flight Sciences subsidiary for its Orion drone in January 2018. Orion has an endurance of 80 hours. In May of this year, AFRL worked jointly with Lockheed Martin to enhance its Condor eXtended Endurance and Payload (XEP) — improving its endurance from two hours to four. The team also improved the small drone's fuselage to accommodate multiple payload types, according to a May 22 Lockheed Martin press release. The current record for the longest flight time by an unmanned aerial vehicle is held by the pseudo-satellite (an airframe that flies very, very high in the stratosphere) called Zephyr, developed by Airbus Defense and Space. It flew for more than 25 days in the fall of 2018. The US military's most famous drone, the armed MQ-1 Predator made by General Atomics, has an endurance of 40 hours. https://breakingdefense.com/2019/12/new-low-cost-air-force-isr-drone-prototype-flies-2-5-days

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  December 9, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  Advanced seeker production for next-generation precision-guided missile

  December 8, 2020 - BAE Systems received a $60 million contract from Lockheed Martin to manufacture and deliver additional advanced missile seekers for the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM). The seeker comprises long-range sensors and targeting technology that help the stealthy missile find and engage protected maritime targets in challenging electromagnetic environments. “Our warfighters need resilient, long-range precision strike capabilities to compete with modern adversaries,” said Bruce Konigsberg, Radio Frequency Sensors product area director at BAE Systems. “We're proud to partner with Lockheed Martin in delivering this distinct competitive advantage to U.S. warfighters.” LRASM combines extended range with increased survivability and lethality to deliver long-range precision strike capabilities. LRASM is designed to detect and destroy specific targets within groups of ships by employing advanced technologies that reduce dependence on intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms, network links, and GPS navigation in contested environments. This LRASM seeker contract continues the transition of the program from Accelerated Acquisition to Low Rate Production. BAE Systems has delivered more than 50 systems to date that have demonstrated excellent technical performance over multiple test events. The company also is working to make the seeker system smaller, more capable, and more efficient to produce. BAE Systems' LRASM seeker technology builds on the company's decades of experience designing and producing state-of-the-art electronic warfare technology, and its expertise in small form factor design, signal processing, target detection, and identification. Work on the LRASM sensor will be conducted at BAE Systems' facilities in Wayne, New Jersey; Greenlawn, New York; and Nashua, New Hampshire. For additional information, visit: www.baesystems.com/lrasm Contact Nicole GableNicole Gable Media Relations Electronic Systems View source version on BAE Systems: https://www.baesystems.com/en/article/advanced-seeker-production-for-next-generation-precision-guided-missile

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  June 25, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  Countering missile threats means addressing the present while planning for the future

  By: Ian Williams In 2017, I helped author the CSIS report “Missile Defense 2020,” a broad look at the history, status and future of the U.S. homeland missile defense system known as Ground-based Midcourse Defense. The report argued that the establishment of GMD had put the United States in an advantageous position relative to the North Korean missile threat, but this advantage would be short-lived if the United States failed to improve GMD through incremental milestones and regular testing. GMD has had some notable achievements with this strategy. The Pentagon, however, seems to be moving away from this proven approach to GMD, attempting great leaps rather than manageable steps. This riskier approach could make the United States less secure over the near and long term. Until recently, GMD had been following a well-defined road map, with good results. After a series of flight-test failures from 2010-2013, the Missile Defense Agency began a rigorous effort to root out anomalies within the system's Ground-Based Interceptors, or GBI. MDA carried out a successful intercept in 2014, followed by intercepting an intercontinental ballistic missile-class target for the first time in 2017. In 2019, GMD engaged an ICBM target with a salvo of two GBIs, marking another first for the system. MDA also expanded the fleet to 44 GBIs and is constructing a new Long Range Discrimination Radar in Alaska to provide the system much-needed sensor support. These achievements were supposed to be followed by an incremental modernization of the GBIs. The plan was to incorporate a new Redesigned Kill Vehicle around the year 2020. The RKV would be similar in concept to those currently deployed but incorporate new technologies and nearly 20 years of lessons learned. Another part of the plan was to give the GBIs a new booster, one that gave the war fighter the option of using either two or three stages, thereby providing the system more time and space to engage incoming missiles. MDA also set its sights on a set of longer-term objectives. These goals included a space-based sensor layer for tracking missile threats, and a GBI equipped with multiple kill vehicles that would greatly expand the capacity of the GBI fleet. While the volume kill concept had great appeal, MDA recognized the need for a developmental step between the current kill vehicles and a more advanced, unproven concept. Historically, U.S. missile defense has done best when pursuing steady, achievable goals. The highly successful Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense program, for example, has consistently adhered to the mantra: “Build a little, test a little, learn a lot.” The RKV program, however, ran into delays. Yet, rather than continue trying to fix the program, the Pentagon opted to abandon it and skip directly to a more advanced, multi-kill vehicle approach called the Next Generation Interceptor. NGI is an ambitious, 10-plus year endeavor that carries significant risk. In the near term, it means that the president's goal to add 20 more GBIs to the fleet will go unmet, as those GBIs were supposed to be capped with RKVs. Any expansion to the GBI fleet before 2030 will require the design and construction of a modernized unitary kill vehicle of some kind. Absent any effort to expand or modernize the GBI fleet, homeland missile defense will likely fall behind the North Korean missile threat while NGI matures over the next 10 years. The decline will increase U.S. vulnerability to coercion by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at a time when the U.S. military is scrambling to address Chinese and Russian aggression. Furthermore, a major delay of NGI a decade from now (or worse, a failure for NGI to materialize at all) would leave the United States with a fleet of GBIs falling rapidly into obsolescence, squandering decades of resources and effort. To be clear, the United States should continue developing NGI. Missile threats to the U.S. homeland continue to grow at an alarming pace, in quantity and complexity. But the Pentagon and Congress should support these longer-term efforts while still investing in nearer-term options that keep U.S. homeland defenses current to North Korean missile capabilities, hedge against NGI failure and preserve U.S. investments in the GMD system. A potential path forward may lie in the Senate's version of the fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, which contains draft language that would require the deployment of 20 additional GBIs equipped with an interim, unitary kill vehicle by 2026. Three years ago, we titled our study of GMD “Missile Defense 2020” because we believed that this year would be the start of a new chapter in U.S. homeland missile defense. Obviously, much has changed with the cancellation of RKV. Yet, despite all its challenges, this year may still provide the opportunity to make the kind of decisions that will strengthen our national security in the near and long term. https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/06/24/countering-missile-threats-means-addressing-the-present-while-planning-for-the-future/