June 14, 2023 | International, Aerospace
Kuwait to buy Turkish-made TB2 drones in $367 million deal
The Bayraktar TB2 can carry lightweight, laser-guided bombs and fly for up to 27 hours at a time.
December 11, 2020 | International, Naval
Marine Corps’ amphibious combat vehicle reaches full-rate production
By: Jen Judson
WASHINGTON — The Marine Corps has awarded BAE Systems with a $184 million contract to deliver Amphibious Combat Vehicles (ACV) at full-rate production, according to a Dec. 10 company announcement.
The first lot of FRP ACVs amounts to 36 vehicles but is expected to grow to 72 vehicles in early 2021, with the option for 80 vehicles annually over five years. The Marine Corps declared the ACV had met Initial Operational Capability (IOC) requirements on Nov. 13. The FRP decision was delayed due to issues related to the coronavirus pandemic.
“As the ACV enters into service it will be providing highly advanced solutions for conducting maritime-based warfare operations and will play a vital role in the Marine Corps' complex and challenging missions,” John Swift, director of amphibious programs at BAE Systems, said in the statement. “For BAE Systems, full-rate production validates years of dedication and teamwork in partnership with the Marines to introduce this capability to the warfighter and leave our adversaries on the battlefield at a marked disadvantage.”
BAE, with teammate IVECO Defence Vehicles, of Italy, beat out SAIC for the contract to build ACV following a competitive evaluation period in June 2018. That contract allowed the company to enter low-rate initial production with 30 vehicles expected by the fall of 2019 and valued at $198 million.
The ACV offers “force protection capability three times greater” than its predecessor the Assault Amphibious Vehicle, the BAE statement notes. “It provides substantially increased horsepower, with its six-cylinder, 690 horsepower engine, making it capable of land speeds exceeding 55 mph while running extremely quietly. It's also designed to provide Marines the flexibility to address additional mission roles and future technologies through its modular design,” the statement adds.
The BAE ACV provides space for 13 embarked Marines and a crew of three, which keeps the rifle squad together. The vehicle has a V-shaped hull to protect against underbody blasts, and the seat structure is completely suspended.
BAE is currently under a $67 million contract modification awarded in June 2019, according to the company, to develop new variants for the ACV including adding a command vehicle and a version with a 30mm medium caliber cannon. The company notes that the design and development for both have begun.
The Marines plan to field 204 of the vehicles. The total value of the contract with all options exercised is expected to amount to about $1.2 billion.
On the same subject
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December 9, 2022 | International, Naval
US Navy creates innovation center, advisory board to focus investments
A new Navy Innovation Center will work with industry and academia to ensure the service remains ahead of tech trends over the long term.
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June 13, 2019 | International, Security, Other Defence
What’s so sweet about sugar cube-sized robots?
By: Kelsey D. Atherton If there is anything the future is lacking, it's robots the size of Chiclets. Draper, working under a grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is creating centimeter-sized robots, for future use in rescue work. The project is named “SHort-Range Independent Microrobotic Platforms,” or “SHRIMP” for short. And short is the nature of the game. SHRIMP is based on the 4 cm long, 1.5 g Harvard Ambulatory MicroRobot (HAMR), and wants to shrink it down to a single cubic centimeter. That will require microelectromechanical systems, 3D printing, piezoelectric actuators and, this is crucial, low-power sensors. Once all of that is in place, Draper claims the microbot will be able to jump, sense, navigate and control itself. The design will rely on feet inspired by living creatures to give it extra friction on rough and vertical terrain, and inertial measurement to detect where it is on the ground. “The microrobotic platform capabilities enabled by SHRIMP will provide the DoD with significantly more access and capability to operate in small spaces that are practically inaccessible to today's state-of-the-art robotic platforms,” declared DARPA in the proposer's day note. “Such capability will have impact in search and rescue, disaster relief, infrastructure inspection, and equipment maintenance, among other operations.” The exact “how” of what these robots will do in disaster relief, inspection, maintenance or other operations is yet to be determined, and will largely hinge on the sensors that can be fit to the platform. The most useful thing a small robot can do is get into a space and send information back to humans about that space, but that's hardly the only metric to evaluate the platform. As part of the SHRIMP program, DARPA will have the robot designs compete through a series of events modeled after the Olympics. These include high jump, long jump, weightlifting, shot put, tug of war, rock piling, steeplechase, biathlon, vertical ascent — all ways to find out what useful tasks tiny robots can do. There's a world of speculation between a dime-sized robot that can pile rocks and a useful military tool, but the fact that DARPA is invested in the technology as a platform suggests that, should the technology get there, the design will have some unexpected utility. In the meantime, DARPA's interest suggests there's good odds on a future market for sensors designed for dice-sized robots. https://www.c4isrnet.com/unmanned/robotics/2019/06/12/what-does-darpa-want-with-sugarcube-sized-robots/