Army issues $17 million in contracts for TITAN development

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  22 janvier 2020 | International, C4ISR, Sécurité

  What new documents reveal about Cyber Command’s biggest operation

  Mark Pomerleau New documents provide insight into the growing pains U.S. Cyber Command faced in building a force while simultaneously conducting operations. The documents, which were released as part of a Freedom of Information Act request from the National Security Archive at George Washington University and later shared with journalists, are a series of internal briefings and lessons from the Defense Department's most complex cyber operation at the time, Operation Glowing Symphony. That operation was part of the larger counter-ISIS operations — Joint Task Force-Ares — but specifically targeted ISIS's media and online operations, taking out infrastructure and preventing ISIS members from communicating and posting propaganda. While Cyber Command described the operation, which took place in November of 2016, as a victory in the sense that it “successfully contested [ISIS] in the information domain,” the documents demonstrate the extent to which the command was still learning how to conduct operations and the exact steps to follow. “Process maturation is something they pull out a lot. Obviously, as CYBERCOM was standing up, it was pulling together plans for how they were going to operate. They actually hadn't operated that much,” Michael Martelle, cyber vault fellow at the National Security Archive, told reporters. “A lot of these frameworks were formed in theory. Now they go to try them out in practice.” Cyber Command leaders have stressed in public remarks for years that the command was building its force while operating. But the extent of those operations has been limited. Officials in recent years have explained that the command didn't undertake many offensive operations. One official said last year he could count on less than two fingers the number of operations, Cyber Command conducted in the last decade or so. One member of Congress said DoD didn't conduct an offensive cyber operation in five years. But when they were in action, in this case with Operation Glowing Symphony, Martelle said the documents show cyber leaders did not anticipate the amount of data they would access. “They actually weren't prepared for the amount of data they were pulling off of ISIS servers ... CYBERCOM was not set up for an operation of this magnitude from day one,” he said. “They had to learn on the fly, they had to acquire on the fly, they had to grow on the fly.” The documents note that Cyber Command's capability development group, is “developing USCYBERCOM data storage solutions.” The capabilities develop group, now known as the J9, serves as the advanced concepts and technology directorate and worked to plan and synchronizing cyber capability development and developed capabilities to meet urgent operational needs. Experts had noted that in the past the CDG/J9 had been stressed in recent years by a limited staff and burdened by developing tools for operational needs, namely Joint Task Force-Ares. Another example of potential growing pains the documents point to was the fact that updates to operations checklists were not made available readily to the team. Finally, the documents note that authorities and processes the command was operating under that the time were restrictive in some cases. “Absent of significant policy changes from [the office of the secretary of defense], USCYBERCOM is limited in its ability to challenge ISIS [redacted]. As a result, USCYBERCOM has [redacted] to achieve our objectives,” the executive summary of a 120-day assessment of Operation Glowing Symphony says. Those authorities and processes have been streamlined by the executive branch and Congress in recent years. Commanders now follow a process that defaults toward action, Maj. Gen. Dennis Crall, deputy principal cyber adviser and senior military adviser for cyber policy, said during an event Jan. 9. He explained the updated process provides continuity, tempo, pace and timing. Ultimately, Martelle noted that the real importance behind Operation Glowing Symphony is that Cyber Command used the experience from those events and Joint Task Force-Ares more broadly as a template for future operations. Cyber Command's top official, Gen. Paul Nakasone, who was also led Joint Task Force-Ares, has noted that the task force laid the foundation for the Russia Small Group, which was created to combat election interference in the 2018 midterms. “This concept of a task force lives on. A lot of that thinking came from what we were doing in 2016,” he told NPR. That task force has now evolved to be more all encompassing covering election threats more broadly. https://www.fifthdomain.com/dod/cybercom/2020/01/21/what-new-documents-reveal-about-cyber-commands-biggest-operation/

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  22 septembre 2020 | International, Terrestre, C4ISR

  Laying the groundwork: US Army unveils rough plan to formalize robotic combat vehicles effort

  Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army is preparing to enter into programs of record for light- and medium-class robotic combat vehicles in a few years, with plans to award separate contracts for a lead systems integrator for each program, according to the service's robotic combat vehicles product manager. The service wants to field a light, medium and heavy robotic combat vehicle, and it is experimenting with technology and how the vehicles might fit into future formations through the Army's Next-Generation Combat Vehicle modernization office. Developing NGCV capability is the second-highest priority for the Army. The plan is to make a decision to move the Army's RCV-Light out of technical maturation and into the engineering and manufacturing development phase in the second quarter of fiscal 2023. The service would do the same with the RCV-Medium program in FY24, Lt. Col. Chris Orlowski said Sept. 10 during a conference hosted by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International. Orlowski noted that the potential RCV-Heavy program of record would fall behind the start of the medium and light programs by “a pretty significant margin.” At the same conference during a separate keynote presentation, Bruce Jette, the Army's acquisition chief, said decisions were made that “put pieces in place that will establish a formal program for robotic systems with the [program manager], not just following the tech base but in fact being the centerpiece for building light and medium systems inside of an architecture that fits within the entire operational vehicle architecture. In fact, it will leap over into the aircraft as well. It will be everything from driving to operations of the vehicle to visual sensing to probably a broader array of technical capabilities that you may not have even thought possible.” The Army plans to award a contract to a lead systems integrator that will combine the RCV's control station, network, platform, software and payloads, Orlowski said. Anticipated government-furnished equipment for the programs would include autonomy software, radios, war-fighter machine interface software, aided target recognition software and lethality payloads “minus the turret,” according to Orlowski. Other potential government-furnished equipment could be a tethered drone; assured position, navigation and timing technology; hostile fire detection; and other vehicle protection systems, he said. As the Army ventures into developing robotic vehicles that don't just do the dull, dirty and dangerous work, “the biggest thing is going to be software development, improving autonomous and automation software,” he added. “Teleoperation is nice; it works OK if you've got the right radios and the right environments, but long term, when those environments become tested, I think teleoperation will be less viable and we will have to really push the automation and autonomy on these platforms. But also, that being said, there is always going to have to be some soldier interaction with the platforms. How do we improve that interaction for the soldiers, reducing that cognitive burden?" he said. “I know everybody likes cool, big, awesome robots, but it's really a software thing that is going to make these things go, so anything that is kind of tied to software I think is a critical technology in my view,” he added. The Army's rough acquisition strategy for the robots calls for a first unit to receive RCV-Light vehicles in FY28 and a first unit to receive RCV-Medium in FY30, according to a slide from Orlowski's conference presentation. The Army recently wrapped up its first phase of experimentation with RCV-Heavy surrogates fashioned out of M113 armored personnel carriers at Camp Red Devil on Fort Carson, Colorado, which added complexity to an ongoing evaluation of the government-developed platforms. The Army also awarded contracts to a Textron and Howe & Howe team to build an RCV-Medium prototype, and to a QinetiQ North America and Pratt & Miller team to build the lighter version late last year and early this year. Those are being built now. Orlowski stressed those prototypes are being built “primarily to support future planned experimentation” in FY22 and FY24 and “in support of defining and informing requirements for the RCV program of record.” He added there is no plan to transition any of those systems into any type of limited fielding. “They are not designed for that. They are designed for a campaign of learning,” he said. Now that the first major experiment is done, the Army plans to build up to a company-level operation in the first quarter of FY22 at Fort Hood, Texas, with four RCV-Medium and four RCV-Light prototypes. While the experimentation at Fort Carson with RCV-Heavy was focused on cavalry operations where the robots served more in a scout mission and proved they could be effective in a reconnaissance and security role, the experiment in FY22 will move the robots into more of an attack-and-defend role. While the Army has to officially complete a critical technology assessment from the Fort Carson experimentation, Orlowski said the autonomy software “needs to improve.” The experimentation in FY22 will focus on improvements and the Army will work with industry partners to “improve that tether,” he said. “It needs to be robust in contested environments, which we haven't fully explored yet.” The service will also need to look at some alternate communications pathways between the control vehicle and the robots. Aided target recognition needs more maturity, Orlowski explained, “especially on the move to support the platforms.” Anything that reduces the soldier interaction with the platforms will also be incorporated, “and there are other things that soldiers asked for, which when we are ready to release we will. [The ideas from the feedback] were pretty perceptive," he said. "So how critical that becomes, we will see.” https://www.defensenews.com/land/2020/09/21/laying-the-groundwork-us-army-unveils-rough-plan-to-formalize-robotic-combat-vehicles-effort/

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  14 juillet 2023 | International, Aérospatial

  Serbia looks to join Spanish surveillance drone program

  Belgrade has previously signaled interest, but it remains too early to tell in what capacity it would be joining the initiative.