April 14, 2020 | International, Aerospace
WASHINGTON: First Infantry Division soldiers at Fort Riley, Kansas launched their first Arcturus JUMP 20 recon drone on Tuesday, one of four UAVs the service is evaluating to replace the aging RQ-7 Shadow. While some high-profile weapons testing has been delayed or disrupted by the COVID-19 coronavirus, from the F-35 fighter to the IBCS missile defense network, the 1st ID's commander, Maj. Gen. John Kolasheski, okayed the Future Tactical Unmanned Aerial System (FTUAS) test — with some precautions.
“1st Infantry Division Soldiers are encouraged to wear cloth face coverings in public settings or in situations such as the FTUAS assessment, where social distancing is difficult,” said Maj. John Allen. “Our actions to protect the force and prevent the spread of COVID-19 are continually assessed and revised as necessary and in accordance with Army policy.”
Allen is public affairs officer for the division's 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team. The unit, one of the oldest in the Army with a history going back to World War I, is now the first of five combat brigades that will be field-testing the four FTUAS contenders. The Martin V-Bat, Textron Aerosonde HQ, and L3Harris FVR-90 will each be tested by a different brigade, while two units (including the 1st ABCT) will try out the largest of the drones, Arcturus UAV's 210-pound JUMP 20. The exact start dates are now uncertain as each unit and contractor must take precautions against the pandemic.
This multi-month, multi-brigade effort is part of Army Futures Command's emphasis on getting feedback from real soldiers early in acquisition programs, rather than trying to perfect new technology in isolation from the people who'll actually have to use it.
So far, so good, according to soldiers quoted in today's Army announcement. The current Shadow drone is so loud that “we're used to screaming at each other and having to use radios in order to communicate,” said Spc. Christopher McCoy. With the JUMP 20, he said, “you can stand right next to this aircraft and not even raise your voice.”
Getting a quieter scout drone is a top priority for the FTUAS program – not to save soldiers' hearing, although that's a positive side effect — but to make it harder for enemies to detect.
Another priority is scrapping the cumbersome infrastructure required for the Shadow, which needs a pneumatic catapult to launch it and a runway to land on. “With the VTOL [Vertical Take Off & Landing] system on the JUMP 20, we don't need any of that,” said Spc. Nicholas Miller (pictured above in his cloth mask). “We're working with half the equipment.”
The 1st Brigade will try out the JUMP 20 for five months, building up from this week's familiarization drills to full-scale brigade wargames at the National Training Center – assuming, that is, that those exercises aren't canceled by the pandemic like so many others.
https://breakingdefense.com/2020/04/covid-19-masked-army-soldiers-test-new-drones
May 12, 2023 | International, Land
Rheinmetall has founded a joint venture with Ukrainian state-owned conglomerate Ukroboronprom to build and repair tanks in Ukraine, the Handelsblatt daily reported Friday, citing the German arms maker's chief executive.
September 26, 2019 | International, C4ISR
By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR. GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: “You will find no stronger proponent of integration of AI capabilities writ large into the Department of Defense,” Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan said here, “but there is one area where I pause, and it has to do with nuclear command and control.” In movies like WarGames and Terminator, nuclear launch controls are the first thing fictional generals hand over to AI. In real life, the director of the Pentagon's Joint Artificial Intelligence Center says, that's the last thing he would integrate AI with. The military is beginning a massive multi-billion dollar modernization of its aging system for Nuclear Command, Control, & Communications (NC3), much of which dates to the Cold War. But the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center is not involved with it. A recent article on the iconoclastic website War on the Rocks argued “America Needs A ‘Dead Hand',” a reference to the Soviet system designed to automatically order a nuclear launch if the human leadership was wiped out. “I read that,” Shanahan told the Kalaris Intelligence Conference here this afternoon. “My immediate answer is ‘No. We do not.'” Instead, the JAIC is very deliberately starting with relatively low-risk, non-lethal projects — predicting breakdowns in helicopter engines and mapping natural disasters — before moving on to combat-related functions such as intelligence analysis and targeting next year. On the Pentagon's timeline, AI will be coming to command posts before it is embedded in actual weapons, and even then the final decision to use lethal force will always remain in human hands. The standard term in the Pentagon now for human involvement with AI and weapons now is “human on the loop,” a shift from human IN the loop. That reflects greater stress on the advisory function of humans with AI and a recognition that domains like cyber require almost instantaneous responses that can't wait for a human. Hawkish skeptics say slowing down to ask human permission could cripple US robots against their less-restrained Russian or Chinese counterparts. Dovish skeptics say this kind of human control would be too easily bypassed. Shanahan does see a role for AI in applying lethal force once that human decision is made. “I'm not going to go straight to ‘lethal autonomous weapons systems,'” he said, “but I do want to say we will use artificial intelligence in our weapons systems... to give us a competitive advantage. It's to save lives and help deter war from happening in the first place.” The term “lethal autonomous weapons systems” was popularized by the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, which seeks a global ban on all AI weapons. Shanahan made clear his discomfort with formal arms control measures, as opposed to policies and international norms, which don't bind the US in the same way. “I'll be honest with you,” Shanahan said. “I don't like the term, and I do not use the term, ‘arms control' when it comes to AI. I think that's unhelpful when it comes to artificial intelligence: It's largely a commercial technology,” albeit with military applications. “I'm much more interested, at least as a starting point, in international rules and norms and behavior,” he continued. (Aside from the space is governed almost exclusively “It's extremely important to have those discussions.” “This is the ultimate human decision that needs to be made....nuclear command and control,” he said. “We have to be very careful. Knowing ...the immaturity of technology today, give us a lot of time to test and evaluate.” “Can we use artificial intelligence to make better decisions, to make more informed judgments about what might be happening, to reduce the potential for civilian casualties or collateral damage?” Shanahan said. “I'm an optimist. I believe you can. It will not eliminate it, never. It's war; bad things are going to happen.” While Shanahan has no illusions about AI enabling some kind of cleanly surgical future conflict, he doesn't expect a robo-dystopia, either. “The hype is a little dangerous, because it's uninformed most of the time, and sometimes it's a Hollywood-driven killer robots/Terminator/SkyNet worst case scenario,” he said. “I don't see that worst case scenario any time in my immediate future.” “I'm very comfortable saying our approach — even though it is emerging technology, even though it unfolds very quickly before our eyes — it will still be done in a deliberate and rigorous way so we know what we get when we field it,” Shanahan said. “As the JAIC director, I'm focused on really getting to the fielding,” he said, moving AI out of the lab into the real world — but one step at a time. “We're always going to start with limited narrow use cases. Say, can we take some AI capability and put it in a small quadcopter drone that will make it easier to clear out a cave, [and] really prove that it works before we ever get it to a [large] scale production.” “We will have a very clear understanding of what it can do and what it can't do,” he said. “That will be through experimentation, that will be through modeling and simulation, and that will be in wargames. We've done that with every piece of technology we've ever used, and I don't expect this to be any different.” The JAIC is even looking to hire an in-house ethicist of sorts, a position Shanahan has mentioned earlier but sought to clarify today. “It'll be someone who's a technical standards [expert] / ethicist,” he said. “As we develop the models and algorithms... they can look at that make sure the process is abiding by our rules of the road.” “I'm also interested in, down the road, getting some help from the outside on sort of those deeper philosophical questions,” he continued. “I don't focus on them day to day, because of my charter to field now, but it's clear we have to be careful about this.” “I do not see that same approach in Russia or China,” Shanahan said. “What sets us apart is... our focus on real rigor in test and evaluation, validation and verification, before we field capability that could have lives at stake.” https://breakingdefense.com/2019/09/no-ai-for-nuclear-command-control-jaics-shanahan
October 25, 2019 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security
ARMY Frank X. Spencer Inc.,* El Paso, Texas, was awarded a $240,000,000 firm-fixed-price contract for professional land survey architect-engineer services. Bids were solicited via the internet with 12 received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Oct. 23, 2024. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Little Rock, Arkansas, is the contracting activity (W9126G-20-D-6001). DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY Combat Medical Systems LLC, Harrisburg, North Carolina, has been awarded a maximum $43,432,160 fixed-price with economic-price-adjustment, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for medical and surgical supplies. This was a competitive acquisition with 16 responses received. This is a five-year contract with no options. Location of performance is North Carolina, with an Oct. 23, 2024, performance completion date. Using customers are Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and federal civilian agencies. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2020 through 2024 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (SPE2DE-20-D-0003). Creighton AB Inc., Reidsville, North Carolina, has been awarded a maximum $8,055,077 firm-fixed-price contract for men's trousers. This was a competitive acquisition with one response received. This is a one-year base contract with four one-year option periods. Locations of performance are North Carolina and New York, with an Oct. 23, 2020, performance completion date. Using military service is Air Force. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2020 through 2021 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (SPE1C1-20-D-1211). (Awarded Oct. 23, 2019) NAVY General Dynamics Electric Boat Corp., Groton, Connecticut, is awarded a $32,082,297 cost-plus-fixed-fee modification to previously awarded contract N00024-17-C-2104 to exercise options for the accomplishment of reactor plant planning yard services for nuclear-powered submarines and support yard services for the Navy's moored training ships. This option exercise is for the accomplishment of reactor plant planning yard services for nuclear-powered submarines and support yard services for the Navy's moored training ships. General Dynamics Electric Boat Corp. will furnish, fabricate, or acquire such materials, supplies and services as may be necessary to perform the functions of the planning yard for reactor plants and associated portions of the propulsion plants for nuclear powered submarines. Work will be performed in Groton, Connecticut (90%); and Charleston, South Carolina (10%), and is expected to be complete by September 2021. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance (Navy); and other procurement (Navy) funding in the amount of $13,214,312 will be obligated at time of award and $5,514,432 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, District of Columbia, is the contracting activity. ViaSat Inc., Carlsbad, California, is awarded a $23,914,150 five-year, firm-fixed-price, long-term requirement contract for the repair support of the Multifunctional Information Distribution System, Low Volume Terminal for the Navy. This is a five-year contract with no option periods. Work will be performed in Oostkamp, Belgium (50%); Carlsbad, California (37%); Palm Bay, Florida (9%); and Lynwood, Washington (4%). Work is expected to be completed by October 2024. Annual working capital funds (Navy) will be used and funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. A delivery order in the amount of $3,930,305 will be obligated at the time of award. One company was solicited for this sole sourced requirement under authority 10 U.S. Code 2304 (c)(1), with one offer received. Naval Supply Systems Command, Weapon Systems Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the contracting activity (N00383-20-D-VK01). FreeAlliance.com LLC,* McLean, Virginia, is awarded a $15,299,578 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for advanced cyber support services in support of the Marine Corps Cyberspace Operations Group. Work will be performed in Quantico, Virginia. This one-year contract includes four one-year option periods which, if exercised, would bring the cumulative value of this contract to an estimated $79,599,761. The period of performance of the base period is Nov. 1, 2019, through Oct. 31, 2020. If all options are exercised, the period of performance would extend through Oct. 31, 2024. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance (Marine Corps) funds in the amount of $1 million will be obligated at time of award. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance (Marine Corps) funds in the amount of $1 million will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via request for proposal N66001-18-R-0011, which was published on the Federal Business Opportunities website and the Naval Information Warfare Systems Command e-Commerce Central website. Five offers were received and one was selected for award. The Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, San Diego, California, is the contracting activity (N66001-20-C-3406). Bristol Design Build Services LLC,* Anchorage, Alaska, is a $14,435,000 firm-fixed-price task order N62473-20-F-4013 under a multiple award construction contract for the design and construction at Repair Building 618 at Naval Amphibious Base, Naval Base, Coronado, California. The work to be performed provides for a three-story unaccompanied housing facility and is being utilized for enlisted program sailors. Repair work includes addressing deteriorated exterior and interior facility systems and components such as fatigued concrete floors, walls and hallways, damaged ceiling tiles, rusted out doors and door casings, cracked concrete stairs, damaged/aging electrical systems and components, mechanical heating, ventilation and air conditioning system, lighting and faulty wet utility/plumbing systems. Work will be performed in Coronado, California, and is expected to be completed by May 2021. Fiscal 2020 operations and maintenance (Navy) contract funds in the amount of $14,435,000 are obligated on this award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Four proposals were received for this task order. Naval Facilities Engineering Command Southwest, San Diego, California, is the contracting activity (N62473-17-D-4636). AIR FORCE Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Corp., Marietta, Georgia, has been awarded a not-to-exceed $12,437,030 undefinitized contractual action contract for C-130-J support. The contract will provide long term sustainment (LTS) for France's C-130-J aircraft. Critical components of LTS support include program management support; spares, supply support services; support equipment; diminishing manufacturing sources, sustaining engineering services, sustaining engineering/technical services, field services representatives (FRS), logistics service representatives, contract field team, FSR deployment/travel, technical order updates; technical order print and distribution; country standard time compliance technical orders; depot maintenance; aircraft modifications; and data and configuration management programs. Work will be performed at Marietta, Georgia; and at French air bases, and is expected to be completed by Jan. 1, 2023. This award is the result of a sole source acquisition and is 100% foreign military sales. Foreign Military Sales funds in the amount of $2,487,391 will be obligated at the time of award. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, is the contracting activity (FA8553-20-C-0001). *Small Business https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Contracts/Contract/Article/1998102/source/GovDelivery/