French Drone Firm Scores Major Military Contract

On the same subject

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  April 9, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  Open source platforms, flexible airframes for new drones

  Kelsey D. Atherton Designing a drone body is about settling on the right compromise. Multirotor drones excel at vertical lift and hover, while fixed wing drones are great at both distance and wide-open spaces. In February, Auterion Government Solutions and Quantum-Systems announced a two-pronged approach to the rotor- or fixed-wing drone market, with a pair of drones that use the same sensor packages and fuselage to operate as either the Scorpion Trirotor or the Vector fixed wing craft. “As we started to develop our tactical UAS Platform, our plan was only to develop a VTOL fixed wing solution (like our Vector),” said Florian Siebel, managing director of Quantum-Systems. “During the development process we decided to build a Tri-Copter Platform as well, as a result of many discussions with law enforcement agencies and Search and Rescue Units.” Adapting the fixed-wing fuselage to the tri-copter attachments means the drone can now operate in narrow spaces and harsh conditions. Scorpion, with the rotors, can fly for about 45 minutes, with a cruising speed of zero to 33 mph. Put the fixed wings back on for Vector, and the flight time is now two hours, with a cruising speed of 33 to 44 mph. The parts snap into place without any need for special tooling, and Auterion recommends the drone for missions in rain or snow. Both platforms share a gimbal EO/IR with 10x optical zoom, 720p EO video, 480p IR video, laser illuminator, IR laser ranger. Common between modes is also a tactical mapping tool using a 21 megapixel Sony UMC R10C camera. For the scorpion, there's also the option of a gimbaled electro-optical camera with a 30x optical zoom. Both drones are designed to fit in rucksacks that a person can carry one at a time. While many features are common across Vector and Scorpion, the plan is not to include both rotors or wings in the same kit. Once a team packs into the field with a drone on its back, that's the mode the drone can be used in. Auterion intends to ship the drones by the fourth quarter of 2020, with preorders available. Designing a drone body is about settling on the right compromise. Vector and Scorpion are built on top of open source code. This includes an operating system capable of programmable autopilot , as well as machine-vision collision prevention and obstacle detection and avoidance. Software for the ground station and cloud data management of the drone are also built on open source code. The Pentagon's Defense Innovation Unit awarded Auterion a $2 million contract last year to work on the PX4 software to help drive compatibility standards in the drone industry. As militaries across the world look to the enterprise sector for capable drones at smaller profile than existing military models, transparency in code and flexibility in airframe could become more widely adopted trends. In the meantime, there is Vector, and there is Scorpion. https://www.c4isrnet.com/unmanned/2020/03/25/open-source-platforms-flexible-airframes-for-new-drones

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  April 9, 2018 | International, C4ISR

  Here’s what the Army wants in future radios

  By: Mark Pomerleau Advancements in electronics and tactics by high-end adversaries are forcing the Army to change the way it revamps and optimizes its communications network against current and future threats. The problem: adversaries have become more proficient and precise in the sensing and jamming of signals. “What we're looking for in terms of resilience in the future is not only making individual links more anti-jam and resilient, resistant to threats, but also having the ability to use multiple paths if one goes down,” Joe Welch, chief engineer at Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications Tactical (C3T), told reporters during a network demo at Fort Myer in early March. “Your phones work this way between 4G and Wi-Fi and that's seamless to you. That's kind of the target of what we're intending to provide with next-generation transport for the Army's tactical network.” Members of industry are now looking to develop radios to these specifications outlined by the Army. “We have an extensive library of waveforms — 51, 52 waveforms that we can bring to bear — that we can say look we can use this waveform to give you more resilience with this capability,” Jeff Kroon, director of product management at Harris, told C4ISRNET during an interview at the AUSA Global Force Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama, in March. “Down the road, we need to talk about resilience and what's going on with the near-peer threats.” Next-generation systems, leaders believe, will be able to provide this necessary flexibility. “The radios that we're looking at buying now — the manpack and the two-channel leader radios — have shown themselves to be able to run a pretty wide range of waveforms and we think it postures us to run some changes to those waveforms in the future as we look at even more advanced waveforms,” Maj. Gen. David Bassett, program executive officer of C3T, told reporters at Fort Myer. While jammers have become more powerful and targeted in recent years, officials contend the entire spectrum can't be interrupted at once. The Army realizes links won't be jam-proof, Bassett told reporters at Fort Myer, so it is looking at how they can be either more jam-resistant or able to switch seamlessly across portions of the spectrum that are not being jammed. Kroon noted that one of the big developments within the radio community down the road will be radios that seamlessly switch frequencies or waveforms without direct user input. “I think, as we move forward, we'll start to have more cognitive capabilities that will allow [the radio] to adapt automatically, and keep the user focused on their own job and let the radio handle the rest,” he said. In addition to multiwaveform and a large range of spectrum coverage, Kroon said the Army is also really looking for multifunction capabilities within radios. Radios also have to have passive sensing capabilities to be able to understand the signals in the environment and provide some level of situational awareness of the spectrum environment. “They have to have visibility into what's going on around them ... not just for [electronic warfare] purposes but sometime just knowing what's going on in the spectrum around you as a planner is really important,” Kroon said. “What's actually going on out there, I don't know I was told this frequency was clear, how do I really know. Having a radio come back and say look what we hit ... it is actually very useful.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/show-reporter/global-force-symposium/2018/04/06/heres-what-the-army-wants-in-future-radios/

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  August 16, 2018 | International, Aerospace

  Mattis says US will work more closely with Argentina

  By: Robert Burns, The Associated Press BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — The U.S. and Argentinian militaries will pursue closer cooperation on numerous fronts, including military education and training, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Wednesday after meeting with his counterpart during the first visit to Argentina by an American defense chief in 13 years. "We focused on what we can do working together as they go through very difficult economic times," Mattis told reporters as he was departing Buenos Aires for a flight to Santiago, Chile. "Both sides are very open to a stronger military-to-military relationship in complete transparency, so there cannot be any doubt about what's going on." Before they met, Mattis and Argentinian Defense Minister Oscar Aguad publicly expressed their hope for better ties. Mattis alluded to the help the U.S. Navy provided Argentina last November when one of its submarines went missing with 44 sailors aboard. The last U.S. secretary of defense to visit Argentina was Donald H. Rumsfeld in 2005. https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2018/08/16/mattis-says-us-will-work-more-closely-with-argentina/