French military receives initial batch of new Serval armored vehicles

On the same subject

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  September 16, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  The Next Big Thing: Lockheed Martin Makes Northern Alabama Flagship for Hypersonic Strike Work

  COURTLAND, Ala., Sept. 16, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Making Northern Alabama its central location for Hypersonic Strike Work, Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) will establish a new facility for the assembly, integration and testing of hypersonics programs and locate the management and engineering workforce for many of these programs in Huntsville. The Courtland expansion will bring two new buildings in support of Lockheed Martin's portfolio of hypersonics programs. This decision brings 72 new jobs to Courtland and 200 new jobs to Huntsville over the next three years with additional job growth expected. During an official ceremony in Courtland today, Marillyn Hewson, Chairman, President and CEO for Lockheed Martin, with speakers Senator Richard Shelby, Governor Kay Ivey, Congressmen Robert Aderholt and Mo Brooks, and Rick Ambrose, Executive Vice President of Space for Lockheed Martin, spoke to the shared commitment it takes to expand operations in Northern Alabama and the collaborative effort between government and industry to provide this advanced capability to the warfighter. Rick Ambrose will host an event, later today in Huntsville, to celebrate the increased workforce expansion as part of this effort. Officials representing the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, US Air Force, US Army and US Navy were in attendance to mark the occasion for the future site of the next hypersonic production facility. Lockheed Martin has a strong partnership with the state of Alabama that dates back several decades and includes research and development on rockets and space launch vehicles, tactical missiles, space exploration and air and missile defense targets. Lockheed Martin's Courtland and Huntsville employees are an established part of the community and weaved deeply into the fabric of the economy. The company employs over 2,000 people in the state of Alabama, who support local businesses, charitable organizations and volunteerism to multiple schools for STEM outreach and education. "The decision to bring hypersonic manufacturing to this region would not have been possible without the support of the State of Alabama, our local partners including Lawrence and Madison counties, the cities of Courtland and Huntsville and Tennessee Valley Authority as well as those elected representatives in Congress," said Scott Keller, vice president and general manager for Strategic and Missile Defense for Lockheed Martin. "On behalf of Lockheed Martin, we are honored to expand our presence in Northern Alabama and watch as the next cohort of innovators take advanced defense technology to levels we once thought were impossible." "Lockheed Martin has a longstanding relationship with the state of Alabama, and I am proud to see that strengthen even more as they make our state the flagship location for their hypersonic programs," said Governor Ivey. "Both Courtland and Huntsville will gain new jobs, which is always welcome news. I am proud and confident that Alabamians will help advance Lockheed Martin's goals as we begin working towards the advancements of the future." Lockheed Martin is proud to be an industry leader in the development, testing and fielding of hypersonic systems. Hypersonic Strike capabilities have been identified by the U.S. government as a critical capability that must be addressed in support of the U.S. National Security Strategy. Lockheed Martin is honored by the partnerships established with the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and DARPA on key programs to meet this critical mission need. For additional information, visit our website: www.lockheedmartin.com/hypersonics https://news.lockheedmartin.com/2019-09-16-The-Next-Big-Thing-Lockheed-Martin-Makes-Northern-Alabama-Flagship-for-Hypersonic-Strike-Work

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  February 7, 2019 | International, Security, Other Defence

  DARPA: Intelligent Healing for Complex Wounds

  Blast injuries, burns, and other wounds experienced by warfighters often catastrophically damage their bones, skin, and nerves, resulting in months to years of recovery for the most severe injuries and often returning imperfect results. This long and limited healing process means prolonged pain and hardship for the patient, and a drop in readiness for the military. However, DARPA believes that recent advances in biosensors, actuators, and artificial intelligence could be extended and integrated to dramatically improve tissue regeneration. To achieve this, the new Bioelectronics for Tissue Regeneration (BETR) program asks researchers to develop bioelectronics that closely track the progress of the wound and then stimulate healing processes in real time to optimize tissue repair and regeneration. Paul Sheehan, the BETR program manager, described his vision for the technology as “not just personalized medicine, but dynamic, adaptive, and precise human therapies” that adjust to the wound state moment by moment to provide greater resilience to wounded warfighters. “Wounds are living environments and the conditions change quickly as cells and tissues communicate and attempt to repair,” Sheehan said. “An ideal treatment would sense, process, and respond to these changes in the wound state and intervene to correct and speed recovery. For example, we anticipate interventions that modulate immune response, recruit necessary cell types to the wound, or direct how stem cells differentiate to expedite healing.” The envisioned BETR technology would represent a sharp break from traditional wound treatments, and even from other emerging technologies to facilitate recovery, most of which are passive in nature. Under current medical practice, physicians provide the conditions and time for the body to either heal itself when tissues have regenerative capacity or to accept and heal around direct transplants. Most people are familiar with interventions that include casts to stabilize broken bones or transplants of healthy ligaments or organs from donors to replace tissues that do not regenerate. Passive approaches often result in slow healing, incomplete healing with scarring, or, in some unfortunate cases, no healing at all. Blast injuries in particular seem to scramble the healing processes; 23 percent of them will not fully close. Moreover, research shows that in nearly two thirds of military trauma cases — a rate far higher than with civilian trauma injuries — these patients suffer abnormal bone growth in their soft tissue due to a condition known as heterotopic ossification, a painful experience that can greatly limit future mobility. Although recent experimental treatments offer some hope for expedited recovery, many of these new approaches remain static in nature. For instance, some “smart” bandages emit a continuous weak electric field or locally deliver drugs. Alternatively, hydrogel scaffolds laced with a drug can recruit stem cells, while decellularized tissue re-seeded with donor cells from the patient help avoid rejection by the host's immune system. These newer approaches may indeed encourage growth of otherwise non-regenerative tissue, but because they do not adapt to the changing state of a wound, their impact is limited. “To understand the importance of adaptive treatments that respond to the wound state, consider the case of antibiotic ointments,” Sheehan explained. “People use antibiotics to treat simple cuts, and they help if the wound is infected. However, completely wiping out the natural microbiota can impair healing. Thus, without feedback, antibiotics can become counterproductive.” Recent technologies have begun to close the loop between sensing and intervention, looking for signs of infection such as changes in pH level or temperature to trigger treatment. To date, however, these systems have been limited to monitoring changes induced by bacteria. For BETR, DARPA intends to use any available signal, be it optical, biochemical, bioelectronic, or mechanical, to directly monitor the body's physiological processes and then to stimulate them to bring them under control, thereby speeding healing or avoiding scarring or other forms of abnormal healing. By the conclusion of the four-year BETR program, DARPA expects researchers to demonstrate a closed-loop, adaptive system that includes sensors to assess wound state and track the body's complex responses to interventions; biological actuators that transmit appropriate biochemical and biophysical signals precisely over space and time to influence healing; and adaptive learning approaches to process data, build models, and determine interventions. To succeed, the BETR system must yield faster healing of recalcitrant wounds, superior scar-free healing, and/or the ability to redirect abnormally healing wounds toward a more salutary pathway. DARPA anticipates that successful teams will include expertise in bioelectronics, artificial intelligence, biosensors, tissue engineering, and cellular regeneration. Further, DARPA encourages proposals that address healing following osseointegration surgery, which is often necessary to support the use of advanced prosthetics by wounded warfighters. DARPA will host a Proposers Day on March 1, 2019 in Arlington, Virginia, to provide more information to researchers interested in submitting a proposal for funding. Additional information is available at https://go.usa.gov/xENCQ. A forthcoming Broad Agency Announcement, to be posted to the Federal Business Opportunities website, will include full details of the program. https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2019-02-06a

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  May 6, 2022 | International, C4ISR

  Thales finalizes acquisition of RUAG training and simulation unit

  The acquisition aligns with armed forces modernization programs across the globe, and a move toward digitalization across land forces.