December 7, 2018 | International, Naval, Land
India's Ministry of Defence (MoD) approved INR30 billion (USD427 million) worth of procurements of locally made equipment for the Indian Navy (IN) and Indian Army (IA) on 1 December.
The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), headed by Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, sanctioned the acquisition of an undisclosed number of BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles to arm two Admiral Grigorovich (Project 11356M)-class stealth frigates that are under construction in Russia, according to a statement by the Indian government's Press Information Bureau (PIB).
Being procured for USD950 million, the two frigates, which are scheduled for delivery to the IN in 36 and 48 months, will be supplemented by two similar platforms set to be built by the state-owned Goa Shipyard Limited (GSL) under a transfer of technology agreement.
https://www.janes.com/article/84967/india-s-mod-approves-procurements-worth-usd427-million
April 18, 2024 | International, Land
The three AUKUS navies may see advanced undersea technology like small drones and AI-enabled target recognition tools tested and fielded this year.
August 20, 2019 | International, Aerospace
By David Szondy A new US Air Force kit that can turn a conventional aircraft into a robotic one has completed its maiden flight. Developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and DZYNE Technologies Incorporated as part of the Robotic Pilot Unmanned Conversion Program, the ROBOpilot made its first two-hour flight on August 9 at the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah after being installed in a 1968 Cessna 206 small aircraft. With modern autopilots, even small modern aircraft already have surprising ability to fly themselves, but there's a big difference between maintaining a course and actually flying an aircraft the way a human pilot does. From the opposite direction, autonomous drones are becoming increasingly sophisticated, but these tend to be highly specialized and expensive. Funded by AFRL's CRI Small Business Innovative Research project, ROBOpilot is designed to make these two paths meet in the middle by replacing the pilot seat (and pilot) with a kit consisting of all the actuators, electronics, cameras, and power systems needed to fly a conventional aircraft, plus a robotic arm for the manual tasks. In this way, ROBOpliot can operate the yoke, rudder, brakes, throttle, and switches while reading the dashboard gauges and displays like a human pilot. According to the Air Force, the installation is simple, non-invasive and non-permanent, using standard commercial technologies and components. This allows planes to be converted to unmanned operations without the complexity and costs of purpose-built UAVs, and switched back to human control configuration when required. The recent flight comes after a year of building and testing that involved trialing the device concept using a RedBird FMX simulator to demonstrate how well it can fly in a simulated environment before progressing to the real thing. The US Federal Aviation Administration-certified trainer showed that ROBOpilot could carry out autonomous takeoffs, mission navigation, and landings in both normal and abnormal conditions. "Imagine being able to rapidly and affordably convert a general aviation aircraft, like a Cessna or Piper, into an unmanned aerial vehicle, having it fly a mission autonomously, and then returning it back to its original manned configuration," says Dr. Alok Das, Senior Scientist with AFRL's Center for Rapid Innovation. "All of this is achieved without making permanent modifications to the aircraft." https://newatlas.com/us-air-force-robopilot-flight/61105/
July 13, 2021 | International, Land
Companies with commercial experience want to show the Army how capable electric-powered vehicles can be and overcome the challenges of operating them on the battlefield.