27 février 2023 | International, Aérospatial
Singapore to buy eight more F-35B jets
Singapore's defense minister says the decision came after a âfull evaluationâ of the F-35, which followed increased access to the aircraft program.
14 mai 2018 | International, Aérospatial
Army, Uber will partner on silent rotor technology for UAVs
By: Charlsy Panzino
The Army is partnering with Uber to create safer, more lethal unmanned aerial vehicle missions.
The new effort between the Army Research Laboratory and the rideshare company, announced on Tuesday, aims to create silent rotor technology.
The goal is to reduce the noise caused by traditional UAV rotors.
“When UAVs are doing an [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] mission, they're out there collecting or observing to collect intelligence or to do surveillance,” Jaret Riddick, director of ARL's Vehicle Technology Directorate, told Army Times after the announcement.
That mission is hampered, however, when the adversary can hear the UAV coming, Riddick said.
“They know a certain noise in the distance means a certain type of operation is underway,” he said. “When you can do that with the advantage of not being detected ... it changes how you execute a mission.”
Uber Elevate, under which the air taxi side of the company falls, is interested in noise-reduction technology because its vehicles would be operating in dense urban areas.
Since Uber is a technology company, ARL will build the UAVs for testing the technology.
One kind of technology Uber is looking at to solve the noise problem is the idea of having stacked rotors on a vehicle that spin in the same direction.
Traditionally, UAVs have stacked rotors that spin in opposite directions.
“When those rotors are spinning in opposite directions, they create a type of turbulence that contributes to noise in the operation,” Riddick said. “By having them spin in the same direction and adjusting their position to one another, research has shown that using this technique can offer advantages in performance while reducing the noise compared with traditional operations.”
One of these performance advantages is more lift capability, he said.
Last year, Uber announced the Dallas-Forth Worth area as its first location for flight demonstrations in 2020, and Riddick said Uber will collaborate with ARL-South researchers in Austin.
Uber and ARL-South will build the infrastructure needed for testing, Riddick said, adding that progress will be checked every six months.
“Uber is proud to be partnering with ARL on critical research on flying vehicle innovations that will help create the world's first urban aviation rideshare network,” Eric Allison, head of Uber Elevate, said in a news release.
“Our first jointly-funded project will help us develop first of its kind rotor technology that will allow for quieter and more efficient travel. We see this initial project as the first of many and look forward to continued collaboration with the lab on innovations that will make uberAIR a reality.”
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9 août 2019 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre
Final hypersonic missile contract awards imminent as US Army preps to shoot one in FY21
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The U.S. Army is just weeks away from awarding the final contracts related to the development of its mobile, ground-launched hypersonic missile. The Army will award a contract within the next three weeks to a company to develop a launching system for the hypersonic missile in co-development across the services, Lt. Gen. L. Neil Thurgood, the service's Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office director, said Aug. 7 at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium. RCCTO's job is to serve as a bridge between the science and technology community and the program executive offices, helping bring technology out of development and into soldiers' hands, first on a small scale and then a larger scale when passed off to program offices. The office is primarily focused on hypersonics and directed energy. While the missile is under joint development, the Army needs a special launcher to make the missile road-mobile. The contract will encompass the design and integration of a vertical launcher onto a trailer, Thurgood said. Additionally, the RCCTO is preparing to award a contract, also in the next three weeks, to a vendor to produce the glide body for the hypersonic missile, Thurgood said. The Navy will own the design of the glide body, but the Army will own its production, he said. “We have a company that we are in the final process of negotiating an [other transaction authority contract],” Thurgood said. An OTA is a contract that allows for rapid prototyping by bypassing the usual red tape associated with acquisition. “What is interesting about the glide body technology is we also have to create an industrial base to do this. There is no industrial base in the United States for glide bodies,” Thurgood said. The technology is owned by the government labs, he noted, “so we are transitioning that out of the labs into the commercial marketplace. That is a really hard thing to do, but there's a lot of energy and a lot of momentum behind that outcome.” Unlike other programs, Thurgood said, there is not a single company that can produce a hypersonic missile and its equipment alone. “It actually takes a collaborative effort amongst the industry partners,” he added. The first contract will be awarded to one company, but there will be follow-on contracts for other vendors to learn how to make the glide body at the federally funded lab where it was developed. The methodology energizes the supply chain from the prime contractors all the way to sub-contractors should the service decide to make a large number of the weapons, Thurgood told Defense News in an interview at the symposium. Thurgood noted that in order to bring industry closer to the RCCTO's endeavors, the office established an industry board in addition to its board of directors to promote “horizontal communication.” The Army plans to field a hypersonic missile and launcher to a unit in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021. The unit will train for an entire year without live rounds, Thurgood said, adding that the canisters the unit will use will be cement-filled to match the weight. The first live-round test will take place in FY22 and will be conducted by a battery led by a captain. Thurgood was tasked Feb. 14 to come up with a plan for hypersonic development, and given 30 days to do so. Now, almost six months later, the RCCTO is about to award all associated contracts to move forward in building prototypes that will be in soldiers' hands in just a couple of years, Thurgood said. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/smd/2019/08/07/final-hypersonic-missile-contract-awards-imminent-as-army-preps-to-shoot-one-in-fy21/
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9 janvier 2024 | International, Aérospatial
BAE Systems to provide critical Mk 45 upgrade to Australian Navy frigates
The upgrade modifies existing Mk 45 systems to eliminate obsolescence issues and extend the life of the gun system.