14 mai 2021 | International, Aérospatial
The Air Force Built a Robot to Wash F-16s
The Air Force built a robot that can wash an F-16 fighter jet in just 1 hour. It typically takes a crew of four airmen up to 6 hours to do the same job.
25 novembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial
Boeing Stirs Pentagon’s Ire With More Dings, Damage to Aircraft
Boeing Co. has been cited by the Pentagon's contracts management agency for an increase in incidents of damage to military aircraft or components at three of its facilities.
The citation from Army Lieutenant General David Bassett, director of the Defense Contract Management Agency, cited “recent negative trends” in mishaps at Boeing's facilities in Seattle, San Antonio and Mesa, Arizona, “that far exceeds historical rates” and are “not consistent with expected performance.”
The results could include damage from parts falling off a cart during transportation or too little overhead “clearance when maneuvering the aircraft or ground support equipment resulting in repairs needing to be made,” Matthew Montgomery, a spokesman for the contracts agency, said in an email.
“Our analysis of mishaps indicates a disproportionate number of events occurring at Boeing facilities” since 2018 involving aircraft or parts damaged before delivery to the military, Bassett told Leanne Caret, chief executive officer of Boeing's defense unit, in a previously undisclosed June letter obtained by Bloomberg News.
The mishaps add to other indications of challenged performance at units of Chicago-based Boeing, the No. 2 defense contractor after Lockheed Martin Corp. They include problems with parts quality for Apache AH-64 helicopters that led to a recent halt in delivery that's still in effect and a wide-ranging Army-led inspection of the Mesa facility. In addition, Boeing is still struggling to deliver a KC-46 refueling tanker that meets refueling system specifications nine years after the company won the contract.
Earlier: Boeing's Arizona Chopper Plant Under Scrutiny by Army
Mishaps at Boeing facilities increased from 18% of those tracked by the defense contracts agency for large aviation contractors in fiscal years 2017 and 2018 to 38% in 2019. As of June, they stood at 50%, far exceeding “levels observed in other large DoD aircraft contractors of similar scope over the same time period,” Bassett wrote.
The issues included a lack of procedures, a failure to follow those in place and “inattention or supervisory factors” that “contributed to the majority of these mishaps,” Bassett wrote.
Of particular concern was Boeing's Seattle facility, where 66% of the company's fiscal 2020 mishaps occurred, he wrote.
Since the letter, “Boeing leadership and their employees have responded well” and “have initiated changes that should lead to better quality and mishap outcomes,” Bassett said in a statement. “We look forward to those changes demonstrating enduring improvements in quality and mishap reduction that will improve the products we receive.”
Boeing spokesman Todd Blecher said the company didn't have a comment on the Bassett letter.
Montgomery, the contracts agency spokesman, said that Boeing ranks in the top three of the 13 major aviation contractors tracked for reported mishaps over fiscal 2019 and 2020.
“Each mishap is unique and some mishaps are still under investigation,” Montgomery said. “Some mishaps represent a failure to follow a procedure or take necessary preventative action.”
During the time period reviewed, Boeing had five reportable mishaps in fiscal 2017 and four in fiscal 2018, he said. “They are currently sitting at 11 mishaps for fiscal 2020.”
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3 février 2021 | International, C4ISR
With Deepwave Digital, Northrop Grumman is pushing processing to the edge
Nathan Strout WASHINGTON — Northrop Grumman says a new investment into small startup Deepwave Digital will allow it to push data processing much closer to the point of collection, decreasing the amount of data that needs to be transported and getting products to war fighters faster. Northrop Grumman will install Deepwave Digital's artificial intelligence solution on airborne and on orbit payloads, said Chris Daughters, the company's vice president of research, technology and engineering for aeronautics systems. With the AI incorporated into the payload, the satellite or aircraft will no longer need to send data back to the ground to be processed. Instead, the payload will process the data itself. The innovation, said Daughters, is in incorporating the AI software with the hardware used in various Northrop Grumman payloads. “Deepwave Digital really has an innovative architecture that blends artificial intelligence with some advanced hardware in the RF [radio frequency] domain, whereas a lot of artificial intelligence in the past has always been focused on, I'll just say, mining and scrubbing really big data or maybe doing customized things with video or audio,” said Daughters. In other words, the AI is able to process data at the edge, at the point of collection, instead of sending it down to Earth to be processed independently. “We have a lot of RF payload systems that collect information or collect intelligence for the war fighters and the government as a whole, and by embedding this innovative hardware and AI software, we are able to essentially filter and optimize and scrub and prioritize the data much nearer to the point of collection for that information,” said Daughters. AI has been key to the military's efforts to manage the torrent of data collected by government and commercial satellites, which is simply too much for human analysts to sort through on their own. While progress has been made in using AI to process satellite imagery, military officials are now tackling a related problem: the sheer amount of raw data being pushed out over the networks for processing at remote locations. To reduce the bandwidth needed for satellite imagery, U.S. Army officials say the military needs to shift to edge processing, meaning applying AI to the data and then sending the finished product out over the network instead of all of the raw data. “Edge processing is something that we're very interested in for a number of reasons. And what I mean by that is having smart sensors that can not only detect the enemy, [but] identify, characterize and locate, and do all those tasks at the sensor processing,” said John Strycula, director of the Army's task force focused on intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, at an October AUSA event. “If I only have to send back a simple message from the sensor that says the target is here ― here's the location and here's what I saw and here's my percent confidence ― versus sending back the whole image across the network, it reduces those bandwidth requirements,” he added. Daughters said Northrop Grumman is working to incorporate Deepwave Digital's AI solution into products in development or in limited production in the “very near term.” “The capability exists now. We just need to integrate it in with the systems,” said Daughters. “Our research and technology organization is already looking at how we could be injecting this hardware and AI capability in some of the systems that exist right now or very near term.” While the company is applying the AI to both space and airborne systems, the technology can be more easily integrated with airborne systems, where payloads can be more easily accessed or swapped out. https://www.c4isrnet.com/intel-geoint/2021/02/02/with-deepwave-digital-northrop-grumman-is-pushing-processing-to-the-edge/
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19 avril 2021 | International, Naval
Le Mexique lance un appel d'offres pour des pièces de rechange pour les navires Army Pro-line et Spibo Rib
Un appel d'offres international est lancé par la Direction générale des transports militaires du Secrétariat de la défense nationale (SEDENA) pour l'acquisition de pièces de rechange pour l'entretien des navires de l'armée. La note en espagnol se trouve ici https://www.infodefensa.com/latam/2021/04/15/noticia-sedena-requiere-refacciones-embarcaciones.html?utm_source=alerta&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=enlaces_alertas et la traduction dans le PDF ci-joint.