13 novembre 2023 | International, Aérospatial
We need hard laws on military use of AI — and soon
Opinion: Is pushback by China, Russia and India insurmountable?
19 juillet 2019 | International, Terrestre, Autre défense
Army Eyeing Navy's High-Powered Laser to Fight Enemy Drone Swarms
By Matthew Cox
Army modernization officials are getting help from the Navy to make the service's High Energy Laser program more than twice as powerful for fending off aerial attacks from swarms of enemy drones.
Currently, the Army's High Energy Laser Tactical Vehicle Demonstrator (HEL TVD) features a 100-kilowatt laser designed to fit on Family of Medium Tactical Vehicle (FMTV) trucks. The service plans to conduct a demonstrationof the system's target acquisition, tracking and other capabilities against a range of targets in 2022.
Meanwhile, the Army's Rapid Capabilities Office plans to take advantage of the Navy's 250-kilowatt laser program, a system that could be adapted to fit on the FMTV platform, Army Lt. Gen. Paul Ostrowski told an audience Tuesday at an Association of the United States Army Institute of Land Warfare breakfast.
"The intent is to work with the Navy, and we are doing that right now, in order to increase the power of that laser system from beyond 100-kilowatt up to maybe the 250-kilowatt mark," said Ostrowski, the military deputy to the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology.
The Army's 100-kilowatt HEL TVD is being designed to provide air and missile support to forward operating bases and airfields, Ostrowski said. The service also plans to field a platoon of four 50-kilowatt lasers, known as Maneuver Short Range Air Defense (M-SHORAD) that will be mounted on a Stryker combat vehicle in fiscal 2022.
The advantage of the laser is having an "unlimited magazine" for unmanned aerial systems, as well as rockets, artillery and mortars, instead of "shooting $100,000 missiles at $7,000" unmanned aerial systems, Ostrowski said, adding that the Army hopes to expand the potential use of lasers on the battlefield beyond air defense.
"We want to be able to put that capability on our tanks to potentially get after targets that our combat vehicles can go after, so this is just the beginning ... of where we see lasers going in the future," he said.
One of the challenges of working with lasers, Ostrowski said, is controlling the heat buildup generated by the power source.
"It's not just the ability to create the energy to fire the laser, but it's also to dissipate the heat," he said.
It's still uncertain whether the Navy's 250-kilowatt laser program will work for the Army, but "we are not going to ignore" its potential for dealing with more complex enemy air attacks, Ostrowski said.
"The power piece is extremely important. If you don't have the power, you don't have that unlimited magazine, and that unlimited magazine makes a difference in a swarm environment where you have multiple targets and you have to be able to ... recharge quickly and be able to shoot them all down," he said.
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22 juin 2018 | International, Naval, Terrestre
BAE wins Marine Corps contract to build new amphibious combat vehicle
By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — BAE Systems has won a contract to build the Marine Corps' new amphibious combat vehicle following a competitive evaluation period where BAE's vehicle was pitted against an offering from SAIC. The contract allows for the company to enter into low-rate initial production with 30 vehicles expected to be delivered by fall of 2019, valued at $198 million. The Marines plan to field 204 of the vehicles. The total value of the contract with all options exercised is expected to amount to about $1.2 billion. The awarding of the contract gets the Corps “one step closer to delivering this capability to the Marines,” John Garner, Program Executive Officer, Land Systems Marine Corps, said during a media round table held Tuesday. But the Corps isn't quite done refining its new ACV. The vehicle is expected to undergo incremental changes with added new requirements and modernization. The Corps is already working on the requirements for ACV 1.2, which will include a lethality upgrade for the amphibous vehicle. BAE's ACV vehicle will eventually replace the Corps' legacy amphibious vehicle, but through a phased approach. The Assault Amphibious Vehicle is currently undergoing survivability upgrades to keep the Cold War era vehicle ticking into 2035. BAE Systems and SAIC were both awarded roughly $100 million each in November 2015 to deliver 16 prototypes to the Marine Corps for evaluation in anticipation of a down select to one vendor in 2018. [BAE, SAIC Named as Finalists in Marines ACV Competition] All government testing of the prototypes concluded the first week of December 2017 and the Marine Corps issued its request for proposals the first week in January 2018. Operational tests also began concurrently. Government testing included land reliability testing, survivability and blast testing and water testing — both ship launch and recovery as well as surf transit. Operational evaluations included seven prototypes each from both SAIC and BAE Systems, six participated and one spare was kept for backup. BAE Systems' partnered with Italian company Iveco Defense Vehicles to build its ACV offering. [BAE Systems completes Amphibious Combat Vehicle shipboard testing] Some of the features BAE believed were particularly attractive for a new ACV is that it has space for 13 embarked Marines and a crew of three, which keeps the rifle squad together. The engine's strength is 690 horsepower over the old engine's 560 horsepower, and it runs extremely quietly. The vehicle has a V-shaped hull to protect against underbody blasts, and the seat structure is completely suspended. SAIC's vehicle, which was built in Charleston, South Carolina, offered improved traction through a central tire-inflation system to automatically increase or decrease tire pressure. It also had a V-hull certified during tests at the Nevada Automotive Test Center — where all prototypes were tested by the Marine Corps — and had blast-mitigating seats to protect occupants. The 3rd Assault Amphibian Battalion, 1st Marine Division out of Camp Pendleton, California, is expected to receive the first ACV 1.1 vehicles. Marine Corps Times reporter Shawn Snow contributed to this report. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2018/06/19/bae-wins-marine-corps-contract-to-build-new-amphibious-combat-vehicle/
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11 novembre 2024 | International, Terrestre
RTX BBN Technologies to develop tool for DARPA
RTX BBN Technologies has secured a contract to bolster the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) cyber resiliency programme.