Netherlands to boost North Sea surveillance to deter seabed threats

On the same subject

• 

  August 13, 2020 | International, C4ISR, Security

  Deloitte wins $106 million contract with the Pentagon’s AI hub

  Andrew Eversden WASHINGTON — The Defense Information Systems Agency awarded a $106 million contract to Deloitte Consulting to build the Pentagon's artificial intelligence hub's AI development platform, the U.S. Department of Defense announced Aug. 12. The company will “design and build” the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center's Joint Common Foundation, a capability that DoD AI leadership has stated will be integral in developing, testing and fielding AI capabilities. The contract has a one-year base period worth $31 million with three option years through August 2024. Work is scheduled to start Aug. 17, according to Lt. Cmdr. Arlo Abrahamson, spokesperson for the JAIC. “The Joint Common Foundation will provide an AI development environment to test, validate and field AI capabilities at scale across the Department of Defense,” Abrahamson said. “The impact of the JCF will come from enterprise‐wide access to AI tools and data for AI developers across the Department and its partners that will help synchronize AI projects, reduce development redundancy and enable the broad deployment of AI-enabled solutions to the tactical edge where front line operators can benefit from these capabilities.” Deloitte will serve as the lead system integrator for all contractor solutions for the JCF, he said. It will “provide, operate, maintain, secure and enhance the JCF with platforms and tools that can be shared and distributed to end-users across the Department of Defense enterprise,” according to the press release. The Joint Artificial Intelligence Center is the DoD's lead organization on accelerating AI adoption across the department. The center has undertaken several projects since being stood up in 2018, including predictive maintenance and disaster relief work. Its portfolio continues to expand, this year taking on its first lethality project—known as the joint warfighting initiative—and entering the information warfare fight as well. The JAIC also awarded a five-year contract potentially worth up to $800 million to Booz Allen Hamilton in May for work related to the joint war fighting initiative. The award of the JCF contract is an important step as the JAIC continues to mature. For the center, “the end state is an AI development environment that will accelerate the testing, validation and fielding of AI capabilities across the U.S. military,” Abrahamson said. https://www.c4isrnet.com/artificial-intelligence/2020/08/12/deloitte-wins-106-million-contract-with-the-pentagons-ai-hub

• 

  March 13, 2024 | International, Land

  For Germany’s Scholz, Taurus missiles are a bridge too far in Ukraine

  Critics have portrayed the powerful cruise missile as a defining, but lacking, element of German military assistance to Kyiv.

• 

  December 19, 2018 | International, Aerospace

  New Materials Architectures Sought to Cool Hypersonic Vehicles

  Hypersonic vehicles fly through the atmosphere at incredibly high speeds, creating intense friction with the surrounding air as they travel at Mach 5 or above – five times faster than sound travels. Developing structures that can withstand furnace-like temperatures at such high speeds is a technical challenge, especially for leading edges that bear the brunt of the heat. To address this thermal challenge, DARPA recently announced its Materials Architectures and Characterization for Hypersonics (MACH) program. The MACH program seeks to develop and demonstrate new design and material solutions for sharp, shape-stable, cooled leading edges for hypersonic vehicles. A Proposers Day describing the program will take place January 22, 2019 in Arlington, Virginia: https://go.usa.gov/xEcEy. “For decades people have studied cooling the hot leading edges of hypersonic vehicles but haven't been able to demonstrate practical concepts in flight,” said Bill Carter, program manager in DARPA's Defense Sciences Office. “The key is developing scalable materials architectures that enable mass transport to spread and reject heat. In recent years we've seen advances in thermal engineering and manufacturing that could enable the design and fabrication of very complex architectures not possible in the past. If successful, we could see a breakthrough in mitigating aerothermal effects at the leading edge that would enhance hypersonic performance.” The MACH program will comprise two technical areas. The first area aims to develop and mature fully integrated passive thermal management system to cool leading edges based on scalable net-shape manufacturing and advanced thermal design. The second technical area will focus on next-generation hypersonic materials research, applying modern high-fidelity computation capabilities to develop new passive and active thermal management concepts, coatings and materials for future cooled hypersonic leading edge applications. Both technical areas will be described in a Broad Agency Announcement solicitation expected in mid-January 2019 on DARPA's FedBizOpps page here: http://go.usa.gov/Dom. The MACH program seeks expertise in thermal engineering and design, advanced computational materials development, architected materials design, fabrication and testing (including net shape fabrication of high temperature metals, ceramics and their composites), hypersonic leading-edge design and performance, and advanced thermal protection systems. Registration details for Proposers Day are available here: http://events.sa-meetings.com/MACHProposersDay. https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2018-12-17