1 août 2024 | International, C4ISR, Sécurité
14 octobre 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, C4ISR, Sécurité
Canadian block on drone parts shows Turkey’s defense industry still not independent
ANKARA, Turkey — The Canadian government's decision to suspend export of key drone parts to Turkey has once again thrown a spotlight on Turkey's ongoing efforts to develop a self-sufficient defense industry.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan often boasts at party rallies that his governance since 2002 has reduced Turkey's dependency on foreign weapons systems from 80 percent to 30 percent. There is truth in that, although the actual percentages remain a mystery, mainly due to the difficulty of defining what is truly a local or national system.
Most Turkish “national” systems depend on various degrees of foreign input, often including critical parts only available abroad. The T129, an “indigenous” attack helicopter, is a Turkish variant of the Italian-British AgustaWestland A129 Mangusta chopper. Turkey's local industry has no engine technology.
The “national” new generation tank Altay is facing major delays, due to the lack of a foreign engine and transmission system. Turkey's first “indigenous” landing platform dock, the TCG Anadolu, will enter into service next year, but the $1 billion or more ship is being built under license from Spain's Navantia.
Even Turkey's biggest success in the past few years, a locally-built drone known as the Bayraktar TB-2, features critical foreign parts — an issue now in the spotlight following Canadian Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne's Oct. 5 announcement to suspend export permits of drone technology to Turkey, which is backing Azerbaijan in the recent Azeri-Armenian military conflict.
Champagne issued the pause in exports alongside an order for his ministry to investigate claims that Canadian drone technology is being used in the fighting. The decision followed an announcement by disarmament group Project Ploughshares, which warned the multimillion-dollar exports of high-tech sensors and targeting technology produced by L3Harris WESCAM in Burlington, Ont., are in direct contravention of Canada's domestic laws and its international obligations under the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty, to which the Trudeau government acceded almost exactly a year ago.
L3Harris WESCAM, the Canadian subsidiary of U.S. defense giant L3Harris, is one of the world's leading producers and exporters of electro-optical/infra-red (EO/IR) imaging and targeting sensor systems — both of which are featured on the Bayraktar drones.
“These sensors are integral for their ability to conduct drone warfare, which they've done increasingly... in the past few years across several conflict zones,” Kelsey Gallagher, a Project Ploughshares researcher, told Radio Canada International. “If the exports of these sensors were completely halted, then Turkey would not have the sensors necessary to conduct modern airstrikes.”
“This [the suspension of Canadian supplies] may cause disruption in the production line,” said one local aerospace analyst, “unless substituted immediately.”
“There may be some other foreign suppliers to be used as a stop-gap solution," the analyst added. "But this is mostly a Western (including Israeli) technology and may not reach Turkish manufacturers due to political reasons.”
Turkey's top procurement official, however, has a solution. Ismail Demir, president of the defense procurement agency SSB, twitted Oct. 6, the day after the Canadian decision, that Turkey would soon start to mass produce the CATS electro-optical system, to replace the WESCAM technology used in the TB-2 drone.
CATS will be produced by military electronics specialist Aselsan, Turkey's biggest defense company. Demir said that Aselsan has also begun to work on developing a future version of the CATS system.
Demir also talked up another new indigenous ambition: Project Özgür, or “free” in Turkish. Özgür is part of a broader upgrade effort designed to extend the life of the Turkish F-16 fleet.
“This program aims to completely nationalize electronic systems on our F-16s,” Demir told the HaberTurk newspaper Oct. 6. The full upgrade work will also involve structural and avionic modernization.
Turkey views the F-16 upgrades as a stop-gap solution before it builds its own indigenous fighter, the TF-X. But the TF-X effort has moved at a crawl, with no notable progress in the past few years, due mainly to the lack of an engine to power the planned fighter.
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3 juillet 2018 | International, C4ISR
DoD stands up its artificial intelligence hub
By: Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON – The Defense Department has formally ordered the creation of a new hub for artificial intelligence research with Dana Deasy, the Pentagon's new chief information officer, taking the lead. Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan ordered the move in a June 27 memo. The Pentagon's goal is to launch a series of AI projects known as National Mission Initiatives within 90 days – as well as taking over the controversial Project Maven. The office will be known as the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC), with the goal of enabling “teams across DoD to swiftly deliver new AI-enabled capabilities and effectively experiment with new operating concepts in support of DoD's military missions and business functions,” according to DoD spokeswoman Lt. Col. Michelle Baldanza. Put another way, the group will have the “overarching goal of accelerating the delivery of AI-enabled capabilities, scaling the Department-wide impact of AI, and synchronizing DoD AI activities to expand Joint Force advantages,” according to a copy of the memo posted by Breaking Defense. “This effort is a Department priority. Speed and security are of the essence,” Shanahan wrote. “I expect all offices and personnel to provide all reasonable support necessary to make rapid enterprise-wide AI adoption a reality.” Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick M. Shanahan directed the DoD Chief Information Officer to standup the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) in order to enable teams across DoD to swiftly deliver new AI-enabled capabilities and effectively experiment with new operating concepts in support of DoD's military missions and business functions. The JAIC marks the second major initiative Pentagon leaders handed over to Deasy, a former CIO with JPMorgan Chase who has only been at the Pentagon for a few weeks. Deasy also is in charge of managing the department's JEDI cloud computing contract. The idea of standing up an AI center was first confirmed by Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis on April 12, but it has been championed by the Defense Innovation Board, a group of outside experts ho advice the secretary on potential updates to how the Pentagon handles evolving technologies. According to Michael Griffin, the head of Pentagon research and engineering, the department counts 592 projects as having some form of AI in them. However, Griffin said in April 18 testimony that he did not believe every one of those projects makes sense to roll into some sort of AI hub. That concern appears to be reflected in Shanahan's memo, which orders that any AI project with a budget of $15 million or more should be coordinated with the services in order to ensure “DoD is creating Department-wide advantages.” In terms of budget, Shanahan ordered the Pentagon's comptroller to find options for funding during the current fiscal year, but the major focus is on driving resources for fiscal year 2019 and beyond. Given the support for artificial intelligence research on the Hill, it is likely the final version of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY19 will include some funding for the new office. The movement of Project Maven to the JAIC is notable. A DoD initiative to accelerate the integration of big data and machine learning, largely drawing on video feeds from unmanned systems, Maven in the last month has become a poster child for the clash of cultures between the defense department and Silicon Valley. Google was working hand-in-hand with the Pentagon on the project, until a backlash from the company's employees, who argued in an open letter signed by more than 3,000 workers that it did not want to “build warfare technology.” Moving the program to the JAIC may be an attempt to keep the project underway without Google's participation. https://www.c4isrnet.com/it-networks/2018/06/29/dod-stands-up-its-artificial-intelligence-hub/
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22 mai 2020 | International, Sécurité
UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency to get latest radar technology from Leonardo
Rome, May 21, 2020 - The UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) will upgrade to Leonardo's latest Osprey radar to support missions such as search and rescue, border protection, fishery and pollution patrols. The Osprey 30 radar will be installed on-board the two customised Beechcraft King Air aircraft provided to the UK MCA by UK-based aviation services company 2Excel. Currently, the UK MCA is operating Leonardo's Seaspray 7300E radar, which has been employed to great effect in support of regular fishery and pollution patrols around the UK. The radar comes equipped with Leonardo's patented small target detection capability, allowing it to spot shipwrecked individuals in the water at long range, even in the most difficult environmental conditions and sea states. Additionally, the radar provides the ability for MCA crews to identify oil spills and rogue polluters at very long range, day or night. 2Excel will build on this success by equipping the MCA King Airs with Leonardo's second generation Osprey radar, the latest entry in its range of E-scan surveillance radars. Osprey benefits from all of the capabilities of the Company's Seaspray family whilst also adding additional modes and optimized overland and coastal imaging capabilities. This makes the radar ideally suited to mixed environment operations, such as along the coast. Traditionally, coastguard aircraft have used radars with restricted fields of view and limited detection capabilities, making searches laborious and resource-intensive. Leonardo's radars solve these problems. The Company is a world leader in E-scan, also known as AESA (Active Electronically-Scanned Array) technology, which uses a matrix of hundreds of tiny radar modules to ‘steer' an electronic beam, rather than mechanically moving the radar to point at a target. With a Leonardo E-Scan radar, crews can lift off, scan in 360 degrees and almost-instantaneously detect, track and classify hundreds of maritime contacts, allowing crews to quickly task cooperating aircraft to deeply search an area of interest. Other E-scan advantages include extremely high reliability, as the radar can continue to operate effectively throughout a mission even if a number of its individual radar modules fail. Customers in 30 countries have selected Leonardo's E-scan radars including the Seaspray and Osprey families, with the US Navy procuring the Osprey 30 radar for its Fire Scout unmanned helicopter programme. View source version on Leonardo: https://www.leonardocompany.com/en/press-release-detail/-/detail/21-05-2020-uk-maritime-and-coastguard-agency-to-get-latest-radar-technology-from-leonardo