Elbit Systems Awarded Approximately $270 Million Contract to Supply Rocket Artillery for an International Customer

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  August 24, 2018 | International, C4ISR

  DARPA wants an AI system that can basically make sense of everything

  By: Daniel Cebul Defense Advanced Research Project Agency is looking for an artificial intelligence and machine-learning model that can help scientists and researchers push their work to new limits. The Automating Scientific Knowledge Extraction (ASKE) program, announced Aug. 17, is the first contract opportunity DARPA has released as part of its new AI exploration program. The goal is to establish the feasibility of new AI concepts and do it fast ― within 18 months of award ― to help DARPA outpace global AI science and technology discovery efforts. Specifically, the ASKE opportunity is looking to develop an AI system that can rapidly aggregate scientific data over a number of complex systems (physical, biological, social) and identify new data and information resources automatically. Science depends on equations and complex computations of large data sets. The proposed AI system would be able to interpret and expose scientific knowledge and underlying assumptions in existing computational models to extract useful information, like causal relationships, correlations and parameters. This information would then be integrated into a machine-curated model that generates more robust hypotheses. To ensure the system is working with the full-breadth of scientific information available, DARPA is interested in a system that automatically verifies published scientific results and can monitor “fragile economic, political, social and environmental systems undergoing complex events,” in real-time. For such a system to be viable, DARPA believes advanced AI techniques such as “natural language processing, knowledge-based reasoning, machine learning, and/or human-machine collaboration” are needed. Although rapid and real-time aggregation of data from a variety digital sources may have military applications, for now DARPA maintains its “overriding interest is in innovative approaches to extracting knowledge from scientific models.” The winner will be awarded a contract worth as much as $1 million for a prototype. Proposals are due Sept. 17. https://www.c4isrnet.com/it-networks/2018/08/23/darpa-wants-an-ai-system-that-can-basically-make-sense-of-everything

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  June 10, 2022 | International, Land

  After Rheinmetall bid for Oto Melara, Italian government awaits Fincantieri's move

  '€œWe will wait for September for a Fincantieri offer, we want to have the entire picture,'€ a government source in Rome said.

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  October 16, 2020 | International, Land

  Soldiers to evaluate new light tank prototypes

  Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army is preparing a soldier vehicle assessment of two different light tank prototypes for infantry brigade combat teams that will start in January 2021 at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The assessment will run through June 2021, according to the service. BAE Systems and General Dynamics Land Systems were chosen in December 2018 to each build 12 prototypes of the Army's future mobile protected firepower, or MPF, vehicle identified in the service's ground combat vehicle strategy published in 2015. The service had found the capability one the service lacks. GDLS is building a vehicle that takes the United Kingdom's AJAX chassis and combines it with an M1 Abrams tank turret. BAE Systems' design is an updated M8 Buford armored gun system with new capabilities and components. “I just had my deep dive today on the SVA [soldier vehicle assessment] with the 82nd [Airborne],” Maj. Gen. Brian Cummings, the Army's program executive officer for ground combat systems, told Defense News in a recent interview. Work is ongoing to prepare ranges and roads for the arrival of the prototypes, he said. The MPF is going to be critical for the infantry because it provides infantry brigade combat teams with an organic capability to take care of impediments to forward progression such as gunfire from a machine gun nest or another enemy vehicle. The Army is expected to choose a winner in 2022. The first units will get MPF in fiscal 2025. The Army plans to initially build 26 vehicles, with an option to build 28 more and retrofit eight prototypes. GDLS told Defense News in an interview ahead of the Association of the U.S. Army's annual conference that it has delivered three vehicles to the Army. One is at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, going through characterization and mobility testing and preparing for firing. Another is at Yuma Proving Grounds, Arizona, undergoing desert testing and preparing for soldier training. Five more prototypes are in “some form of checkout, getting ready for their final inspection report to deliver to the government,” a GDLS spokesperson said, and the company is on track to deliver all of the vehicles this year. BAE is looking forward to the assessment because the two prototypes are so different from one another, said Jim Miller, the company's senior business development director for combat vehicles. The BAE's offering is smaller — fitting in between the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle and a Stryker in terms of size — while GDLS' vehicle is bigger, as it's based on the M1 Abrams chassis. The BAE's MPF prototype can be transported via a C-130 aircraft. Three can fit on a C-17 aircraft. And even though it is small, it has the survivability of BAE's Armored Multipurpose Vehicle, Miller said. The Army is requiring the vehicle be C-17 transportable. Soldier assessments for other recent competitions have weighed heavily into decisions, Miller added. “I think the soldier vehicle assessment is going to be really important,” he said. “Did we get this right? Now which one is closer to the mark?” https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/ausa/2020/10/15/soldiers-to-evaluate-new-light-tank-prototypes/