Air Force Commander Wants New F-16 Replacement To Support F-35 - AVweb

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  4 mai 2020 | International, C4ISR

  Army IR Cameras Check Temperatures At Pentagon

  The Army plans to deploy more of the thermal sensors, originally developed to spot targets at night. By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.on May 01, 2020 at 3:18 PM WASHINGTON: Pentagon security has been using thermal cameras on tripods to check temperatures at the building's Visitor Center since April 22nd, the Army's Rapid Equipping Force announced today. The REF, famous for fielding defenses against roadside bombs in Afghanistan and Iraq, worked with the Army's C5ISR Center lab and Program Executive Officer – Soldier to convert infrared targeting sensors into hands-off thermometers to combat the COVID-19 coronavirus. The Pentagon Force Protection Agency wants to set up more of the sensors at other points around the massive headquarters, including the entrance to the Washington Metro subway system. The system was first deployed at Fort Belvoir, just south of Washington, D.C., which hosts PEO-Soldier's headquarters. Further deployments are planned around the D.C. area, at Army training centers, and US Army North HQ in Houston. As we've already reported, the Army's also modified its prototype IVAS targeting goggles to check for elevated temperatures. Today's release says that “thousands of people” at Fort Benning, Ga. have now been scanned with this Thermal Imaging for Fever Screening (TIFS) system. A similar TIFS capability has been also added to the FWS-I, a sophisticated targeting scope that goes on soldiers' rifles. Thermal sensors are widely available, especially in the military, but they have distinct limits as public health tools. That's especially true with COVID-19, most of whose carriers are asymptomatic, with no cough or fever, even as they remain contagious. The Army is also urgently fielding COVID-19 tests to training bases and other sites, including to West Point ahead of the controversial graduation ceremony there. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/05/army-ir-cameras-check-temperatures-at-pentagon/

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  19 juin 2019 | International, Aérospatial, Autre défense

  Israel’s Rafael integrates artificial intelligence into Spice bombs

  By: Seth J. Frantzman and Kelsey D. Atherton Rafael Advanced Defense System's Spice bombs now have a new technological breakthrough as the Israeli company enables its Spice 250 with artificial intelligence alongside automatic target recognition to be used with scene-matching technology. The Spice 250, which can be deployed on quad racks under the wings of warplanes like the F-16, has a 75-kilogram warhead and a maximum range of 100 kilometers with its deployable wings. Its electro-optic scene-matching technology — which involves uploading terrain data onto the bomb and combining it with real-time electro-optic imagery — allows the weapon to work in GPS-denied environments. And the bomb can use this autonomous capability to navigate and correct its location, according to Gideon Weiss, Rafael's deputy general manager of marketing and business development at the company's air and C4I division. With its AI and “deep learning” technologies, the weapon has the ability to identity moving ground targets and distinguish them from other objects and terrain. This is based on 3D models uploaded to the bomb as well as algorithms. As the weapon identifies and homes in on its target, such as a convoy of vehicles, it separates the convoy of interest from other vehicles it has “learned” to ignore. “The deep-learning algorithm is indifferent to the actual data fed to it for modeling targets of interest and embedding their pertaining characteristics into the system," Weiss said. "However, the more the data used for modeling is representative of the target of interest, the more robust the recognition probability will be in real life.” Rafael has completed the development and testing phase of the Spice 250, including flight tests, which have “proven the robustness of the ATA and ATR, so it is mature for delivery,” Weiss said, using acronyms for automatic target acquisition and recognition. Asked if the ATR algorithm will select a secondary target if the computer cannot find the initial human-selected target, Weiss said: “This goes into the area of user-defined policies and rules of engagement, and it is up to the users to decide on how to apply the weapon, when and where to use it, and how to define target recognition probabilities and its eventuality.” Automatically selecting a secondary target may eventually become part of the upgrade profile for the munition, if customers express significant interest in the feature. With a two-way data link and a video-streaming capability, the bomb can be aborted or told to re-target up until a “few second before the weapon hits its target,” Weiss explained. That two-way data-link, enabled by the weapon's mounting on a Smart Quad Rack, or SQR, will enable future deep learning to be based on data extracted from earlier launches. Data recorded will include either live-streaming video or a burst of still images of the entire homing phase up until impact. “These are automatically and simultaneously recorded on the SQR — enabling two functions: (a) real-time and post-mission BDI (Bomb Damage Indication); (b) post-mission target data extraction for intel updates, etc.," Weiss said. "The ATR capability, including its deep learning updates, must be more agile than the enemy's ability to conceal and/or change its battlefield footprint, tactics, appearance or anything else which might impede the ATR from accurately recognizing and destroying targets.” The Spice family of weapons is operational with the Israeli Air Force and international customers. https://www.defensenews.com/artificial-intelligence/2019/06/17/israels-rafael-integrates-artificial-intelligence-into-spice-bombs/

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  21 avril 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  The Air Force made a surprise decision to sole-source the Long Range Standoff Weapon. Here’s who will move forward.

  By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — In a surprise move, the Air Force on Friday announced plans to continue its Long Range Standoff Weapon program with Raytheon as the prime contractor. The LRSO program, which aims to field a new air-launched cruise missile capable of both nuclear and conventional strikes, is currently in its technology maturation and risk reduction phase, with both Raytheon and Lockheed Martin developing their own versions of the weapon. Typically, the Air Force would downselect to a single company in fiscal year 2022, when it awarded the engineering and manufacturing development contract that precedes low-rate production. However, the Air Force decided to press ahead with Raytheon's design after an “extensive evaluation” of the company's technology as presented during the preliminary design review, said Maj. Gen. Shaun Morris, who leads the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center. “Our competitive TMRR phase, which included both Lockheed Martin and Raytheon as the prime contractors, enabled us to select a high-confidence design at this point in the acquisition process,” he said, according to an Air Force release. “And this early off-ramp of a contractor is completely in line with the existing LRSO acquisition strategy, which included periodic reviews to assess contractor designs,” Morris said. “Lockheed Martin has been an excellent contractor and partner throughout the TMRR effort and this pivot to Raytheon does not represent a lack of effort or commitment on their part. Lockheed Martin has supported the nuclear enterprise for decades and we continue to value their expertise in sensors and nuclear certification and surety.” Elizabeth Thorn, the service's program manager, characterized the decision as “not a downselect, per se,” adding that the Air Force will continue to work with Lockheed on specific technologies that could drive down risk to the LRSO design or otherwise be beneficial to the program. The Air Force noted that the company had begun the “closeout process” to stop work on risk reduction phase of the program, leaving Lockheed's precise role in the LRSO program unclear. “We've supported our nation's nuclear triad for more than 60 years and look forward to working with the USAF to support the LRSO mission, specifically leveraging our sensor technology and nuclear certification and surety expertise,” Lockheed said in a statement. LRSO is set to replace the AGM-86B Air Launched Cruise Missile or ALCM, but the program has come under intermittent fire from lawmakers who believe that arming aircraft with a weapon that could be either nuclear or conventional could unnecessarily raise the risk of miscalculation, triggering a nuclear war. The Air Force has argued that it needs a nuclear missile that can be fired from standoff distances to enable the non-stealthy B-52 to remain a credible deterrent to adversaries with advanced air defense systems. Due to the decision to select Raytheon early, the Air Force wants to shift funding that will allow the company to begin certain work early, such as flight tests, the service said. A contract award for the next phase of the program is still scheduled for fiscal year 2022. Morris added that the service was also confident in its ability to keep the program affordable in a sole-source environment, despite the lack of competition that usually helps the government negotiate a lower-cost product. Roman Schweizer, a defense analyst with Cowen Washington Research Group, said the Air Force's announcement prompts additional questions about Lockheed's future role and the information both companies presented during the preliminary design view. “It's possible the USAF made an industrial base/cost decision based on other long-range weapons,” he wrote in an email to investors. “Singling up on LRSO could have been an industrial base decision or a way to reduce cost and speed up development.” In a statement, Raytheon noted that the company is on track to complete risk reduction efforts by January 2022. “LRSO will be a critical contributor to the air-launched portion of America's nuclear triad,” said Wes Kremer, president of Raytheon Missiles and Defense. https://www.defensenews.com/smr/nuclear-arsenal/2020/04/20/the-air-force-made-a-surprise-decision-to-sole-source-the-long-range-standoff-weapon-heres-who-will-move-forward/