Contracts for September 17, 2021

On the same subject

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  May 6, 2019 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security, Other Defence

  DARPA: Expediting Software Certification for Military Systems, Platforms

  Military systems are increasingly using software to support functionality, new capabilities, and beyond. Before a new piece of software can be deployed within a system however, its functional safety and compliance with certain standards must be verified and ultimately receive certification. As the rapid rate of software usage continues to grow, it is becoming exceedingly difficult to assure that all software considered for military use is coded correctly and then tested, verified, and documented appropriately. “Software requires a certain level of certification – or approval that it will work as intended with minimal risks – before receiving approval for use within military systems and platforms,” said Dr. Ray Richards, a program manager in DARPA's Information Innovation Office (I2O). “However, the effort required to certify software is an impediment to expeditiously developing and fielding new capabilities within the defense community.” Today, the software certification process is largely manual and relies on human evaluators combing through piles of documentation, or assurance evidence, to determine whether the software meets certain certification criteria. The process is time consuming, costly, and can result in superficial or incomplete evaluations as reviewers bring their own sets of expertise, experiences, and biases to the process. A lack of a principled means of decomposing evaluations makes it difficult to create a balanced and trustworthy process that applies equally to all software. Further, each subsystem and component must be evaluated independently and re-evaluated before it can be used in a new system. “Just because a subsystem is certified for one system or platform does not mean it is unilaterally certified for all,” noted Richards. This creates additional time delays and review cycles. To help accelerate and scale the software certification process, DARPA developed the Automated Rapid Certification Of Software (ARCOS) program. The goal of ARCOS is to create tools and a process that would allow for the automated assessment of software evidence and provide justification for a software's level of assurance that is understandable. Taking advantage of recent advances in model-based design technology, “Big Code” analytics, mathematically rigorous analysis and verification, as well as assurance case languages, ARCOS seeks to develop a capability to automatically evaluate software assurance evidence to enable certifiers to rapidly determine that system risk is acceptable. “This approach to reengineering the software certification process is well timed as it aligns with the DoD Digital Engineering Strategy, which details how the department is looking to move away from document-based engineering processes and towards design models that are to be the authoritative source of truth for systems,” said Richards. To create this automated capability, ARCOS will explore techniques for automating the evidence generation process for new and legacy software; create a means of curating evidence while maintaining its provenance; and develop technologies for the automated construction of assurance cases, as well as technologies that can validate and assess the confidence of an assurance case argument. The evidence generation, curation, and assessment technologies will form the ARCOS tools and processes, working collectively to provide a scalable means of accelerating the pathway to certification. Throughout the program's expected three phases, evaluations and assessments will occur to gauge how the research is progressing. ARCOS researchers will tackle progressively more challenging sets of software systems and associated artifacts. The envisioned evaluation progression will move from a single software module to a set of interacting modules and finally to a realistic military software system. Interested proposers will have an opportunity to learn more during a Proposers Day on May 14, 2019, from 8:30AM to 3:30PM (EST) at the DARPA Conference Center, located at 675 N. Randolph Street, Arlington, Virginia, 22203. The purpose of the Proposers Day is to outline the ARCOS technical goals and challenges, and to promote an understanding of the BAA proposal requirements. For details about the event, including registration requirements, please visit: https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=6a8f03472cf43a3558456b807877f248&tab=core&_cview=0 Additional information will be available in the forthcoming Broad Agency Announcement, which will be posted to www.fbo.gov. https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2019-05-03

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  June 23, 2020 | International, Land

  Rafael offers new multi-missile launcher for Poland’s tank-destroyer program

  By: Seth J. Frantzman JERUSALEM — Rafael Advanced Defense Systems has joined Poland's Ottokar-Brzoza tank-destroyer program, offering its line of anti-tank guided missiles for the country's ground forces. Rafael would co-produce the weapons with Polish conglomerate Polish Armaments Group. The Israeli company unveiled a new multi-missile launcher laid out in a configuration of eight Spike non-line-of-sight missiles, which Poland could incorporate onto its BWP-1, a 1960s Soviet-era tracked armored vehicle, or its KTO Rosomak, a Polish variant of the Patria eight-wheel drive armored vehicle. Poland has hundreds of these vehicles in different variants, and wants to replace some aging ones for its anti-tank regiments. Poland launched the competition to be prepared to confront a major threat, such as a mass amount of armored vehicles. The tender is potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars if the country outfits a large number of its vehicles with launchers. Rafael's NLOS launcher has a standoff range of 32 kilometers and is part of the company's Spike family of weapons, which is on more than 45 different platforms globally, according to the company. Mounted on a fixed rail, the launcher's operator inside a vehicle uses a target consul and coordinates from a target bank or forward observer, such as a UAV. The missiles have a unique data link and do not need GPS to fly to their target. The passive surprise element of the missile (it does not use laser designators) makes it less likely the enemy will see the volley coming. Other missiles, such as the MBDA Brimstone and Lockheed Martin's Hellfire, are also reportedly under consideration, and a variety of vehicle concepts with these weapons are available. These may include a launch station by Wojskowe Zakłady Motoryzacyjne; a chassis by OBRUM; a K9P chassis by Huta Stalowa Wola; the Borsuk tracked future armored vehicle; AMZ-Kutno's Bobr-3 vehicle; or Rheinmetall Defence's armored multipurpose vehicles. Other Spike variants are already used by Poland, including the Spike LR and LR2. A 2015 order from Poland for 1,000 Spike missiles was estimated to be worth $150 million, and an earlier one in 2002 that was reportedly for thousands of missiles was worth about $250 million. The missile type is already produced in Poland by Mesko, which Rafael says provides an existing infrastructure “for the future Polish production of the SPIKE NLOS missile as well as the launchers.” “As part of the its general vision and particularly now at this time of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has had a dramatic effect on all industries and economies, Rafael is continuously working to leverage industrial cooperation by contributing and operating with local industries,” the company said. Poland wants to make a qualitative leap in tank-destroyer units, according to local reports, to put a stop to a potential invasion. This would likely require the country to buy the latest generation of armored vehicles, including those with active defense capabilities. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2020/06/22/rafael-offers-new-multi-missile-launcher-for-polands-tank-destroyer-program/

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  April 30, 2024 | International, Security

  Millions of Malicious 'Imageless' Containers Planted on Docker Hub Over 5 Years

  Millions of malicious "imageless" containers have been planted on Docker Hub over the past 5 years in multiple cybercriminal campaigns.