Germany unveils its first national security strategy

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  March 16, 2020 | International, C4ISR

  Pentagon seeking 5G prototypes for smart warehouses

  By: Nathan Strout The Department of Defense is seeking 5G prototypes related to the development of smart warehouses, the National Spectrum Consortium announced March 12. The department has released a Request for Prototype Proposals through the consortium and is looking for a variety of smart warehouse enabling 5G technologies to test at the Marine Corps Logistics Base in Albany, Georgia. The department has divided the prototype technologies its interested in into three broad categories: A 5G network, enhancements to that network, and applications enabled by that network. Here is how the National Spectrum Consortium explains it: 5G Prototype Testbed – The objective of this prototype project is to design and deploy a 5G network prototype that can serve as a reference implementation for Marine Corps smart warehouse operations. 5G Prototype Enhancements – The objective of this prototype project is to design and field prototype 5G network enhancements that can serve as reference implementations for Marine Corps smart warehouse operations. 5G Prototype Applications – The objective of this prototype project is to design and field prototype 5G enabled applications that can serve as reference implementations for Marine Corps smart warehouse operations. The request is the first of four 5G RPPs the department is planning to release as it prepares to begin testing a variety of technologies at four military bases. The Pentagon has previously said that they plan to test 5G enabled augmented reality and virtual reality at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, dynamic spectrum sharing at Hill Air Force Base, and smart warehouses at Marine Corps Logistics Base and Naval Base San Diego. The RPP is available to members of the National Spectrum Consortium, an acquisition vehicle created via a five-year, $1.25 billion Other Transaction Agreement by the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Emerging Capabilities and Prototyping. “This is the first of four proposals that the DOD has released. We encourage our membership, which is made up of traditional contractors and innovative startups, to collaborate and respond to these incredibly important RPPs,” said Joseph Dyer, chief strategy officer of the National Spectrum Consortium. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/it-networks/5g/2020/03/12/pentagon-seeking-5g-prototypes-for-smart-warehouses/

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  April 24, 2018 | International, Aerospace, C4ISR

  Pentagon creates new position to help guide software acquisition, F-35 development

  By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — The U.S. Defense Department is creating a new position to help formulate its software strategy and ensure it keeps pace with commercial advancements — and the most important resposiblity will be overseeing the F-35 joint strike fighter's agile software strategy. During a Friday roundtable with reporters, Ellen Lord, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, announced that she has tapped Jeff Boleng to the newly created position of special assistant for software acquisition. Boleng, currently the acting chief technology officer at Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute, will start April 16 as a member of Lord's team. “Jeff Boleng will spend over 90 percent of his time on F-35. He is going to be the individual who is working amongst all of the groups to enable us to bring the right talent onboard,” Lord said. “We have a challenge, I think both within the JPO [F-35 joint program office] as well as Lockheed Martin, in terms of getting a critical mass of contemporary software skill sets to begin to move in the direction we want to.” As the F-35 joint program office embarks on a new strategy called Continuous Capability Development and Delivery, or C2D2, which involves introducing agile software development, Lord wants to ensure that both the JPO and Lockheed have employees with the right training to execute the effort and that they can attract new professionals with additional software expertise. “This is something that [Lockheed CEO] Marillyn Hewson and I have talked about,” she said. “Lockheed Martin has some excellent software capability throughout the corporation. My expectation is that they're going to leverage that on the F-35. And as we within the Department of Defense really increase our capability for software development focused on C2D2, our expectation is that Lockheed Martin will do the exact same thing. “So they have the capability. I'm very energized about the leadership focus that I have seen in the last four to eight weeks, so I have great expectations that that will continue and that Lockheed Martin will keep pace or outpace DoD in terms of modernization for F-35 software development.” Boleng, a former cyberspace operations officer and software engineer who served more than 20 years with the Air Force, last held the position of teaching computer science at the Air Force Academy before moving to the private sector. At Carnegie Mellon, he is responsible for spearheading the institutes research and development portfolio, which includes software development, data analytics and cyber security activities in support of the Defense Department. As the special assistant for software acquisition, he will help develop department-wide software development standards and policies and “advise department leadership on latest best practices in commercial software development.” Boleng will also interface with Pentagon organizations charged with ramping up the department's software prowess such as Defense Digital Services, a small group of former private-sector tech professionals who led the department's “Hack the Pentagon” events and have conducted a few assessments of F-35 software. That starts with a meeting today between Lord, Boleng and a Defense Innovation Board group centered on software acquisition, which has been embedded both with the joint program office and Lockheed Martin, Lord said. https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2018/04/13/pentagon-creates-new-position-to-help-guide-software-acqusition-f-35-development/

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  May 15, 2023 | International, Aerospace

  Britain to train Ukrainian pilots, supply more missiles and drones

  Debates within NATO nations over providing Ukraine with combat jets continues unabated.