Contract Awards by US Department of Defense - December 08, 2020

Sur le même sujet

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  2 novembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  La France, l’Allemagne et l’Espagne lancent le chantier de rénovation du Tigre

  La France, l'Allemagne et l'Espagne s'apprêtent à lancer en novembre la phase de réalisation du programme d'hélicoptère d'attaque « Tigre standard 3 » sur la base d'une coopération entre les trois pays. La France va embarquer le nouveau missile de MBDA dans ce futur Tigre au standard 3, selon La Tribune. Le MAST-F a une capacité de neutralisation de combattants, de cibles blindées et d'infrastructures, de jour comme de nuit jusqu'à 8 000 mètres. La Tribune du 30 octobre 2020

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  16 juillet 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  Pentagon Officials to Industry: Bring Us Tech That is Easy to Integrate

  By Mila Jasper Information systems that are easy to integrate and build in cybersecurity practices at the foundation top officials' wishlist. The defense industry needs to focus on developing technology that is easy to integrate and meets cybersecurity norms from the get-go, according to military officials speaking at the 2020 Army Signal Conference. At the conference, hosted by the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association, officials urged industry partners to create products that build in standard security principles at the outset of development and allow for a wide range of use cases. “Don't give me a bespoke, unique solution for one small problem, so that I can add it to the 42 other devices that I'm hooking up,” Brig. Gen. Paul Stanton, deputy director of operations for U.S. Cyber Command, said. “That's not helpful.” Stanton spoke Tuesday—the first day of the conference—on a panel regarding the importance of getting meaningful data to the front lines in real time. Figuring out how to create an information advantage faster than opponents is “warfighting 101,” Stanton argued, but it's an area that needs improvement. “How do I integrate these components? How do I design them such that they are intended to be integrated?” Stanton said. “These are some of the challenges that we need our industry partners to help us with.” Speaking on the same panel, Maj. Adam Brinkman, deputy to the chief technology officer for the Army Special Operations Command, agreed with Stanton's assessment. Brinkman emphasized the need for industry to make systems that integrate in order for their products to stay viable. “The problem that we've actually, honestly had is making sure the technology we receive can be successfully integrated,” Brinkman said. The Android Tactical Assault Kit, according to Brinkman, is a good example for industry developers to follow when it comes to creating solutions that fit the Army's integration vision. Also known as the Android Team Awareness Kit, ATAK is an off-the-shelf software tool with 40,000 users across the Defense Department. Brinkman highlighted ATAK's availability to a community of developers and its open-source code as contributors to its success. “What you have is essentially a meeting place where people can develop and create tools for you to quickly integrate into your environment,” Brinkman said. Vice Adm. Nancy Norton, head of the Defense Information Systems Agency, said in Wednesday session that innovation in the information technology frontier is not just about creating new technology but about making sure the full potential of that technology is realized. “We have all kinds of technology that we don't use, that we use 5%, 10% of the capability that's in it,” said Norton, responding to a moderator question. “We have to figure out how to actually use the capability that's embedded in the technology.” A key to making information systems that are easy to integrate is building security protocols into tools from the very start of development, Norton said. As customers, DISA and the Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization are looking for IT providers that are able to meet standards such as the Cybersecurity Capability Maturity Model Certification, or CMMC, rather than pre-existing tools that add on security measures as an afterthought. “The cost of adding on cybersecurity is tremendous,” Norton said. “And it just won't work very well if you bolt it on at the end.” https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2020/07/pentagon-officials-industry-bring-us-tech-easy-integrate/166918/

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  4 mai 2018 | International, C4ISR

  The sparring partner who roughs up Marines with Snapchat

  By: Adam Stone The arm of the U.S. Marine Corps charged with tackling emerging threats has inked a deal that it says will allow it to do more realistic testing. “You want a sparring partner who reflects your adversary's capabilities,” said Lt. Col. Dan Schmidt, head of the field testing branch at the USMC Warfighting Lab. Enter MD5, the National Security Technology Accelerator. The Marine lab will identify challenges, develop warfighting concepts and design wargames and experiments. MD5 also will provide a platform upon which to accelerate these evolving concepts. Together the partners will support an Adaptive Threat Force Cadre, specially trained individuals who can share with their cohorts new and evolving response methodologies in the face of a wide range of threats. While the Marine lab will bring a military sensibility to the table, MD5 offers a private-sector approach. It is represented in this collaboration by Quantico, Va. based training-solutions contractor Guard Unit. “MD5 is designed to bring a commercial mindset to help solve problems in DoD,” said Zenovy Wowczuk, chairman of Guard Unit. “We bring technologists and other folks who haven't been standardized with DoD doctrine. They are private sector free thinkers, so they reflect the future adversary who also hasn't been indoctrinated into that mindset.” Schmidt laid out a number of specific warfighting challenges the partners seek to address. The partnership aims to tackle pervasive challenges in the information environment, issues around electronic warfare, cyber security, and command and control. The Marines want to look at technological fixes as well as organizational changes that could make the force more responsive to these threats. “How do we dominate and operate effectively with decentralized execution in a contested information environment?” Schmidt said. “Maybe if we just change a little bit of how we train and organize, we can dramatically impact the way we execute. We have a whole year of experiments lined up to flesh that out.” They also plan to look at hybrid logistics in support of future fighters. “We may have to spread out to greater distances with smaller units. Then you have to move blood plasma to the point of injury in a contested environment with contested networks. Now you are facing a whole new set of problems,” he said. Hybrid logistics could resolve some of these issues by combining the planning skills of human experts with artificial intelligence, robotics and rich data tracking. Another area of interest involves dense urban operations, an emerging combat scenario that brings my it myriad new concerns and challenges. “We know that the Marine Corps will fight expeditionary wars in mega-cities and we are in the process of discovering the implications of that,” Schmidt said. This exploration will likely dig deep into issues of networking, spectra and cyber strategy. “You have tunnels and skyscrapers and all this electromagnetic density,” Schmidt said. “We are in the early stages of developing an urban campaign plan, which has to include a range of emerging technologies. Our ground combat element, our logistics, our electronic environment ― all will play into how we fight in this environment.” MD5's close ties to industry could prove beneficial here. “We could pull in subject matter experts who have done city planning, who understand where the weak points are, and we could mount that data against the Marine Corps force to see how they react,” Wowczuk said. “We could pull from [off-the-shelf] technology to make it very difficult for the Marine Corps to do their job.” Early collaborations between the Marine and MD5 already have proven out the powerful potential of a bringing commercial-side view to the fight. In one experiment, a mock adversary was able to cull social media to gather critical intelligence on Marine activities. “We weren't used to that paradigm, where there is this rich environment of people on Snapchat taking pictures of us. They showed us just how easy it is to gather information, and from there we can devise new ways to protect some of our intelligence interests,” Schmidt said. “We would not have seen that without MD5. This is all about having an alternative perspective.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/electronic-warfare/2018/05/03/the-sparring-partner-who-roughs-up-marines-with-snapchat/