Indra wins one of Europe's largest defence radar contracts to equip Poland's Air Force bases with cutting-edge systems

On the same subject

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  October 24, 2023 | International, Land

  US agrees to send two Iron Dome batteries to Israel

  Two U.S. Army-owned Iron Dome systems are heading to Israel to aid the country in its fight against Hamas.

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  December 8, 2020 | International, C4ISR

  Defense Department Looking Beyond 5G

  12/7/2020 By Jon Harper The Pentagon continues to pump additional funding into 5G technologies that have military and commercial applications. But it is also eyeing 6G and other next-generation communications capabilities. The term 5G refers to the oncoming fifth generation of wireless networks that will yield a major improvement in data speed, volume and latency over today's fourth-gen networks, known as 4G. In October, the Defense Department announced $600 million in awards for 5G test bed and experimentation activities at five U.S. military test sites. The work will be expanded to seven additional sites next year. “These activities represent the largest full scale 5G tests for dual-use applications anywhere in the world,” Acting Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Michael Kratsios told reporters. Commercial partners on the sites will include AT&T, Ericsson, Federated Research, Nokia and the Scientific Research Corporation. “This testing experimentation will not only dramatically improve our warfighting capabilities, it will also bring new uses and opportunities for this technology to the private sector,” Kratsios said. “These sandboxing activities at military bases harness the department's unique authorities to pursue bold innovations and game changing technologies.” Nations that master advanced communication technologies will enjoy long-term economic and military advantages, he added. Initial use cases for 5G envisioned by the Pentagon include integrating augmented reality and virtual reality into mission planning and training; developing “smart” warehouses to enhance logistics operations; and dynamic electromagnetic spectrum sharing in congested and contested environments. Starting in 2021, there will be an emphasis on the security aspects of 5G as well as innovations in next-gen capabilities such as 6G and 7G, Joseph Evans, the Defense Department's principal director for 5G, told reporters. Broad agency announcements on those topics are slated to be released in the January 2021 timeframe, Evans said. Elsa Kania, an adjunct senior fellow with the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, suggested the Pentagon might be getting ahead of itself. “I will be a little bit skeptical of talk of 6G when 5G is still at a nascent stage in so many fronts and we have yet to explore or exploit the full potential of 5G,” she said during a panel discussion. “I'm sure we will hear much more about 6G in the years to come, but I think for the time being, keeping the focus on how to ensure that 5G itself is secure and reliable” is a better approach. https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2020/12/7/defense-department-looking-beyond-5g

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  January 29, 2021 | International, Naval

  Rheinmetall, MBDA building high-energy lasers for Germany’s Navy

  By: Vivienne Machi STUTTGART, Germany — Rheinmetall and MBDA Deutschland have officially been tasked to build, test and field a high-energy laser weapon system for the German Navy over the next year. The consortium, dubbed ARGE, was awarded a contract “in the low double-digit million euro range” by Berlin's military procurement office, the Federal Office for Bundeswehr Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support (BAAINBw). Work will be conducted through the end of 2021, with trials scheduled for 2022 aboard the Navy frigate Sachsen, per a joint press announcement released Thursday. The work is to be split on a “roughly equal basis,” the companies said. Rheinmetall will be responsible for the laser weapon system, the beam guiding system, cooling, and integrating the weapon system with the overall laser source demonstrator. MBDA will focus on the operator console along with tracking technology and command-and-control system integration. Details have yet to be revealed about where the system's development will take place. This latest contract continues the companies' collaboration on high-energy laser efforts, which was first announced in August 2019. Rheinmetall and the Germany military have been testing high energy laser technologies in the maritime domain since 2015, a company spokesman told Defense News. “The contract marks a systematic extension of the functional prototype laser weapon successfully tested in recent years, with the experience gained now dovetailing into one of the most ambitious projects in the field of laser weapon development in Europe,” said Alexander Graf, head of Rheinmetall Waffe Munition's laser weapons program, and Markus Jung, who leads the company's laser weapon development segment. Once the demonstrator is installed, it will be used to test other aspects of the laser weapon system, such as the sensor suite and combat management system, and evaluate rules of engagement, said Doris Laarmann, MBDA's head of laser business development, in the release. The German arm of MBDA announced a restructuring of operations in late 2020, following mixed signals from Berlin regarding the status of the Tactical Air Defense System (TLVS) program. Executives have expressed skepticism that a contract award would emerge soon for the follow-on work of the former Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS). In 2015, the German government announced it would use MEADS as the basis for TLVS, which would eventually replace the nation's 1980s-era Patriot air defense systems. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2021/01/28/rheinmetall-mbda-building-high-energy-lasers-for-germanys-navy