Lockheed Martin blends AI decision aide, virtual Aegis combat system in drill near Guam

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  October 14, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR

  Senop to supply night vision devices to the Finnish Defence Forces

  Patria Group October 13, 2020 - The Finnish Defence Forces will improve its night fighting capability by procuring new image intensifiers for soldiers and hand-held multipurpose observation and surveillance systems for mortar units. Antti Kaikkonen, the Minister of Defence of Finland, has authorized the Finnish Defence Forces Logistics Command to sign a contract with Senop Oy for the procurement of night vision devices. The procurement is based on a Letter of Intent signed on 22 May 2019 and Senop will deliver the systems by the end of 2021. The contract, with a total value of more than 13 million euros, includes a 209 million euro option for the next five years. The option includes image intensifiers, observation and surveillance systems and laser aiming devices. Senop´s new NVG is a small and lightweight night vision device (FDF: Night vision device M20), designed as a soldier's personal night vision device to be used in demanding military environments. NVG utilizes latest aspheric and composite technologies, which enable high performance and low over all system weight. Senop´s laser aiming devices (FDF: Tactical laser aiming device M20 and Soldier´s laser aiming device) are developed to be used as a soldier´s weapon sight and as a target designator for troop leaders. Laser aiming devices are designed for seamless integration with FDF´s existing weapons and are also usable in other weapons / systems. Senop LILLY target acquisition device (FDF: Target acquisition device MPL21) is an extremely light weight device with versatile functions for target acquisition, observation and different types of measuring applications. LILLY is based on high performance thermal imaging, combined with direct view optical channel. This combination enables high performance at all times of day. New image intensifier, laser aiming devices and Senop LILLY sensor have been developed in close cooperation with the Finnish army. “The development work has also required intensive field tests and environmental tests to ensure that the devices are easy to use and stand the strain of hard military operations. I can proudly say that Image intensifier, laser aiming devices and LILLY-sensor have been developed for infantry soldiers with the guidance of real end users”, says Aki Korhonen, Managing Director of Senop. Effective night fighting capability requires overarching capabilities. Senop is developing holistic solutions for networked military environments. Senop has for example delivered Senop VV3X night sights, VVLite night vision devices, and LISA target acquisition systems (FDF: MPL15) for the Finnish Army. All these devices support the capability to fight during the night and in difficult weather conditions. In addition, these systems are networked to modern C2I -systems to support situational awareness. “Our mission is to help customers to build new capabilities by tailoring solutions according to their specific needs and requirements. Our priority customers are armies and soldiers. Our development work with the Finnish Army has shown the agility of our company to support the customers”, Aki Korhonen points out. The development of the Image Intensifier and laser aiming devices was finalised from concept to qualified product within one year. Senop´s Defence&Security portfolio consists of high-performance image intensifiers, night sights, intelligent thermal weapon sights, handheld target acquisition and observation systems, vehicle camera systems, hyperspectral cameras, and multipurpose container-based system platform solutions. https://www.epicos.com/article/635461/senop-supply-night-vision-devices-finnish-defence-forces

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  December 10, 2020 | International, Land

  General Atomics’ New Compact, High-Powered Lasers

  GA is building a prototype 300-kW missile defense laser for the Pentagon and a 250-kW airborne version with Boeing. By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.on December 09, 2020 at 3:04 PM WASHINGTON: General Atomics is so confident in a unique technology they say solves the heat and weight problems found in rival laser designs that they're making it the core of two distinctly different projects. The Office of the Secretary of Defense is funding General Atomics and two competitors to build experimental lasers able to blast out some 300 kilowatts of power – enough to burn cruise missiles out of the sky. This project is about scaling up laser power output and testing alternative technologies for the services to pick up for separate follow-on programs. Meanwhile, Boeing and General Atomics are jointly developing a smaller laser weapon – starting at about 100 kilowatts but capable of growing to 250 kW. Unlike OSD's, this 250 kW weapon is being built at the companies' own expense, essentially on spec. (The technical term is IRAD, Independent Research And Development). Like OSD, Boeing and GA are hoping to demonstrate technology that'll be picked up by the services for a wide range of ground- and ship-based applications: The company says they're targeting the Army's Stryker-mounted M-SHORAD and its larger truck-borne IFPC, as well as Navy shipborne models. But for the pilot project, they've set themselves a very specific and demanding technical challenge: make their laser fit aboard an airplane – and make it fire accurately from that plane in flight. (Breaking D readers will remember the Airborne Laser, a huge chemical laser on a modified 747, as well as plans to arm the Next Generation Air Dominance planes with lasers.) Call in the “New York, New York” school of engineering: If you can make your laser work on a plane, you can make it work anywhere. “The idea is, if we can do it for an aircraft, then it truly could be able to go on any ground or sea platform,” said GA's VP for lasers, Michael Perry. “An aircraft...has the largest constraints on size, weight, and power.” Now, that doesn't mean getting lasers to work on ships or Army vehicles is easy. In some ways, surface platforms have a harder time: Their lasers have to penetrate the thickest, most moisture-laden layers of the atmosphere. And, Perry told me, while an aircraft in flight is constantly vibrating, you can account for that with sophisticated beam control software and high-quality aiming mirrors: That tech is tricky to build, but not bulky to install once you've built it. By contrast, a laser installed on a surface platform has to handle sudden, massive jolts as the warship crashes over a wave or the truck drives over a ditch, and that requires shock absorption systems, which are bulky and heavy. (While General Atomics and Boeing haven't said what aircraft they're planning to test the laser aboard, given the fact that Perry thinks extensive shock-absorption will be unnecessary, that suggests it isn't going to be a fighter jet or anything that makes violent high-gee maneuvers. That's in line with Air Force Special Operations Command's longstanding interest in putting a laser cannon aboard their AC-130 turboprop gunship). So GA's major focus in this project seems to be proving how compact their technology can be. Smaller size is a big advantage of the GA approach, Perry said, which they refer to as scalable distributed gain. Fibers, Slabs, & Distributed Gain What is a “distributed gain” laser, anyway? In the Wild West days of Reagan's Star Wars program, the Pentagon looked into lots of ways of powering lasers, from literal nuclear explosions – an idea called Project Excalibur – to massive vats of toxic chemicals, like the ones that filled the converted Boeing 747 that became the Airborne Laser. The real progress, however, has come with so-called solid state lasers: They pump light into a crystalline “gain medium,” which then amplifies the power of that light (hence “gain”), until it's released as a laser beam. But there are two main ways of building a solid-state laser: A slab laser, as its name implies, uses a single big chunk of crystal as the gain medium. This gives you a single coherent beam of laser light. The problem with slab lasers is heat buildup. The bigger you make the slab, the further the distance from its core to the edges, which means it takes longer to disperse waste heat, which can build up and damage the system. (You may recognize this from high school physics as a manifestation of the square-cube law). So slab lasers tend to require cooling systems, which are bulky and heavy. A fiber laser, by contrast, uses lots and lots of fiber-optic cables as gain media. Each individual fiber is very thin, and you can leave space between them, so it's easy for them to disperse waste heat. The problem with fiber lasers is the act of combining the beams. The bigger you make the laser, the more fibers you need – a 250-kW weapon might take 100 fibers, Perry said – and each fiber produces its own, weak laser beam, which you then have to combine into a single, powerful beam. Beam combination systems tend to be expensive and complex, not to mention (surprise!) bulky and heavy. General Atomics' distributed gain laser tries to strike a balance. Instead of a single big slab, you have several smaller slabs, each of them thin enough to disperse heat quickly. But instead of each of these slabs producing its own beam in parallel, which you then have to combine, you connect them in serial. The initial light source goes into the first slab, which magnifies it and shoots it into the second slab, which magnifies it still more. In theory you could have a third slab as well, even a fourth and fifth, though that's not what GA is building here. (They don't have to be lined up end to end, because you can use high-quality mirrors to bounce the light around a corner). “It is a series of slabs,” Perry told me. “The single beam passes through them all, as opposed to being separate lasers.” The advantage of distributed gain for high-power lasers is that you need neither the extensive cooling systems of a slab laser, nor the exquisite beam-combination systems of a fiber laser. “It's pretty compact,” Perry told me. “If you came out to see if you would be surprised at how short it is.” That said, there is a minimum length for a given amount of power output. That's why General Atomics couldn't fit the same 300-kW weapon they're building for OSD onto Boeing's aircraft (again, they're not saying what that aircraft is), which is why that version had to be scaled down to 250 inches. “The problem we have is, the 300-kw architecture is about 18 inches longer then the 250,” Perry said ruefully. “Believe it or not, as painful as it is and as frustrated as I am, I cannot eke out another 18 inches of length... The platform can't even give us another 12 inches.” It may be frustrating for Perry and his team to build two different versions of their lasers, rather than build two identical copies of the same thing – but the exercise could help prove to potential customers just how adaptable the basic design can be. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/12/general-atomics-new-compact-high-powered-lasers/

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  September 13, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  The Air Force's entire A-10 Warthog fleet is getting a raft of lethal new upgrades

  By Jared Keller Fresh off a fraught decade-long rewinging effort, the Air Force's beloved A-10 Thunderbolt II fleet is poised to keep on BRRRTing in the free world for at least another decade — and the beloved attack aircraft will pick up some tasty new upgrades along the way. Personnel at Air Combat Command are currently working to integrate the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB I) on all A-10 airframes as part of the Common Fleet Initiative (CFI) that, initiated in August 2018, is designed to bring the decades-old fleet "back to a common baseline" for ongoing operations. "GBU-39 munitions have proven to be highly-desired weapons in ongoing conflicts, and the addition of this weapon to the A-10's arsenal will greatly improve the flexibility of ground commanders," Alexi Worley, an ACC spokesman, told Task & Purpose. "Adding the GBU-39 will continue efforts to keep the A-10 relevant in ongoing and future conflicts, where versatility in weaponeering is critical to meeting ground commander needs." Military aviation magazine Combat Aircraft first reported news of the SDB integration on Sept. 5, noting that a new "multi-target engagement capability" will make the A-10 "theoretically ... able to target 18 weapons individually" while hauling four SDBs on a single hardpoint. https://taskandpurpose.com/air-force-a10-warthog-upgrades