US Army’s new all-domain sensing team to wrangle sensor architecture

On the same subject

• 

  June 11, 2019 | International, Land, Security

  Active protection systems demo hits dead end for Stryker, Army evaluating next steps

  By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — After evaluating two active protection systems in a demonstration late last fall and determining neither were the right fit for the Stryker, the Army is now evaluating how to protect one of its critical combat vehicle. “Unfortunately for Stryker, we have not found a system that is suitable for the platform,” Col. Glenn Dean, Stryker project manager told Defense News in a June 7 interview. The Army has found interim APS for both its Abrams tank and Bradley infantry fighting vehicle but has struggled to find one for Stryker. The service has moved quickly to field combat vehicle protection against rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank guided missiles while it develops a future system. The service originally considered Herndon,Virginia-based Artis Corporation's Iron Curtain APS for Stryker, but decided in August 2018not to move forward in fielding it to Stryker units. In an effort to expand its search for an appropriate system, the Army then decided to host a demonstration in late fall last year of two additional systems: Rafael's Trophy VPS and Rheinmetall's Active Defense Systems. Signs the demonstration wasn't proving fruitful cropped up in March, when the service said they'd need extra time — an entire year — to evaluate options for Stryker. Dean said the Army was hoping they'd see promise in one of the systems at the end of the demonstration and be able to carry it through more complex characterization for better evaluation in order to make a decision. But as the demonstration wrapped up, the Army decided neither would work. “Both Rheinmetall and the medium-weight Trophy, both have maturity challenges, but the bottom line is that they turned out to not be a suitable fit for Stryker,” Dean said. “We did see some potential in systems,” Dean said, adding, “it is our desire to continue to evaluate them further so we can understand them at a greater level of detail.” Neither system received the same level of testing as Rafael's Trophy on Abrams, IMI's Iron Fist on Bradley or Iron Curtain, Dean said, and the systems could end up being the right fit for some future effort to outfit other vehicles such as the Next-Generation Combat Vehicle program's Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle, Mobile Protected Firepower and the Armored Multipurpose Vehicle, “none of which we have identified APS solutions for yet,” Dean said. Through continued evaluation “maybe we will eventually learn something that brings us back to Stryker,” he added. Unlike Bradley and Abrams, Stryker is a relatively light-weight platform, Dean said. “It has challenges in its space, weight and power integration. It has proven difficult for us to find a system that is entirely suitable for integration.” And while no operational APS system evaluated so far seems to work for Stryker, the Army is still looking into ways to protect it as its value on the battlefield only increases with the addition of bigger guns and more expensive weapon systems. Under the Vehicle Protection System (VPS) program office, the Army is working on reactive armor improvements focused on Bradley and AMPV, but that could be of particular value for Stryker, Dean said. The Army's laser warning program that is tied to the Modular Active Protection System (MAPS) program could also contribute to Stryker protection. MAPS is a system under development with the Army featuring a common controller into which hard-kill and soft-kill protection can be plugged. And the Army will be conducting a demonstration with layered hard-kill and soft-kill protection capability later this year as part of culminating exercise for its MAPS program, according to Dean. “The soft-kill may ultimately prove to be particularly well suited for Stryker,” Dean said. Those soft-kill systems are jammers and smoke systems that help obscure and tend to take up relatively little space and are less expensive then hard-kill APS that require the reloading of countermeasures. The service is also studying what it may need for a future APS and plans to initiate a program in the late part of the next fiscal year, which could also be an opportunity to develop something more suitable for Stryker, according to Dean. While the Army does have plans to protect its combat vehicles from rockets and missiles, in a June 6 letter sent to Army Secretary Mark Esper, a group of 13 House lawmakers expressed concern the service isn't doing enough to outfit its current fleet with APS and asked the Army to explain why it hadn't requested any further funding for APS upgrades in the budget According to Dean, for Abrams and Bradley, “we are resourced to meet the requirements that we have on an urgent basis to outfit a limited number of brigades. We are doing analysis right now to support development programs of record in active protection.” He added, “What we are buying is not the end of APS activity, but it is the urgent requirements we have been given.” https://www.defensenews.com/land/2019/06/10/active-protection-systems-demo-hits-dead-end-for-stryker-army-evaluating-next-steps/

• 

  May 22, 2020 | International, Security

  Coulson’s CU-47 is ready for the fire fight

  Posted on May 22, 2020 by Howard Slutsken Leveraging its experience with fixed-wing air tankers, Coulson Aviation has unveiled its latest aerial firefighting conversion, based on the Boeing CH-47D Chinook heavy-lift helicopter. In early March, the first Coulson-Unical CU-47 was flown from the company's Port Alberni, B.C., base to the Aerial Firefighting North American 2020 conference in Sacramento, Calif. Featuring a 3,000 gallon roll-on/roll-off internal tank and an advanced Garmin avionics suite, up to 12 CH-47Ds will be converted into next-generation heli-tankers, in a partnership with Unical Aviation that was announced a year ago. “Unical provides us with the aircraft and a vast supply of parts,” explained Britt Coulson, president and COO, in an interview with Skies. “They bought the entire Canadian Forces CH-47 parts inventory and were the largest purchaser of CH-47Ds from the U.S. Army.” The twin-rotor Chinook is well known for its speed, size and payload. While the helicopter is often deployed on fire attack missions carrying a water bucket as an external load, Coulson wanted to give the CU-47 more flexibility and capability. The company's engineers had already developed a 4,000 gallon Retardant Aerial Delivery System RADS-XXL for its Lockheed C-130 Hercules tanker conversions, and that tank was shrunk to create a 3,000 gallon RADS-L for the CH-47D conversion. “It's the same overall design as the C-130. It shares most of the same hydraulic components, the same doors and the same design of a roll-in, roll-out tank,” said Coulson. Other CH-47 internal tank systems utilize the small hook well in the centre of the helicopter as the water and retardant delivery port, but according to Coulson, that has its limitations. “The other tank designs are plagued with flow rate issues, which means they don't pack enough punch to really get through [forest] canopies or drop in heavy timber – the hook well opening just isn't big enough. “The lower the flow rate you have out of your tank, the slower and lower you have to fly. The problem with a big helicopter like a Chinook is if you fly too slow and low, your downwash is going to negatively affect the ground fire conditions and your drop is going to be ineffective.” To increase and optimize the flow rate for the RADS-L, the belly of the CH-47D was modified by cutting the helicopter's lower skin and adding structure below the floor to accommodate the tank installation and a pair of drop doors, controlled by the pilots through a state-of-the-art touchscreen controller. From the same touch panel, the pilots also control the CU-47's newly-developed retractable snorkel system to refill the RADS-L tank from water sources close to a fire's location. Installed internally, the snorkel head sits flush with the belly when retracted, so that with no additional external drag, the helicopter can maintain its fast 140-knot cruise speed. In a hover, the snorkel takes just four seconds to deploy and six seconds to retract, and the pilots and flight engineer can monitor the system's operation via a high-definition belly-mounted camera feed, displayed on the touchscreen controller. “The snorkel system has exceeded our expectations and we're filling the entire tank in under two minutes,” said Coulson. With the advanced capabilities of the Garmin avionics, the relocation of the flight engineer's panel, and the new RADS-L tank, Coulson originally believed that the CU-47 could be crewed solely by two pilots, without a flight engineer. But recent operational experience led the company to rethink that strategy. “We realized that with a helicopter of this size, going into some of the smaller dip sites, to have an additional set of eyes looking out the side or back is valuable to the pilots. So we've de-modified the helicopter and gone back to a full-time flight engineer to provide that increased safety and situational awareness.” Like Coulson's C-130 conversions, the CU-47 can also be tasked with night-time firefighting missions, thanks to the Night Vision System (NVS) certification of the helicopter's avionics suite. Wearing NVS googles, the CU-47's crew work in tandem with a fire attack “Intel” helicopter's pilots. The Intel crew uses a thermal camera to evaluate the behaviour of a fire, and if a drop is required, they take a page from military ground-attack operations. Using a laser, the Intel crew designates the target for the tanker. “With a geo-referenced lock, the Intel helicopter can orbit, and the laser beam will stay on the same spot. It illuminates an area on the ground about the size of a car,” said Coulson. The first CU-47 will soon be joined by a second RADS-L equipped helicopter, two CU-47's with upgraded avionics that will fly “bucket” missions, and a fifth, tank-equipped CU-47 that will deploy as a spare. “All of our FAA testing [on RADS-L] has finished, we're just waiting for the final Supplemental Type Certificate signature,” said Coulson. “We're doing some minor cleanup to the helicopter to make sure that it's ready to go fight fires this summer.” Howard Slutsken's lifelong passion for aviation began when he was a kid, watching TCA Super Connies, Viscounts, and early jets at Montreal's Dorval Airport. He's a pilot who loves to fly gliders and pretty much anything else with wings. Howard is based in Vancouver, B.C. https://www.skiesmag.com/features/coulsons-cu-47-fire-fight

• 

  July 15, 2024 | International, Security

  10,000 Victims a Day: Infostealer Garden of Low-Hanging Fruit

  Discover how infostealer malware threatens your data and learn steps to protect yourself from cybercriminals.