8 février 2023 | International, Naval, C4ISR
How the US Navy is creating the ânirvana of one combat systemâ
The Navy is working to decouple software from hardware and is developing decision aids to support the Integrated Combat System.
26 décembre 2019 | International, Terrestre
Congress injects millions of dollars to advance next-gen combat vehicle technology
By: Jen Judson
WASHINGTON — While essentially killing the U.S. Army's plan to competitively acquire a replacement for the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle, Congress in its fiscal 2020 defense spending package is injecting more than $100 million to fund the advancement of next-generation combat vehicle technology and is allocated another couple hundred million dollars for technology that will benefit related efforts.
The second top modernization priority is the Army's next-generation combat vehicle, and the service's first major move toward modernizing its combat vehicle fleet was to replace the Bradley. But that hasn't gone according to plan after the Army received only one bid from General Dynamics Land Systems in its optionally manned fighting vehicle, or OMFV, competition to replace the Bradley in October.
While the Army hasn't said how it plans to proceed, Congress cut $172.8 million from the service's budget request for OMFV, making it appear impossible to fund a competitive prototyping effort.
While the Army considers its next steps to replace the Bradley fleet, it's not stopping other technology development efforts to improve its current and future combat vehicle fleets. And congressional appropriators are adding $145 million into next-generation combat vehicle technology development funds on top of the Army's request for $379 million.
Under NGCV technology development, Congress is peppering funding into prototyping energy-smart autonomous ground systems, highly electrified vehicles and autonomous vehicle mobility accounts.
More funding is being applied to additive metals, manufacturing, structural thermoplastics and advanced materials development to make vehicles more survivable on the the battlefield.
Additional funding is included for protection from rocket-propelled grenades and improvised explosive devices, and money will go toward modeling and simulation efforts.
Under advanced technology development for NGCV, Congress is adding funding for additive manufacturing to include using it to develop jointless hull technology, hydrogen fuel cells and an ATE5.2 engine.
The Army will also get more money to develop carbon fiber and graphite foam technology as well as advanced high strength and lightweight steels. The service will also fund combat-vehicle weight-reduction efforts, additive manufacturing of critical components and advanced water-harvesting technology.
Congressional appropriators also added funding for Humvee technology development to include augmented reality systems, a health usage monitoring system, autonomy, torque monitoring and automotive enhancements.
More funding was added for NGCV virtual and physical prototyping, too.
While not specifically allocated toward NGCV technology development, Congress also has added $246.4 million in ground technology development funding that could apply to future vehicles.
That funding includes more work on additive manufacturing to include cold spray technology, materials research including polymers for lightweight armor, protection against the elements and threats, and alternative power development.
More plus-ups include funding for sensors for underground detection and also urban subterranean mapping technology as well as unmanned aircraft system-mounted hostile threat detection.
While the Army's plan to field a Bradley replacement may be in flux, the service is also looking further into the future at what could ultimately replace its M1 Abrams tank, for example. The technology development work being done within the service now will help paint a picture of what that future vehicle could look like as well as replacements for other combat vehicles in the fleet.
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29 août 2018 | International, C4ISR
Is this the new wave of submerged communications?
By: Kelsey Atherton The ocean hides what it contains, and it is in that hiding that submarines have their power. Lurking under seas, at first with just enough capability for an attack run and now with the ability to lurk for months at a time, submarines remain power out of reach, unseen until engaged in combat or resupplying in a friendly port. That stealth comes at a cost, however, besides the simple perils of existing underwater. When submerged, submarines are more or less on their own until they resurface again, since radio waves do not travel well through seawater. Or they are for now. New research by MIT, presented at a conference in late August, devised a way for submerged submarines to communicate wirelessly with people on the surface by combining hydroacoustics and acoustic radars. Presently, submarines communicate either across normal radio frequencies when surfaced or through hydroacoustic signals and listening posts underwater that can transmit the messages back to counterparts on shore. Very and extremely low-frequency radio waves can be transmitted in a way that submarines can listen to below the surface, but it's a one-way form of communication, from stations on land to submarines. To get something responsive, with the flexibility to communicate away from static seabed hydrophones, needs something else. Specifically, it needs a way to combine hydroacoustic transmission from the submarine through water that can then be converted into a useful data. “We present a new communication technology, translational acoustic-RF communication (TARF),” write paper authors Francesco Tonolini and Fadel Adib of the MIT Media Lab. “TARF enables underwater nodes to directly communicate with airborne nodes by transmitting standard acoustic signals. TARF exploits the fact that underwater acoustic signals travel as pressure waves, and that these waves cause displacements of the water surface when they impinge on the water-air boundary. To decode the transmitted signals, TARF leverages an airborne radar which measures and decodes these surface displacements.” In testing, they demonstrated that the communication technique can transfer data at standard underwater bitrates up to 400bps, and even do so with surface waves 6.3 inches crest-to-crest, or 100,000 times larger than the surface perturbations made by the acoustic transmitter. Right now, this communication is one-way. While the signal transmitted up from the water produces useful information at the boundary with the air, a signal transmitted through the air downwards would disintegrate on integration with water. This one-way is distinct from previous forms of communication with submarines, however, as it lets the submarine talk without revealing its position to surface sensors. Despite the limitations, and the earlierness of the research, Tonolini and Adlib see a bright future for the technology, as a way to enable a host of new technology in machines. The technology, they write, can enable “many applications including submarine-to-drone communication, deep-sea exploration, and subsea IoT (Internet of Things). https://www.c4isrnet.com/c2-comms/2018/08/28/mit-discovers-way-for-submarines-to-talk-to-drones
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13 février 2023 | International, C4ISR
US Navy teams with Qualcomm to research 5G, artificial intelligence
The new collaboration reflects the U.S. military's ambitions to invest in seamless connectivity and computer-augmented decision-making.