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On the same subject

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  July 15, 2022 | International, Other Defence

  Seeking to reposition, LMI plans to sells for-profit subsidiary

  LMI has sold its for-profit subsidiary in a bid to accelerate its growth.

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  November 18, 2019 | International, Land

  Here’s who will build the US Army’s heavy common robot

  By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army has chosen FLIR's Kobra robot to serve as its heavy version of the Common Robotic System that will be used for explosive ordnance disposal and other heavy-duty jobs. The production contract will run for a period of five years and could be worth up to $109 million. The Army wanted its Common Robotic System-Heavy, or CRS-H, to weigh up to 700 pounds and to carry a variety of sensors and payloads to support missions. “The Kobra [unmanned ground vehicle] delivers unmatched strength, power and payload support in an easy-to-operate robot package,” according to a FLIR statement sent to Defense News. Kobra has a lift capacity of 330 pounds and can stretch up to eleven-and-a-half feet to get at difficult-to-reach places, but it is also still nimble enough to climb jersey barriers and fit into the back of a standard utility vehicle, according to FLIR. FLIR's legacy business, Endeavor Robotics, won a contract in 2017 to provide the Army with a medium-sized UGV — the Man Transportable Robotic System Increment II. FLIR is delivering the Centaur UGV for the program. FLIR bought Endeavor Robotics in February, an acquisition that made sense because FLIR's camera and sensors — its bread and butter — have been used on countless manned and unmanned vehicles like those developed by the Massachusetts-based robotics company. FLIR also acquired Prox Dynamics in 2016, the Norwegian maker of the tiny micro-drone — the Black Hornet — that is now used as the Army's soldier borne sensor. Endeavor also competed for the CRS-Individual system — a man-packable robot that is less than 25 pounds — but lost to fellow Massachusetts-based robotics company QinetiQ North America in March. For the CRS-H program, FLIR beat out QinetiQ. Kobra is also participating in a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency effort to build a system-of-systems solution that can operate in subterranean environments. The company's solution consists of the Kobra robot that will enter subterranean environments carrying radio repeaters —based on the company's small, throwable FirstLook robots — and drop them off along the way to continue connectivity as it travels deeper underground. The system will also carry a four-legged robot supplied from Ghost Robotics to explore more rugged and difficult terrain as well as a quadcopter that will investigate vertical shafts and other hard to reach places. The winner of the challenge is expected to receive $2 million in 2021. The CRS-I and CRS-H programs are part of a larger Army program to streamline its robotics inventory. By necessity, during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army clamored to buy UGVs that could help provide a level of standoff between soldiers and the dangers faced on the battlefield, mostly improvised explosive devices. The Army procured roughly 7,000 UGVs and ended up with a petting zoo of robots from Talons to PacBots to Dragon Runners, to name a few. The service had roughly nine variants of robots used for explosive ordnance disposal, two robots for engineering battalions to conduct route clearance, two for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) tasks and three for contingency and global response forces. The Army's way forward uses just a few common platforms where systems and sensors can be swapped out easily for different missions and which are all controlled using one universal controller. It's been the season for major headway in Army robotics programs across the board. The service is also underway with development of robotic combat vehicles in light, medium and heavy categories. The Army invited four teams to compete to build prototypes for its future light RCV last month: A Textron and Howe & Howe team, a team of QinetiQ and Pratt & Miller, HDT Global and Oshkosh Defense. And three teams were picked earlier this month to move on in the Army's competition for a medium-sized RCV: General Dynamics Land Systems, QinetiQ and the Textron and Howe & Howe team. The Army also awarded, at the end of last month, a contract to GDLS to provide the Squad Multipurpose Equipment Transport (SMET) unmanned vehicle. GDLS offered up its Multi-Utility Tactical Transport — or MUTT — in that competition. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2019/11/15/heres-who-just-won-a-contract-to-build-the-armys-heavy-robot/

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  October 19, 2020 | International, C4ISR

  Pentagon inks $197 million in contracts for microelectronics

  Andrew Eversden WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Defense has awarded contracts worth $197.2 million for microelectronics, it announced Thursday, amid concerns about with much production of the technology is taking place outside the United States. The Pentagon awards are part of the department's desire to entice microelectronics manufacturing back into the United States. Microelectronics are at the core of technologies the department considers critical to national security, such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing and 5G communications capabilities. “The microelectronics industry is at the root of our nation's economic strength, national security, and technological standing," said Michael Kratsios, acting undersecretary of defense for research and engineering. The “awards support the Department's mission to promote microelectronics supply chain security and accelerate U.S. development of the very best in circuit design, manufacturing, and packaging. It's critical for the DOD and American industry to work together in meaningful partnerships to ensure the United States leads the world in microelectronics far into the future.” As part of the awards, Microsoft and IBM are splitting an other transaction authority contract worth $24.5 million “to advance commercial leading-edge microelectronics physical ‘back-end' design methods with measurable security.” The award is a phase one deal under the DoD's Rapid Assured Microelectronics Prototypes using Advanced Commercial Capabilities Project. Another contract, valued at $172.7 million, was awarded to both Intel Federal and Qorvo to “develop and demonstrate a novel approach towards measurably secure, heterogeneous integration and test of advanced packaging solutions.” The award was given under phase two of the State-of-the-Art Heterogeneous Integration Prototype Program. “These awards highlight how the Department is moving towards a new quantifiable assurance strategy that will help the DOD quickly and safely build and deploy leading-edge microelectronics technologies,” the Pentagon's news release said. The department is increasingly concerned about the microsystems market because much of the production process takes place overseas, particularly in or near China. The department fears this allows China to implement backdoors into critical national security systems. Because of the current market structure, "we can no longer identify the pedigree of our microelectronics,” Ellen Lord, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, said at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Electronics Resurgence Initiative Summit in August. “Therefore we can no longer ensure that backdoors, malicious code or data exfiltration commands aren't embedded in our code. While we develop the ability to identify the technical path to ensure all components, circuits and systems are clean regardless of their manufacturing location, we need to find a path to domestic sources to provide a secure and resilient supply of legacy, state-of-the-present and state-of-the-art microelectronics.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/it-networks/2020/10/16/pentagon-inks-197-million-in-contracts-for-microelectronics/