Back to news

August 16, 2018 | International, C4ISR

DARPA Wants to Make Underground Maps on the Fly

The agency is challenging teams to build systems that chart caves, tunnels and underground urban infrastructure.

Finding your way through caves and tunnels is both difficult and extremely dangerous, but the Pentagon's research office wants to build technology that can navigate underground environments while humans stay on the surface.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is finalizing teams for its Subterranean Challenge, or SubT, a three-year competition to build systems that can rapidly map and search often treacherous underground areas.

The agency on Thursday awarded a $4.5 million contract to Virginia-based iRobot Defense Holdings and a $750,000 contract to Michigan Technological University to participate in the challenge. A third team, Scientific Systems Company Inc., joined the program on July 31 with a $492,000 contract.

“Even under ideal conditions, these complex environments present significant challenges for subterranean situational awareness,” DARPA wrote in the program announcement. “However, in time-sensitive scenarios, whether in active combat operations or disaster response settings, warfighters and first responders alike are faced with a range of increased technical challenges, including difficult and dynamic terrains ... severe communication constraints, and expansive areas of operation.”

Full Article: https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2018/08/darpa-wants-make-underground-maps-fly/150554/

On the same subject

  • Le Gican se tourne vers l'international et le numérique

    September 5, 2018 | International, Naval

    Le Gican se tourne vers l'international et le numérique

    Le Gican a procédé à une réorganisation de ses services. Pour le Groupement des industries de la construction et des activités navales, il s'agit de "correspondre plus efficacement aux exigences du secteur" dans le contexte d'une "consolidation du Comité stratégique de filière des industries de la mer". L'objectif est de "se concentrer, en plus de la logique métier liée à la construction et à la réparation navale civile et de défense, sur la R&D, l'internationalisation et l'export, la transformation numérique des entreprises et l'attractivité des métiers, mais les exigences du secteur naval ne peuvent négliger le lien fort aux adhérents et aux territoires, et la nécessaire promotion du secteur par une communication et des relations publiques repensées". L'organigramme du Groupement se concentrera désormais autour de six délégations réparties dans trois pôles de compétences : Vie de l'organisation (relations avec les adhérents, relations publiques...), Métiers du naval (chantiers, activités civiles, équipementiers, énergies marines, défense et sécurité) et Industrie (R&D, numérique, internationalisation, export). Ce remaniement a entraîné la nomination de trois personnes. Jean-Marie Dumon s'est vu confier le poste de délégué à la défense et la sécurité, placé dans le Pôle métiers. Cet officier de marine et ingénieur a exercé des responsabilités variées pendant plus de trente ans dans la Marine nationale, dont deux commandements à la mer. Il a également travaillé auprès de hautes autorités du ministère des Armées, en particulier sur la stratégie de réformes. Arnaud Martins Da Torre a été nommé délégué à l'internationalisation des entreprises et à l'export (Pôle industrie). Il a été durant trois ans chercheur spécialiste des conflits et des questions de défense à l'Iris (Institut des relations internationales et stratégiques). Depuis 2001, il travaillait pour Eurotradia International, cabinet de conseil et d'accompagnement à l'export et à l'international. Enfin, Jacques Orjubin a hérité le poste de délégué à la communication et aux relations publiques (Pôle vie). Il a notamment travaillé au cabinet du secrétaire d'État aux Transports, à la Mer et à la Pêche, d'abord à la communication puis en tant que chargé de mission pour le dossier taxis/VTC/LOTI, avant de rejoindre le secrétariat général du Groupe SNCF pour travailler sur des questions de diplomatie économique. https://www.lantenne.com/Le-Gican-se-tourne-vers-l-international-et-le-numerique_a44101.html

  • Defense Department Looking Beyond 5G

    December 8, 2020 | International, C4ISR

    Defense Department Looking Beyond 5G

    12/7/2020 By Jon Harper The Pentagon continues to pump additional funding into 5G technologies that have military and commercial applications. But it is also eyeing 6G and other next-generation communications capabilities. The term 5G refers to the oncoming fifth generation of wireless networks that will yield a major improvement in data speed, volume and latency over today's fourth-gen networks, known as 4G. In October, the Defense Department announced $600 million in awards for 5G test bed and experimentation activities at five U.S. military test sites. The work will be expanded to seven additional sites next year. “These activities represent the largest full scale 5G tests for dual-use applications anywhere in the world,” Acting Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Michael Kratsios told reporters. Commercial partners on the sites will include AT&T, Ericsson, Federated Research, Nokia and the Scientific Research Corporation. “This testing experimentation will not only dramatically improve our warfighting capabilities, it will also bring new uses and opportunities for this technology to the private sector,” Kratsios said. “These sandboxing activities at military bases harness the department's unique authorities to pursue bold innovations and game changing technologies.” Nations that master advanced communication technologies will enjoy long-term economic and military advantages, he added. Initial use cases for 5G envisioned by the Pentagon include integrating augmented reality and virtual reality into mission planning and training; developing “smart” warehouses to enhance logistics operations; and dynamic electromagnetic spectrum sharing in congested and contested environments. Starting in 2021, there will be an emphasis on the security aspects of 5G as well as innovations in next-gen capabilities such as 6G and 7G, Joseph Evans, the Defense Department's principal director for 5G, told reporters. Broad agency announcements on those topics are slated to be released in the January 2021 timeframe, Evans said. Elsa Kania, an adjunct senior fellow with the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, suggested the Pentagon might be getting ahead of itself. “I will be a little bit skeptical of talk of 6G when 5G is still at a nascent stage in so many fronts and we have yet to explore or exploit the full potential of 5G,” she said during a panel discussion. “I'm sure we will hear much more about 6G in the years to come, but I think for the time being, keeping the focus on how to ensure that 5G itself is secure and reliable” is a better approach. https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2020/12/7/defense-department-looking-beyond-5g

  • Space Force orders more missile-tracking satellites from Millennium

    October 23, 2024 | International, Aerospace

    Space Force orders more missile-tracking satellites from Millennium

    Millennium will deliver six more spacecraft for the service's Missile Track Custody program as part of the $386 million deal.

All news