September 29, 2024 | International, Land
The case for giving Ukraine long-range striking power in Russia
Opinion: The U.S. could benefit Ukraine by doing more to help it to conduct long-range strikes in Russia, the authors of this op-ed argue.
November 13, 2019 | International, Aerospace, C4ISR
BAE to bring advanced radar jamming tech to US Army aircraft
By: Jen Judson
WASHINGTON — BAE Systems plans to demonstrate an interim advanced radar jamming technology next summer for helicopters and unmanned aircraft systems that is lighter and smaller than systems available now.
The company issued a statement Nov. 12 announcing the U.S. Army awarded it a research and development contract to bring the technology to bear. The system “aims to improve air survivability and mission effectiveness” for aircraft “by detecting and defeating complex and unknown threats in electronic combat," the statement read.
BAE will demonstrate the technology in July 2020.
The technology is under development within BAE Systems' FAST Labs and combines adaptive radio frequency jamming and sensing capabilities into one system, a company statement noted.
“Whereas today's electronic countermeasure systems are too bulky and heavy for most rotary-wing and UAS platforms, BAE Systems technology will combine multiple, software-programmable antennas into a digital phased array that will enable simultaneous functions, exceeding existing capabilities while reducing the size, weight, and power of current systems,” according to the British company's statement.
As the Army looks to modernize its capabilities to fight across multiple domains in highly contested environments, the technology, the company said, will enable the aircraft to fly closer to threats and remain protected.
Lighter and smaller systems are also crucial, as existing aircraft continues to be weighed down by additional capabilities for fighting near-peer threats.
“With the continuously evolving threat landscape, it's critical to provide the next-generation of digital phased array technology to better defend our armed forces in electronic warfare,” Chris Rappa, product line director for radio frequency, electronic warfare and advanced electronics at FAST Labs, said in the statement.
“Our technology will give the Army's rotary-wing aircraft and UAS a new, low SWaP [size, weight and power] system to securely and drastically increase their range of movements in future missions,” he added.
BAE is planning flight tests within the next few years, FAST Labs Program Manager Ben McMahon told Defense News.
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February 18, 2019 | International, C4ISR
DARPA: Five Teams of Researchers Will Help DARPA Detect Undersea Activity by Analyzing Behaviors of Marine Organisms
Goliath grouper, black sea bass, and snapping shrimp, along with bioluminescent plankton and other microorganisms, are set to be the unlikely heroes of DARPA's Persistent Aquatic Living Sensors (PALS) program. Five teams of researchers are developing new types of sensor systems that detect and record the behaviors of these marine organisms and interpret them to identify, characterize, and report on the presence of manned and unmanned underwater vehicles operating in strategic waters. This new, bio-centric PALS technology will augment the Department of Defense's existing, hardware-based maritime monitoring systems and greatly extend the range, sensitivity, and lifetime of the military's undersea surveillance capabilities. DARPA first announced the PALS program in February 2018 with the goal of incorporating biology into new solutions for monitoring adversary movements across the seemingly endless spaces of the world's oceans and seas. Ubiquitous, self-replicating, self-sustaining sea life is adaptable and highly responsive to its environment, whereas maritime hardware is resource intensive, costly to deploy, and relatively limited in its sensing modalities. According to PALS program manager Lori Adornato, “Tapping into the exquisite sensing capabilities of marine organisms could yield a discreet, persistent, and highly scalable solution to maintaining awareness in the challenging underwater environment.” The DARPA-funded PALS teams must develop or apply technologies to record stimulus responses from observed organisms, and develop combined hardware and software systems that interpret those responses, screen out false positives, and transmit analyzed results to remote end users. The teams' solutions will incorporate technologies such as hydrophones, sonar, cameras, and magnetic, acoustic, and kinetic sensors. The team led by Northrop Grumman Corporation, under principal investigator Robert Siegel, will record and analyze acoustics from snapping shrimp and optical activity by bioluminescent organisms. The team led by the Naval Research Laboratory, under principal investigator Lenny Tender, will integrate microbial organisms into a sensing platform to detect and characterize biological signals from natural microorganisms that respond to the magnetic signatures of underwater vehicles. The team led by Florida Atlantic University, under principal investigator Laurent Cherubin, will record and analyze vocalization cues from goliath grouper in tropical and subtropical environments. The team led by Raytheon BBN Technologies, under principal investigator Alison Laferriere, will use snapping shrimp as sources of opportunity for long-range detection, classification, and tracking of underwater vehicles. The team led by the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, under principal investigator David Secor, will tag black sea bass with sensors to track the depth and acceleration behaviors of schools of fish that are perturbed by underwater vehicles. DARPA is also funding the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, Division Newport, under principal investigator Lauren Freeman, to develop a seafloor system that uses a hydrophone array and acoustic vector sensor to continuously monitor ambient biological sound in a reef environment for anomalies. The system will analyze changes in the acoustic signals radiated by the natural predator-avoidance response of coral reef ecosystem biota, which could offer an indirect mechanism to detect and classify underwater vehicles in near-real time. DARPA conceived of PALS as a four-year research program with the expectation that researchers will be able to publish results for review by the broader scientific community. However, if DARPA identifies any of the data, results, or technical specifications as controlled unclassified information, DARPA will require the PALS researchers to protect them to prevent proliferation outside of official channels. https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2019-02-15
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May 26, 2021 | International, Naval
Sea Ceptor to protect Royal Navy’s new Type 31 frigates
Sea Ceptor is the world’s most modern naval air defence system of its class Utilising the CAMM, it offers both world-leading close-in air defence and local-area air defence.