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  November 11, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  Counterdrone Tech Takes Center Stage In UK Government Strategy

  By Tony Osborne Britain is taking initial steps to create a mobile national counterdrone capability to protect major events and key parts of the national infrastructure. Although aware of the potential benefits that small unmanned aircraft (UAS) systems can bring to the national economy, the country has also experienced the havoc they can wreak. Last December, sightings of small UAS around the perimeter of London's Gatwick Airport resulted in the halting of flight operations, disrupting flights and the plans of thousands of travelers in the run-up to Christmas. Yet, despite more than 100 such sightings during the shutdown, police investigations have exhausted their lines of inquiry, no charges were ever brought and Sussex Police, leading the investigation, closed their probe at the end of September. Since then, environmental protesters Extinction Rebellion threatened to use UAS to shut down Heathrow Airport in a bid to disrupt operations, although activists were arrested before they got a chance to try. Drone use in the UK is growing rapidly. According to consultancy PwC, there could be as many as 76,000 commercial and government drones in use in the UK by 2030. In 2014, there were around 400 commercial drone operators in the UK approved by the UK Civil Aviation Authority; there are now over 5,000. The events at Gatwick have acted as a catalyst, prompting the government to get ahead of the threat. In October, the British Home Office published its Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Strategy to help civilian authorities tackle the issues surrounding drones. Along with developing a national counterdrone capability for the police, instead of relying on the military as they had to at Gatwick, the government is looking to update the threat picture of how UAS can be misused. They would then develop what officials call a “full-spectrum” approach in deterring, detecting and disrupting that misuse. Perhaps most crucially, the government will provide greater support to Britain's fledgling but fast-growing counterdrone industry. As well as developing legislation and regulation for counterdrone technology, the strategy also mentions “incentivizing investments” for the most effective technologies. “Government needs to strike a balance,” says British security minister Brandon Lewis. “We need a security posture that keeps us safe, but it must also recognize the benefits of the legal uses of drones and allow us to reap the fullest rewards of incorporating drone technology into society,” But first, the British government will test and accredit anti-drone technologies to better understand their capabilities and develop a catalog of systems that can be purchased by police forces, security agencies and other government departments. Government officials and industry admit there is no “silver bullet” to protect against all types of UAS. “There is not one specific system or one capability that solves the problem,” said Tony Burnell, CEO of Metis Aerospace, a UK-based developer of drone detection equipment. Burnell made his comments while speaking to a British parliamentary committee about the domestic threat of drones in October. “It has to be a multilayered approach. . . . The counterdrone capabilities in the UK, made by industry, will tackle 99.5% of the drones that are out there,” he said. “There is still the 0.5% of drones that you do not know about and that you will [need to] be keeping up [with] to understand.” Costs of anti-drone equipment also remain prohibitively high. But while military-spec systems to protect an airport are priced at £2-3 million ($3-4 million), that could be overkill and far too expensive for a facility such as a prison. Yet prisons arguably need such equipment most urgently. Home Office figures say there were 284 drone incidents at British prisons in 2016, 319 in 2017 and 168 in 2018, with 165 drones recovered at prisons in 2016-17. The police are not the only ones taking an interest in drone technology. In September, the Royal Air Force (RAF) selected Leonardo to carry out a three-year-long study to inform a future RAF counterdrone capability. Leonardo's Falcon Shield was one of the systems deployed by the RAF to Gatwick after a police request. The Gatwick incident has already prompted changes in British law. In March, laws stating that drones could not be flown within 1 km (0.6 mi.) of an airfield were replaced with new restrictions banning them from operating within an airfield's existing aerodrome traffic zone—a radius of 2-2.5 nm around the airfield. It is also now against the law to operate them in 5 X 1-km zones stretching from the thresholds of an airfield/airport's runway. The UK has introduced legislation that calls on drone operators with systems weighing between 250g-20 kg (0.6-44 lb.) to register them and for the pilots to take an online competency course. Registration, which began on Nov. 5, will become a legal requirement from Nov. 30, with operators receiving an operator registration number they must affix to their drone before it is flown. The strategy says the government is now developing concepts for the future implementation of an unmanned traffic management (UTM) system, but it notes that while UTM technology “will not be delivered in the lifetime of the strategy,” security concerns will be appropriately incorporated in early planning. https://aviationweek.com/commercial-aviation/counterdrone-tech-takes-center-stage-uk-government-strategy

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  July 30, 2018 | International, C4ISR

  Rebuilding it ... Better, stronger, faster.

  By: Mike Gruss   The long-held thinking in Washington is that if the Department of Defense wants to stay ahead of its adversaries, it will need improved capabilities, many of which are being developed outside of the Beltway. To that end, Pentagon leaders launched the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental, commonly referred to in defense circles as DIUx, as a way to attract new companies into the fold and accelerate the pace of acquisition. In fall 2017, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis visited the organization's headquarters and said its influence would grow. A few months later, DIUx's director, Raj Shah, left the organization for the private sector. Capt. Sean Heritage has served as the acting managing partner since then. Heritage spoke recently with C4ISRNET's Mike Gruss. C4ISRNET: What's the status of the DIUx reboot? CAPT. SEAN HERITAGE: The last two years have been largely focused on fielding capability across the department. We like to say we can solve problems faster, better, cheaper using commercial technologies with nontraditional companies that are out there. We've learned that we have some amazing talents on our team and rather than just defaulting to fielding capability, we are creating tailored solutions using organic expertise. We've been able to do this primarily in a suborganization we refer to as the Rogue Squadron — it works in the UAF, counter-unmanned aerial system world. We're sharing our lessons learned across the department. We're coaching people on how we do things so that they can emulate us. So, we'd like to think that if we are the only ones doing CSOs [commercial solutions openings] and OTAs [other transaction authorities], in our image a year or two from now, then we failed. C4ISRNET: How do you know this is working? HERITAGE: We know all our prototypes aren't going to transfer to production. Our target goal is between 40 to 60 percent success rate. The feeling is that if we are more successful than that, then we probably aren't being innovative or creative enough and assuming enough risk on behalf of the department. With regard to our creating line of effort, we're very proud of the [Air Operations Center] Pathfinder project. Kessel Run was a great example of fielding capability and then leveraging organic talent to create tailored solutions and transition to a program of record. Then the coaching effort, we're defining success by creating somebody in other organizations in our image every six months. C4ISRNET: On talent development, is part of that asking leaders to rethink how they're using their people or is it something else? HERITAGE: The best example would go back to Kessel Run. That really started with the Defense Innovation Board. We were able to help the Air Force explore the art of the possible, which made a compelling case for the DIB's original recommendation: you guys need software developers as a core skill at the unit level to solve these problems in real time. They like to use the example that Home Depot has 6,000 software developers to sell you hammers. You can say the same for any service. How many software developers do you have? Well, the answer is we don't know, because we don't have a specialty for software developers, but no doubt once you know people across your team, there are many very capable people who do software development on the side. How do you leverage that? How do you more deliberately recruit to that? And how do you develop them? C4ISRNET: What's one area where you guys have been able to say, “Without us, we're not sure this would've happened as fast?” HERITAGE: We are very proud of the work we are doing in the artificial intelligence world. So, we are doing some projects on predictive maintenance. Again, for the Air Force, focusing on the [E-3 Sentry airborne warning and control system] out of the gate. But it's scaling across other platforms. We're already able to deliver value by solving that problem, reducing unplanned maintenance. Another contract was let out that's scaling to the Army with their Bradley Fighting Vehicles. We are going to be doing predictive maintenance with them. Something that may be lost on many people is our involvement in the formulation of the JAIC, the Joint AI Center. That would not have happened without us, but, more specifically, that would not have happened if we weren't here in the Valley and had access to create relationships with some significant talent in the civilian world. C4ISRNET: I wanted to reframe what you were saying. If DIUx wasn't in existence, do you think that there wouldn't be the same level of talent? HERITAGE: The talent we are able to attract to our team, to work through any problems and inform strategic thinking, wouldn't have happened. What we have is very open-minded senior leaders who are yearning for diverse thinking. And, as a career military guy, it's not all that diverse. What we're able to do is reach into a talent pool that has lots of credibility and expertise that isn't resident in the department. C4ISRNET: What's something DIUx is doing now, that it wouldn't have done three years ago? HERITAGE: The biggest difference is the deliberate embracing of our role in creating solutions and scaling ... coaching. Those were things that DIUx didn't do in the past. We have much more support from across the department. We no longer need that direct cover of the Dep. Sec. Def as a direct report. The percentage of our team that is military is higher than at the beginning. That's not necessarily by design. We are attempting to recruit more individuals, commercial executives, to help coach us. We don't want to be a military organization that happens to be in Silicon Valley, Boston and Austin. We want to truly be representatives of the culture. C4ISRNET: You talked about that 40 to 60 percent goal. What are the other ways you measure success? HERITAGE: The first one is the number of customers within the department that are coming our way to ask us to help them solve problems using our relationships, authorities and methodologies. That's one metric and that number continues to go up. The other is the number of nontraditional companies who want to help solve problems. A commercial solutions opening is a honey-pot for all these creative companies to say, ‘Can I contribute?' The number of companies continues to go up. It was 40-plus on the last CSO. The record to date is over 70. Now we're in a position where we have to say no to projects. We're a little more selective. C4ISRNET: What is DIUx's role with AI? HERITAGE: A lot of folks claim to be able to contribute to the AI mission area. There are 593 initiatives across the department that claim to be AI. It's our ability and our connections with Project Maven that have afforded us the opportunity to influence the way ahead for the department and facilitate some conversions. Some of the work that we're able to do with these nontraditional companies is not only shaping understanding of the power of AI across the department, but it's focusing everybody as well. We're able to help make them a bigger part of the conversation or maybe inspire them to a bigger part of the conversation. C4ISRNET: How do you convince a company that working with the Pentagon is the right path, and it's not a quagmire like it has been at Google? HERITAGE: We don't spend time trying to convince companies to do or think anything. There are plenty of folks out here and elsewhere, who are passionate about contributing to the cause, and appreciate what they are learning just through having access to the data that we're able to provide them. But it's a challenging conversation to be a part of because we don't want to turn people off. We're here to provide people with opportunity. C4ISRNET: Where can you help the most in IT? HERITAGE: [Information technology] is an example of how a DoD organization can leverage technology and access to a network that is still secure, yet different than what the rest of the department is using. It's things that you probably take for granted. We have people come to our team for a short period of time, after a career within the department going, “Wow, look at how my productivity has changed since I've been here.” I have access to Slack and the G Suite and a whole host of other tools that are not allowed, and for good reason, on DoD networks. C4ISRNET: One concern is whether new vendors can provide overmatch. Is that the case? HERITAGE: We look at the companies to make sure they're going to be around long enough to provide this capability. When we talk about our responsibility to help navigate the “Valley of Death,” and make sure that these prototypes don't just die, these companies have to have legs underneath them and investors behind them to be viable down the road so that we don't spend our time developing a prototype that they won't be around to deliver. https://www.c4isrnet.com/thought-leadership/2018/07/27/rebuilding-it-better-stronger-faster/

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  March 2, 2020 | International, Naval

  The US Navy’s FFG(X) could be awarded sooner than expected

  By: David B. Larter WASHINGTON – The U..S Navy's next-generation frigate could be awarded within the next few months, earlier than expected, the service's top civilian said Friday. Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly told conservative radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt that he had tasked Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition James Geurts to look at accelerating the award of the first ship, which was slated for this fall. “The plan was to try and do it in the latter part of this year,” Modly told Hewitt. “I've asked [Geurts] to try and accelerate that earlier, and he's looking into the possibilities for doing that. “But obviously, you know, we have acquisition rules, and we want to make sure that we do this in the proper way.” The competition has narrowed to bids from Huntington Ingalls Industries; a team of Navantia and General Dynamics Bath Iron Works; Fincantieri; and Austal USA. Navantia is offering a version of its F-100 design, which is in use by the Spanish Navy; Austal is submitting a version of its trimaran littoral combat ship; Fincantieri is offering its FREMM design; and Huntington Ingalls is believed to be offering an up-gunned version of its national security cutter. Lockheed Martin's version of the FFG(X), an up-gunned, twin-screw variant of its Freedom-class LCS, was pulled from the competition in May. The FFG(X) is supposed to be a small, multimission ship with a modified version of Raytheon's SPY-6 radar destined for the Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, Lockheed Martin's Aegis Combat System, as well as some point defense systems and 32 vertical launch cells for about half the cost of a destroyer. The first ship ordered in 2020 is expected to cost $1.28 billion, according to budget documents, with the next ship in 2021 dropping to $1.05 billion. The Navy expects it to take six years to complete design and construction of the first ship, which should be finished in 2026. Once construction begins, planners anticipate it will take 48 months to build. The second frigate is expected to be ordered in April 2021, and from there it should be delivered about five and a half years after the award date. That means that the first ship should be delivered to the fleet in July of 2026, and the second about three months later. https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/02/28/the-us-navys-ffgx-could-be-awarded-sooner-than-expected