Contracts for June 10, 2021

Sur le même sujet

• 

  16 avril 2020 | International, C4ISR

  NATO’s new tool shows the impact of GPS jammers

  Nathan Strout A new tool developed by NATO will help the alliance prepare for GPS jammers, allowing operational commands to see what impact the devices will have on their GPS receivers, the NATO Communications and Information Agency announced April 6. “NATO's adversaries have the ability to degrade or deny GPS-enabled capabilities," Jean-Philippe Saulay, a NATO navigation and identification officer, said in a statement. “NATO must take appropriate measures to ensure Allied forces can operate in a degraded or denied environment." The Radar Electromagnetic and Communication Coverage Tool, or REACT, is able to estimate how large an area will be affected by specific GPS jammers. By inputting technical information and location data about known jammers, users can see on a map what areas will be affected by the devices and prepare accordingly. The software also works for other global navigation satellite systems used by NATO, such as the European Union's Galileo constellation. According to the agency, REACT is only being used for testing and experimentation at the moment. It was shown to operators during the Trident Jupiter 2019 exercise for feedback. Developers are now working to ensure the software is interoperable with NATO's classified networks and available to operational commands. Sponsored by the NATO Navigation and Identification Programme of Work, REACT is available to NATO members free of charge. Tools like REACT highlight the alliance's dependence on global navigation satellite systems for accurate position, navigation and timing data, as well as the investments that China, Russia and Iran, among others, are making to develop and field jamming devices. And it's more than just a hypothetical issue for NATO: In 2018, Norway officials publicly claimed that Russia had jammed GPS signals during NATO's Trident Jupiter exercise. “NATO must maintain superiority in the electromagnetic environment, including but not limited to, positioning, navigation and timing services," said Enrico Casini, a communications and navigation engineer at the NCI Agency. “The electromagnetic environment has become even more contested in recent years." Meanwhile, the U.S. military has been pursuing efforts to overcome the threat posed by GPS jammers. For instance, the U.S. Space Force is working to enable a more secure military signal with GPS III, and just last year the U.S. Army fielded anti-jamming antennas to the 2nd Cavalry Regiment in Germany. https://www.c4isrnet.com/newsletters/military-space-report/2020/04/15/natos-new-tool-shows-the-impact-of-gps-jammers

• 

  18 août 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  The US Army is building zombies. (No, not the brain-eating kind.)

  By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army is recycling demilitarized rocket motors and repurposing the materials to make test missiles and it's saving the service money, according to Thomas Webber, director of the Army's Space and Missile Defense Command Technical Center. These test missiles are called “zombies” and save the Army from having to destroy old boosters, giving them a new life, Webber said during the Defense News Space and Missile Defense Symposium Debrief event Aug. 5. The effort started several years ago when the Army's Program Executive Office for Missiles and Space and the Patriot air and missile defense lower-tier product office began running out of targets for tests and spending “a lot” of money to buy more targets, Webber said. The tech center proposed a “significantly cheaper” solution of using recycled motors reaching the end of operational life that would be appropriate for both developmental and operational missile tests, which are accurately representative of ballistic missile threats, he said. Following a demonstration at the end of 2016, the zombies have taken off. “We've been very successful,” Webber said. Since then, the program has expanded, providing targets not only for Patriot testing, but also the Missile Defense Agency and foreign military sales test events. The Army has built seven targets to date. There are three variants: Pathfinder Zombie; the Black Dagger Zombie that adds an additional booster — the Terrier MK70 — for longer ranges; and Sabre, a shorter-range version. A zombie was the target used in a recent critical test showing the Patriot system could be interoperable with the Army's Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, Webber said. Another target was successfully deployed in a June 25 test at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, for a foreign military sales customer. The targets will be used in some of the upcoming tests that will help officials make decisions on the Lower-Tier Air-Defense Sensor, the future radar for the Army's Integrated Air-and-Missile Defense System to replace Patriot, Webber noted. Specifically, a Black Dagger will be used during the IAMD Battle Command System limited-user test coming up next month. “It has been a tremendous boon for us to be able to provide a more affordable, effective target,” Webber said. He added that the Army is saving roughly 50 percent of what it would cost to replace targets simply by buying more. “We can turn these around pretty quickly and support those operational test events,” he said. And it has provided “the capability needed to be able to make sure that we're validating and testing those operational weapon systems with regular and recurring test events,” Webber said. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2020/08/16/the-us-army-is-building-zombies-no-not-the-brain-eating-kind/

• 

  12 mars 2019 | International, Aérospatial, Sécurité

  Autonomous Firefighting Drone

  Working with mentors from Sikorsky, three University of Connecticut engineering seniors are translating their classroom education to the field. Electrical engineering majors Kerry Jones and Joshua Steil, and computer engineering major Ryan Heilemann, are collaborating to build and program an autonomous firefighting drone to battle blazes without a pilot's guidance. “In the world today there's a high prevalence of forest fires, like in California, but the problem is of how to safely put out these fires,” says Steil. “So our project, in essence, is to see if we can start putting out fires without a human driver.” Once finished, the drone will carry a thermal imaging camera to identify a fire, object avoidance technology to steer clear of any obstacles, and a softball-sized fire-extinguishing ball that will be dropped over the flames. The system's technology will be tied together through coding language developed by the students, and will operate based on inputted coordinates. While their drone will only be able to put out a campfire-size blaze, the project is meant to prove that this technology is possible, so that much bigger technology can be engineered in the future, says Heilemann. “The idea is that in the future, on a larger scale, there can be a fleet of unmanned helicopters that can go out and put out forest fires, thereby lowering loss of life,” says Steil. While drones are currently used by fire departments across the country, all of them so far have a pilot who navigates the drone from a distance, and most are used for observation, not fire suppression. “The autonomy definitely makes it different,” says Jones, “and the fire-extinguishing ball, for sure.” Teams in previous years have worked on similar projects with Sikorsky, which provided some guidance on what has worked and what has not. The team looked back on previous projects' reports, including last year's team, which was the first to integrate firefighting capabilities into the drone. While the previous team to work on this project used small thermal sensors called thermopile array sensors, Heilemann says these sensors required the previous drone to be only about six feet from the flames, which was too close for real-world applications. His team decided to use an infrared camera, which allows for more distance from the flames. This year's team had the added benefit of working on their project in UConn's brand new 118,000 square-foot Engineering and Science Building, which features three engineering floors filled with faculty and labs focused on robotics, machine autonomy, and virtual and augmented reality. At Sikorsky, the team is working with a recent UConn School of Engineering alum, Jason Thibodeau, deputy manager of Sikorsky's Flight Controls and Autonomous Systems Department. “He's really helpful. We have phone meetings every Monday, and we tell him what's going on, what we're struggling with, and he reasons with us,” says Jones. Adds Heilemann, “He really wants us to figure our way through issues we have, instead of just giving us a direct solution.” Working with Sikorsky also introduced the UConn seniors to new career options. Jones has accepted an offer with Sikorsky after she graduates, in their autonomy lab as part of their Rotary and Mission Systems department. Steil has accepted a job offer with Sikorsky's parent company, Lockheed Martin, in Massachusetts after graduation. “Working with Sikorsky definitely sparked a greater interest looking into the company as a whole,” he says. Heilemann also decided to go into the aerospace industry, and has found a job doing control and diagnostics at another aerospace company. Most importantly, the collaboration was a chance to get some experience with a top company. “In this project, I get to learn so much about Sikorsky and what they do,” says Steil, “and having a company like that so close to home and have them be our sponsor is definitely an added benefit.” https://dronescrunch.com/autonomous-firefighting-drone/