July 4, 2024 | International, Land
US Army accepts T901 Engines - Army Technology
The US Army has initiated flight testing of the T901 engine as part of its efforts to modernise the UH-60 Black Hawk.
January 4, 2019 | International, Aerospace
UK: Defence Minister signs £250M aircraft deal, sustaining 450 jobs
Defence Minister Stuart Andrew has announced the MOD has signed a £250 million deal to support the RAF's intelligence-gathering Shadow aircraft fleet.
Defence Minister Stuart Andrew has announced that the Ministry of Defence (MOD) has signed a £250 million deal to support the RAF's intelligence-gathering Shadow aircraft fleet, supporting 450 jobs.
Shadow is a highly capable intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft which performs crucial intelligence-gathering on operations all over the world.
Shadow, flown by 14 Squadron RAF, has been on operations above battlefields including Iraq and Afghanistan.
The newly-signed contract with Raytheon will sustain 200 jobs at the company's facilities in Broughton, North Wales and hundreds more across the UK supply chain.
Services will also be established at RAF Waddington, the home of the RAF's ISTAR fleet, to ensure aircraft availability under the new contract.
Defence Minister Stuart Andrew said:
This £250 million investment will ensure the UK retains its position as a global leader in battlefield intelligence gathering for UK troops and our NATO allies. It is also great news for the economy through the safeguarding of 450 skilled jobs across the country, including 200 in North Wales, confirming the region as a UK centre of excellence for air support.
The support contract will provide maintenance, airworthiness, design and supplier management services as well as modification and integration work which will allow Shadow to be upgraded in the future.
DE&S Chief Executive Officer Sir Simon Bollom said:
DE&S is proud to continue to work with our partners across industry to deliver world-class support to the RAF's Shadow fleet. The continuing investment in support safeguards jobs and expertise which will provide safe and available aircraft in support of UK troops.
Under commitments laid out in the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review, the UK is bringing a total of eight Shadow aircraft into RAF service.
Air ISTAR Programme Director, Group Captain Shaun Gee:
This contract award marks a key milestone in cementing the excellent partnership between the MOD with RSL(UK). It delivers vital ongoing support to operations and, crucially, enables future, rapid development of the SHADOW Platform which will ensure the capability remains at the cutting edge of technology providing a world-class tactical ISR capability for the UK.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/defence-minister-signs-250m-aircraft-deal-sustaining-450-jobs
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August 14, 2019 | International, Land, C4ISR
Can robots make an Army platoon 10 times as effective?
By: Kelsey D. Atherton Are humans with robots an order of magnitude better than humans without robots? It's the question the Army's Maneuver Center for Excellence is hoping to solve through trial and experimentation. The National Advanced Mobility Consortium posted a request for white papers Aug. 5 about technologies that might have a place in a robotic, artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomy technology demonstration at Fort Benning in September 2020. This project is long in the works, with an announcement of intent dating back to March 2019. The premise, as stated in the March announcement, is to “show a path towards an Army capability that will provide a robotically equipped dismounted infantry platoon that is 10 times more effective than the current dismounted infantry platoon.” In order to do this, the Maneuver Center for Excellence, together with Fort Benning's Maneuver Capabilities Development and Integration Directorate's Robotics Requirements Division, is exploring robotic systems for “ground, air, water,” as well as the virtual space — otherwise known as the four platonic elements of terrestrial war. These robots and systems should be able to improve “mobility, protection, situational awareness, endurance, persistence, and depth” as well as, and this is key, lethality. Taken together, the robots should lend an advantage to the platoon's OODA loop — its ability to observe, orient, decide and act — with the goal that a robot-enabled platoon completes OODA-loop cycles 10 times faster than it would without robots. That's a tremendous amount of promise to put in remote systems, especially since the present paradigm of controlled robotic battlefield tools involves a lot of human observers and controllers checking on, managing, and directing the robots. (The process by which humans are actively involved in robot control is “in the loop” or, with more passive robot monitoring termed “on the loop.”) If robots are going to improve soldier situational awareness by an order of magnitude, they will have to be autonomous. And not just autonomous in movement, but autonomous in sensing, data processing, and in providing that information back to the platoon. Part of this vision involves robots themselves producing intelligence products that are both immediate and ephemeral, useful in the tactical moment and then gone before they can become out of date. Another piece is machines autonomously moving through and responding to the environment on their own, as exercises undertaken by DARPA and the Marine Corps have already explored. If that same autonomy will extend to robot lethality, or if weapons will stay in the hands of humans, remains to be determined. In preparation for the September 2020 exercise, Georgia Tech Research Institute is designated to serve as the technology integrator for the assessment and demonstration parts of the task. As the industry proposals are vetted to meet Army needs, some will receive a Request for Prototype Proposal, and will also be evaluated in a simulation exercise to see if they will be part of the 2020 exercise. Interested parties should look to the National Advanced Mobility Consortium's posted request, and to the earlier proposal announcement, for more specific guidance. Interested observers, meanwhile, should keep an eye on September 2020 in Georgia, where the Army will see if the future of war is really 10 times as promising as expected. https://www.c4isrnet.com/unmanned/robotics/2019/08/08/can-robots-make-an-army-platoon-10-times-as-effective/
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May 9, 2024 | International, Naval
Fincantieri buys Leonardo's submarine business in 415 mln euro deal