General Atomics Advances SeaGuardian Systems

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  August 10, 2020 | International, Naval

  PBO to examine $60 billion price tag of new warships and compare to other less expensive foreign programs

  David Pugliese, Ottawa Citizen, Postmedia News (dpugliese@ottawacitizen.com) Published: Aug 07 at 6:31 p.m. Updated: a day ago The $60 billion price tag of Canada's proposed new fleet of warships will come under the scrutiny of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who will also examine other less costly similar projects underway in other countries. The House of Commons government operations committee requested that Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux examine the cost of the Canadian Surface Combatant project and take a look at the cost of two other types of warships: the FREMM and the Type 31. PBO spokeswoman Sloane Mask said the analysis would be presented to the committee by Oct. 22. “The analytical work is currently underway,” she added. Last year the Liberal government signed an initial deal that is expected to lead to the eventual construction of 15 warships in the largest single government purchase in Canadian history. Lockheed Martin offered Canada the Type 26 warship designed by BAE in the United Kingdom. Irving is the prime contractor and the vessels will be built at its east coast shipyard. Construction of the first ship isn't expected to begin until the early 2020s. But the Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC) program has already faced rising costs. In 2008, the then-Conservative government estimated the project would cost roughly $26 billion. But in 2015, Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, then commander of the navy, voiced concern that taxpayers may not have been given all the information about the program, publicly predicting the cost for the warships alone would approach $30 billion. The overall project is currently estimated to cost around $60 billion. “Approximately one-half of the CSC build cost is comprised of labour in the (Irving) Halifax yard and materials,” according to federal government documents obtained by this newspaper through the Access to Information law. But some members of parliament and industry representatives have privately questioned whether the CSC cost is too high. There have been suggestions that Canada could dump the Type 26 design and go for a cheaper alternative since the CSC project is still in early stages and costs to withdraw could be covered by savings from a less expensive ship. Canada had already been pitched on alternatives. In December 2017, the French and Italian governments proposed a plan in which Canada could build the FREMM frigate at Irving. Those governments offered to guarantee the cost of the 15 ships at a fixed $30 billion, but that was rejected by the Canadian government. Earlier this year, the U.S. Navy selected the FREMM design for its newest fleet of warships. The estimated cost is around $1.3 billion per ship. The other type of warship the PBO will look at is the Type 31, which is to be built for the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom. Those ships are to cost less than $500 million each. In 2017, then Parliamentary Budget Officer Jean-Denis Fréchette estimated the CSC program would cost $61.82 billion. The entry of the BAE Type 26 warship in the Canadian competition was controversial from the start and sparked complaints that the procurement process was skewed to favour that vessel. Previously the Liberal government had said only mature existing designs or designs of ships already in service with other navies would be accepted on the grounds they could be built faster and would be less risky. Unproven designs can face challenges if problems are found once the vessel is in the water and operating. But the criteria was changed and the government and Irving accepted the BAE design, though at the time it existed only on the drawing board. Construction began on the first Type 26 frigate in the summer of 2017 for Britain's Royal Navy. Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2020 https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/news/canada/pbo-to-examine-60-billion-price-tag-of-new-warships-and-compare-to-other-less-expensive-foreign-programs-482874/

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  August 14, 2019 | International, Land, C4ISR

  Can robots make an Army platoon 10 times as effective?

  By: Kelsey D. Atherton Are humans with robots an order of magnitude better than humans without robots? It's the question the Army's Maneuver Center for Excellence is hoping to solve through trial and experimentation. The National Advanced Mobility Consortium posted a request for white papers Aug. 5 about technologies that might have a place in a robotic, artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomy technology demonstration at Fort Benning in September 2020. This project is long in the works, with an announcement of intent dating back to March 2019. The premise, as stated in the March announcement, is to “show a path towards an Army capability that will provide a robotically equipped dismounted infantry platoon that is 10 times more effective than the current dismounted infantry platoon.” In order to do this, the Maneuver Center for Excellence, together with Fort Benning's Maneuver Capabilities Development and Integration Directorate's Robotics Requirements Division, is exploring robotic systems for “ground, air, water,” as well as the virtual space — otherwise known as the four platonic elements of terrestrial war. These robots and systems should be able to improve “mobility, protection, situational awareness, endurance, persistence, and depth” as well as, and this is key, lethality. Taken together, the robots should lend an advantage to the platoon's OODA loop — its ability to observe, orient, decide and act — with the goal that a robot-enabled platoon completes OODA-loop cycles 10 times faster than it would without robots. That's a tremendous amount of promise to put in remote systems, especially since the present paradigm of controlled robotic battlefield tools involves a lot of human observers and controllers checking on, managing, and directing the robots. (The process by which humans are actively involved in robot control is “in the loop” or, with more passive robot monitoring termed “on the loop.”) If robots are going to improve soldier situational awareness by an order of magnitude, they will have to be autonomous. And not just autonomous in movement, but autonomous in sensing, data processing, and in providing that information back to the platoon. Part of this vision involves robots themselves producing intelligence products that are both immediate and ephemeral, useful in the tactical moment and then gone before they can become out of date. Another piece is machines autonomously moving through and responding to the environment on their own, as exercises undertaken by DARPA and the Marine Corps have already explored. If that same autonomy will extend to robot lethality, or if weapons will stay in the hands of humans, remains to be determined. In preparation for the September 2020 exercise, Georgia Tech Research Institute is designated to serve as the technology integrator for the assessment and demonstration parts of the task. As the industry proposals are vetted to meet Army needs, some will receive a Request for Prototype Proposal, and will also be evaluated in a simulation exercise to see if they will be part of the 2020 exercise. Interested parties should look to the National Advanced Mobility Consortium's posted request, and to the earlier proposal announcement, for more specific guidance. Interested observers, meanwhile, should keep an eye on September 2020 in Georgia, where the Army will see if the future of war is really 10 times as promising as expected. https://www.c4isrnet.com/unmanned/robotics/2019/08/08/can-robots-make-an-army-platoon-10-times-as-effective/

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  March 16, 2024 | International, Land

  Team PALADIN partners with Aptima, Inc.

  As a Team PALADIN Design Partner, Aptima will contribute critical domain knowledge and Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) innovation to Team PALADIN throughout the ACTS competition.