Poland - F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Aircraft

On the same subject

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  January 15, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  Sikorsky Upgrading UH-60 Black Hawks to Prevent Corrosion

  Sikorsky [LMT] is upgrading the U.S. military's fleet of UH-60 Black Hawks to fight corrosion, increase the number of available flight days for the rotorcraft in Afghanistan and other deployed areas, and reduce operations and maintenance costs. http://www.defensedaily.com/sikorsky-upgrading-uh-60-black-hawks-prevent-corrosion

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  March 19, 2020 | International, C4ISR

  L3Harris is building an AI tool to help process imagery

  By: Nathan Strout L3Harris is building a new platform that will help analysts in the military use artificial intelligence to identify objects in large imagery data sets. “In general, there's a big challenge with the amount of remote sensing data that's coming down, whether that's from space or airborne assets,” explained Will Rorrer, principal of business development for geospatial at L3Harris Technologies. “So there's lots of imagery and other data types coming down from above, so much so that it really can't be looked at in its entirety — certainly not exploited in its entirety — by traditional means (with) purely human analysts. And so things like counting objects in imagery, monitoring different places, that's where there's a natural adoption of machine learning type of techniques,” he continued. L3Harris officials declined to share who the end customer for their product will be or the exact value of their multimillion dollar contract, which was issued by the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center. It's no secret that the Department of Defense and the intelligence community are eager to use artificial intelligence tools to sift through the vast torrent of data created by an ever increasing number of sensors and pick out the most important information for human analysts. For its platform, L3Harris is focusing on creating the training data and workflows that will enable a machine learning tool to process data for the Department of Defense and provide deliverable intelligence. Machine learning platforms are essentially made of three parts: the training data the neural network will learn from, the machine learning algorithm itself, and then how the platform integrates into other Department of Defense systems. L3Harris will be working on what Rorrer calls the front end and the back end of the AI platform. “A lot of AI/ML technologies can be ported into that middle category,” he said. “Neural network applications that have been developed in commercial space can be brought in if we can address the front end and the back end of that in DoD space.” For nearly 30 years, L3Harris has been incorporated advanced modeling and simulation capabilities to test out new payloads and optical systems, using computers to plot out how the atmosphere and other factors will impact their technologies. Now the company plans to use those modeling and simulation tools to develop the training data that will teach a machine learning algorithm how to solve complex DoD problems, such as identifying a threatening object within satellite imagery. “All of that summed up—we make very good fake imagery,” said Rorrer. “ We've taken that technology that was essentially developed for another reason and pivoted (to using it) as a source of synthetic training data for these neural net applications.” Synthetic training data can be especially important for developing DoD or intelligence community AI applications, since there's often not enough real world imagery of the threats they're focused on, said Rorrer. L3Harris believes that they can create fake imagery that looks enough like the real thing that when real imagery is fed into the algorithm it can find the objects it's supposed to. https://www.c4isrnet.com/intel-geoint/2020/03/18/l3harris-is-building-an-ai-tool-to-help-process-geoint/

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  February 3, 2021 | International, Aerospace

  Companies seek end to haggling over FCAS rights with fresh offer this week

  By: Sebastian Sprenger COLOGNE, Germany – Airbus and Dassault executives hope to finalize their offer for the next phase of the Future Combat Air System by the end of the week, putting to rest a dispute over the handling of intellectual property rights that has been simmering between partner nations Germany, France and Spain. At issue is whether countries participating in the development of mainland Europe's futuristic weapon system are free to use the technology to make adjustments of their own later on, said German Air Force Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Ingo Gerhartz. “It should be clear that if we're developing a European system, there can be no black boxes,” he said at an virtual press conference organized by German aerospace industry association BDLI. The term “black box” refers to technology purchased as-is, with no means by customers to understand, replicate or modify it. “It must be possible to hand intellectual property rights from branch of industry to another so that it's possible for all partners to make their own developments in the future,” Gerhartz added. The tri-national FCAS program aims to replace the German Eurofighter and French Rafale fleets by 2040. As envisioned, it will consist of a next-generation manned jet and a series of drones, dubbed remote carriers, that can be tasked to work in concert on anything from reconnaissance to strike missions. Germany's Airbus and France's Dassault are the primary contractors for the program. As Europe's most ambitious weapons project ever, it is estimated to have a price tag in the hundreds of billions of euros. Spain is meant to be a full participant, with Indra as national lead, getting access to a third of the overall work share. Next up for the program is additional development work culminating in the presentation of a demonstrator aircraft and remote carriers by 2026 or 2027. Those could be simple, throw-away drones or more elaborate unmanned planes in the style of a “loyal wingman” to the human pilot, said Dirk Hoke, CEO of Airbus Defence and Space, at the same event. An agreement on intellectual property usage is needed both on the government and industry level before submitting an offer for the upcoming program stage. The idea is to find a compromise by Feb. 5, have the Berlin government submit the documentation to the Bundestag, Germany's parliament, for approval over the next few months, and get the green light to spend additional money before the summer break, Hoke said. While Airbus is used to sharing its intellectual property rights when selling to the German government, partner nations, France and Spain handle those occasions differently. “I'm confident that we can find a common solution,” Hoke said. Reinhard Brandl, a lawmaker of Bavaria's Christian Social Union who sits on the Bundestag's appropriations committee, said he shared the optimism but singled out IP rights as a continuing sticking point. “We will look at the agreement very carefully,” he said. “We don't want to see unfavorable concessions just for the sake of an agreement.” Brandl belongs to a faction of German lawmakers who fear that domestic companies could lose out in a cooperative program with France. That is especially the case, following that logic, because Airbus, as the German lead contractor, is partly French to begin with. The French, meanwhile, have at times become frustrated with Germany's piecemeal approval process for FCAS funding, a dynamic that could become even more pronounced if money gets tight as a result of the coronavirus crisis. Thomas Jarzombek, the point person for aerospace policy at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, said the program remains crucial for German industry, describing it as a recovery activity for companies post-COVID. “It's become even more important than before,” he said. Brandl said he still worries about spending cuts in the future, especially during development, as the defense ministry may seek opportunities for more near-term fixes to lagging readiness rates across the force. He proposed anchoring FCAS funding elsewhere in the federal government other than under the auspices of the Bundeswehr, at least until the program gets close to showing actual military utility. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2021/02/01/companies-seek-end-to-haggling-over-fcas-rights-with-fresh-offer-this-week