Leonardo DRS Awarded $117 Million Production Order for Family of Weapon Sights

On the same subject

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  June 26, 2018 | International, Naval, C4ISR

  How the Navy can lean in to software superiority

  Andrew C. Jarocki The Navy needs to take a "hard look” at its digital needs according to a senior Navy software official, especially in technology such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, or risk vital weapons systems failing on the future battlefield. Attendees of the Amazon Web Services Public Sector Summit in Washington June 21 heard warnings that obsolete and slow approaches are driving up costs of time and resources for the Navy's newest technologies that interact with one another in combat. "It's really a matter of making System A talk to System B,” said Richard Jack, a lead engineer and project director at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific. “A logistics system that needs to be able to interact with a weapons system.” Software superiority is an important part of the Navy's plan for a global competitive edge, from unmanned underwater vehicles to drones operated from ships. Unless the Navy wants to get an error message at a crucial combat moment, they will have to search outside their own technology labs for the solution to the interoperability challenge, Jack said. “The Navy can't do this alone, as 99 percent of the brain trust is in the cloud service providers and the industry,” Jack stated. He expressed the need to “take advantage” of lessons learned by cloud industry leaders on big data collection and interpreting results to make predictions . Jack suggested accelerating operations with increased cloud computing, creating shared infrastructure to make sure data centers are connected, eliminating duplicative investments across some programs, and further expanding AI and machine learning advancements. The software engineer expressed confidence that learning from cloud service providers will result in the Navy enhancing warfighting abilities, envisioning a cloud to allow instant data sharing “between a weapons system, an airframe, a UAV, and a logistics system” at the same time. Jack also praised cloud computing as important to the “compile to combat” program, in which the Navy is experimenting with ways to deploy new software capabilities to ships at sea in less than 24 hours. While the cloud can “be super fast and super efficient” for accessing large amounts of data anywhere, Jack also promised that it also allows the Navy to “really push the boundaries of machine learning,” even though “we are behind the curve” at the moment. Through “strategic partnerships” with the “Amazons, Googles and IBM Watsons of the world,” Jack promised the Navy could accomplish even more in the areas of AI and machine learning that will dominate warfighting in the era of the cloud. https://www.c4isrnet.com/it-networks/2018/06/25/how-the-navy-can-lean-in-to-software-superiority/

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  June 7, 2019 | International, C4ISR, Security, Other Defence

  GSA chooses 22 companies to assist IT modernization solutions

  By: Jessie Bur Federal agencies that participate in the Centers of Excellence program will soon have more tools at their disposal for discovering the areas of greatest IT modernization need within their organization. The General Services Administration announced June 4 that it had issued a blanket purchase agreement to 22 companies to provide future CoE partners with the speed and flexibility to perform numerous discovery and assessment efforts simultaneously. “With just about a third of the agreements going to small businesses, we are proud of the cross-section of American industry and technological expertise represented,” said GSA CoE Executive Director Bob De Luca in a news release. “We selected companies who demonstrated the potential to discover issues related to current legacy systems and develop recommendations for modern-day technological solutions to the problems our citizens face when interacting with government services.” The Centers of Excellence program, started in December 2017 under a partnership between GSA and the White House, has so far had three agencies sign on to use the program to improve their IT: the Department of Agriculture, Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Office of Personnel Management. The 22 BPA awardees span seven areas of change, with some companies receiving awards under multiple categories: Change Management Ambit Group, LLC Deloitte Consulting LLP Ernst & Young, LLP ICF Incorporated LLC International Business Machines Corporation McKinsey & Company, Inc., Washington, D.C. Cloud Adoption Capgemini Government Solutions LLC Flexion Inc. ICF Incorporated LLC McKinsey & Company, Inc., Washington, D.C. Contact Center Deloitte Consulting LLP Digital Management LLC HighPoint Digital, Inc. ICF Incorporated LLC McKinsey & Company, Inc., Washington, D.C. Slalom, LLC Customer Experience Arc Aspicio LLC Deloitte Consulting LLP Grant Thornton LLP Guidehouse LLP ICF Incorporated LLC International Business Machines Corporation Data Analytics Guidehouse LLP KPMG LLP McKinsey & Company, Inc., Washington, D.C. Information Security Centennial Technologies Inc. Deloitte Consulting LLP Electrosoft Services, Inc. Ernst & Young, LLP Grant Thornton LLP ICF Incorporated LLC International Business Machines Corporation KPMG LLP McKinsey & Company, Inc., Washington, D.C. MindPoint Group, LLC ShorePoint, Inc. Veris Group, LLC d/b/a Coalfire Federal IT Infrastructure Optimization Capgemini Government Solutions LLC Deloitte Consulting LLP Ernst & Young, LLP Gartner, Inc. Guidehouse LLP ICF Incorporated LLC International Business Machines Corporation KPMG LLP McKinsey & Company, Inc., Washington, D.C. Systems Engineering Solutions Corporation https://www.federaltimes.com/acquisition/2019/06/04/gsa-chooses-22-companies-to-help-centers-of-excellence-discoveries/

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  December 24, 2018 | International, C4ISR

  The Army wants new tools to sense, disrupt and protect signals

  By: Mark Pomerleau The Army will be hosting members of industry in 2019 to discuss opportunities on signals intelligence and electronic warfare, according to a December 2018 notice. The Signals Intelligence/Electronic Warfare (SIGINT/EW) Future Opportunities and Terrestrial Layer System (TLS) Industry Day will be hosted Jan. 23 at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. The Army has charted a path forward that includes integrating signals intelligence and electronic warfare systems into a single tool for greater synergy between the two disciplines. One of the first systems the Army is building on this front is the Terrestrial Layer System, an integrated EW and signals intelligence system that will provide a much-needed jamming capability to formations. The Army is taking a multitiered approach to TLS, leveraging assessments, exercises and even deployments of quick-reaction capabilities to inform how the service will move forward on prototyping and providing much-needed capabilities, such as this one, to units. Officials have noted that this approach differs from acquisition processes of the past. “We hope to go faster, but with the authorities granted by Congress ... we think this rapid prototyping using the buy, try, decide method is going to be great for this rapid acquisition process,” said Col. Jennifer McAfee, director of the Training and Doctrine Command's capabilities manager for terrestrial and identity at the Intelligence Center of Excellence. “Are we going to field this next week? Not necessarily, but we're talking fielding to the force in the next two to three years, not seven to 10 years.” Industry's role will be to help provide prototypes that will reduce the risk of flaws in the final solution. https://www.c4isrnet.com/electronic-warfare/2018/12/21/the-army-wants-new-tools-to-sense-disrupt-and-protect-signals