thyssenkrupp Marine Systems and NVL agree on cooperation to build new frigates for the German Navy

On the same subject

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  July 14, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  Air Force to Add 12 Weapons Systems for AI/ML-Informed Predictive Maintenance This Year

  The U.S. Air Force is to add a dozen weapons systems to its Enhanced Reliability Centered Maintenance (ERCM) model that employs artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) for predictive maintenance. Those systems are the Boeing [BA] F-15 fighter, B-52 bomber, RC-135 reconnaissance plane, C-17 transport, and A-10 Thunderbolt II close air support aircraft, the Lockheed Martin [LMT] AC/MC-130 gunships, F-16 fighter, and HH-60 helicopter, the Bell [TXT] and Boeing CV-22 tiltrotor, the Northrop Grumman [NOC] RQ-4 Global Hawk and the General Atomics‘ MQ-9 Reaper. “We have a couple of different initiatives under what we would call the umbrella of predictive maintenance,” Air Force Lt. Gen. Warren Berry, the service's deputy chief of staff for logistics, engineering and force protection, said during a July 9 Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies' Aerospace Nation virtual discussion. “One is Condition Based Maintenance Plus [CBM+]. We have three weapons systems in there right now: the C-5, the KC-135, and the B-1. They've been doing it for about 18 to 24 months now, and we're starting to get some real return on what it is that the CBM+ is offering us. The other element is called Enhanced Reliability Centered Maintenance [ERCM], which is really laying that artificial intelligence and machine learning on top of the maintenance information system data that we have today and understanding failure rates and understanding mission characteristics of the aircraft and how they fail, and then laying that into the algorithms that then tell us when parts are likely to fail based on failure rates and the algorithms we plug in.” “We're in the process of adding another 12 weapons systems under the ERCM umbrella this calendar year,” Berry said. Defense Daily has asked Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) for the names of the 12 systems. AI/ML is to assume a significant role in predictive maintenance for the 11 combatant commands (COCOMs). In April last year, the Pentagon said that the new Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) had delivered its first product, a predictive Engine Health Model (EHM) maintenance tool for Sikorsky [LMT] Black Hawk helicopters, to U.S. Special Operations Command's 160th Special Operations Regiment (SOAR) for use with SOAR's MH-60 helicopters. JAIC said that its Joint Logistics Mission Initiative (MI), one of six JAIC AI projects, is working “to develop a repeatable, end-to-end AI ecosystem” to bring EHM to scale across the Black Hawk fleet. EHM, developed in partnership with Carnegie Mellon University, “predicts the probability of an engine hot start so decision-makers can consider next steps,” including replacing the engine or holding it back for training missions instead of deployments in high-risk missions, Army Col. Kenneth Kliethermes, JAIC's Joint Logistics MI lead, said in a recent JAIC blog post. Another JAIC mission initiative, the Joint Warfighting MI, “is working with several COCOMs to build, test, and expand its Smart Sensor, a video processing AI prototype that rides on unmanned aerial vehicles and is trained to identify threats and immediately transmit the video of those threats back to manned computer stations for real-time analysis,” according to the JAIC blog post. Army Col. Bradley Boyd, the lead for the Joint Warfighting MI, said that the Smart Sensor could lead to “a dramatic reduction in the amount of data that has to be pushed back for a human to cull through.” “Instead of staring at one video feed and hours and hours of trees and rocks and nothing happening, that person can instead be monitoring 10 video feeds because they are only seeing the stuff that really matters,” Boyd said in the JAIC blog post. https://www.defensedaily.com/air-force-add-12-weapons-systems-ai-ml-informed-predictive-maintenance-year/army/

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  February 15, 2021 | International, Aerospace

  La force aérienne allemande redonne du potentiel à ses avions Tornado pour les garder au moins jusqu’en 2030

  PAR LAURENT LAGNEAU · 13 FÉVRIER 2021 Sur les 247 chasseurs-bombardiers PANAVIA Tornado qu'elle a reçus à la fin des années 1970, la Luftwaffe [force aérienne allemande] n'en aligne plus que 85. Ces appareils lui permettent de participer aux plans nucléaires de l'Otan [avec la capacité d'emporter la bombe tactique B61] ainsi que de mener des missions de frappes, de reconnaissance et de guerre électronique. Étant donné leur 'ge, les Tornado allemands arriveront au bout de leur potentiel en 2025. D'où le projet de Berlin de se procurer 30 F/A-18 Super Hornet et 15 E/A-18 Growler auprès de Boeing, afin que la Luftwaffe puisse continuer à mener ses missions nucléaires et de guerre électronique visant à supprimer les défenses aériennes ennemies [SEAD] pour le compte de l'Otan. Seulement, annoncé en 2020, ce choix mettra du temps à se concrétiser. En effet, la chambre basse du Parlement allemand [Bundestag] aura son mot à dire... mais pas avant 2022. Ce qui fait cet achat de F/A-18 et de E/A-18G dépendra des résultats des prochaines élections fédérales de septembre prochain et du gouvernement qui en sera issu. En un mot, il n'est pas encore acquis. Et quand bien même il le sera, il faudra du temps pour négocier le contrat, livrer les appareils et former les pilotes ainsi que les techniciens de la Luftwaffe. D'où la décision de cette dernière de redonner du potentiel à ses Tornado pour les maintenir en service jusqu'en 2030 au moins. Ce qui est loin d'être simple étant donné que les pièces détachées sont désormais rares, voire introuvables pour certaines étant donné qu'elles ne sont plus fabriquées. Quoi qu'il en soit, en partenariat avec Airbus Defence & Space [ADS], un premier Tornado du Luftwaffengeschwader 33 a vu son potentiel prolongé de 2.000 heures de vol supplémentaires après une lourde opération de maintenance effectué dans les installations d'Airbus à Manching. Pour cela, il a donc fallu démonter entièrement l'appareil et vérifier chacun de ses composants. Une t'che dont s'est acquittée la société d'ingénierie et d'analyse Industrieanlagen-Betriebsgesellschaft [IABG] à Ottorbrunn. Au total, il a donc fallu de nouveau fabriquer 400 pièces structurelles qui n'étaient plus disponible sur le marché. « Afin de pouvoir assembler à nouveau les parties centrale et avant [du Tornado], tous les trous des anciennes pièces ont dû être reproduits sur les nouvelles avec une précision de 0,001 millimètre », explique la Bundeswehr. « Nous travaillons ici comme des horlogers », a commenté un sous-officier mécanicien de la Luftwaffe. http://www.opex360.com/2021/02/13/la-force-aerienne-allemande-redonne-du-potentiel-a-ses-avions-tornado-pour-les-garder-au-moins-jusquen-2030/

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  October 5, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR

  US Space Force to establish new acquisitions command in 2021

  Nathan Strout WASHINGTON — The U.S Space Force plans to stand up a new command to oversee all of the service's acquisitions in 2021, although that timeline is dependent on identifying the space-related parts of the other military branches that will be transferred into the nation's newest service. The Space Force announced in June that it will be made up of three field commands — Space Operations Command; Space Training and Readiness Command; and Space Systems Command — with the latter charged with developing, acquiring and sustaining systems for the Space Force. Space Systems Command will oversee both the Space and Missile Systems Center, which currently procures most of the service's space-related platforms, and the Space Rapid Capabilities Office. “We anticipate standing that up in 2021, probably sooner rather than later. We're working on those final details,” Space Force Vice Commander Lt. Gen. David Thompson said during a Defense One event Oct. 1. Notably, Space Systems Command is set to become the new home of the Space Development Agency in October 2022, bringing the ambitious organization under the Space Force's purview. The agency was launched in 2019 and has quickly moved forward with plans to establish a mega-constellation of satellites operating in low Earth orbit. The agency's planned transport layer — a space-based mesh network comprised of satellites connected by optical intersatellite crosslinks — is set to play a major part in the Pentagon's Joint All-Domain Command and Control concept. The new command will act as a unifying force, said Thompson, removing unnecessary duplication between organizations while encouraging healthy competition in some areas. “We're not going to duplicate, but we're certainly interested in the energy that comes from competing ideas and competing designs and competing approaches to a problem,” he explained. Unifying space acquisitions and activities under a single service was a major justification for the establishment of the Space Force. However, details on which organizations, functions and platforms will be absorbed has been scant, as talks continue between the services and Department of Defense leadership. “The absolute final decision hasn't been made,” Thompson said. “We have been engaged in this process for several months now. We're getting close to the decisions that need to be made in terms of transfer of some of those functions and capabilities.” “There is a tremendous amount that the Space Force and the Air Force and the Army and the Navy working together with [the Office of the Secretary of Defense] have already agreed on,” Thompson added. “One is the capabilities and forces that will stay in place where they are to continue to do the activities that are space-related, the set of activities that are prepared to move over; and then there's a couple, there's a few, units and functions left that we haven't reached full agreement on, and we're in the process of finalizing the data and the information that will allow the decision-makers to decide the final disposition — whether they'll stay or whether they'll move to the Space Force.” The Space Force largely completed this process with the Air Force in the spring, said Thompson, with 23 units or functions selected for transition into the new service. Much of the planning and execution of that transfer has already been completed, and the Space Force has gone on to identify other organizations and capabilities that should be brought into their fold, including two Air Force units and two more from the intelligence community. Plans are expected to be finalized for the other services in the near future, with Thompson teasing that an announcement was likely before the end of the year. “The target that the leadership in the DoD has given us is we want to be able to make decisions so that we can execute planning in FY2021 and begin facilitating moves in 2022,” he explained. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2020/10/01/the-space-force-to-establish-new-acquisitions-command-in-202