20 juillet 2022 | International, C4ISR
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Its companies are using merged capabilities, from airport operations to air traffic control and inflight operations and maintenance.
22 juillet 2020 | International, Terrestre
DARPA issues solicitation for moving-target recognition project
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Defense Department's advanced research arm issued a broad agency announcement July 15 for technology that would use algorithms to identify moving military ground vehicles.
The Moving Target Recognition program from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Strategic Technology Office is a “vital part” of DARPA's “Mosaic Warfare” vision, in which each weapon system is one “tile” in a large force package that overwhelms the adversary.
For the program, DARPA is interested in algorithms and collection techniques that allow synthetic aperture radar, or SAR, sensors to “detect, geolocate, and image moving ground targets,” the announcement read. If the goals of the project are met, the MTR program will then work to develop automatic target recognition algorithms for the moving target images.
“Emphasis is on military vehicle targets, including slow moving vehicles whose SAR signatures are superimposed on clutter,” the announcement noted.
Test for moving target recognition will include airborne data collection experiments to test and evaluate the effectiveness of algorithms. Under the contract, performers will be required to provide the airborne radar sensors and flight services, while the government team will design experiments with moving ground vehicles. DARPA anticipates handing out multiple awards.
The MTR program has two phases. Phase one will focus on SAR moving target detection, geolocation and imaging, according to the announcement. It has a performance period of two years and a six-month option. Phase two, which is solicited through the July 15 notice, will center on automatic target recognition. Second phase instructions will be provided to the phase one performers before the end of the phase one base period. No award amount was provided.
The U.S. Army is also working through the challenges associated with advanced target recognition capabilities, such as ensuring that algorithms receive adequate and sufficient data to mature and learn.
“If you're training an algorithm to recognize cats, you can get on the internet and pull up hundreds of thousands of pictures of cats,” Gen. Mike Murray, commander of Army Futures Command, said in June. “You can't do that for a T-72 [Russian tank]. You can get a bunch of pictures, but are they at the right angles, lighting conditions, vehicle sitting camouflaged to vehicle sitting open desert?”
DARPA's mosaic warfare effort includes several other projects under the Strategic Technology Office, including one that would automate aerial dogfighting. The office is also developing two complementary systems that would identify combat systems in an area available for support missions and quickly plan their route to an area.
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10 décembre 2019 | International, Aérospatial
Lockheed Looks To More F-35 Development Work
Michael Bruno Lockheed Martin is looking to new government interest in follow-on modernization (FOM) upgrades of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to drive future business returns on top of what could be ballooning sustainment revenue, according to the company's chief financial officer (CFO). CFO Ken Possenriede told a Credit Suisse investor conference this month that FOM and sustainment will drive business growth out of the F-35 for Lockheed and its shareholders as production returns shrink with unit price reductions and maturing production. “We ended the SDD [system design and development] program, but the customer still is looking at capability that they want,” he told financial analysts and investors. “So you'll see growth there and in sustainment.” Lockheed Martin expects to deliver 131 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters this year, compared with 91 in 2018, and should deliver 140 in 2020. Over the next few years, Lockheed expects total international demand for the F-35 to drive production to about 175 a year, most of which will be built in Fort Worth, but with some finished in Japan or Italy. But because the price per aircraft has been reduced 13% over low-rate production lots 11-14, to below $80 million per jet for the A variant, that part of the program–“the lion's share” now–is increasingly becoming minimized as a moneymaker. “The reduction in price has been faster than the ramp-up in quantity,” Possenriede said. “So it's going to be, at least in the short term, [that] you'll probably see modest growth in production revenue.” Lockheed won the original $19 billion SDD contract in 2001, but spending on the FOM, also called Block 4 improvements, could reach an additional $16 billion under Pentagon plans discussed last year. At the same time, the F-35 fleet is expected to more than double from about 400 aircraft to 1,000 in the next couple of years. “You'll have more sparing, some more repairing,” he said. “But then you'll see a larger influx of the modification work that will get done, and you'll see sustainment over the next couple of years double. So that will be a faster piece of the revenue.” The company is about one-third complete in standing up repair base facilities now. Lockheed also continues to promote a performance-based logistics contract for the F-35, the CFO noted. “We provided a white paper, call it an unsolicited proposal, that basically commits to the 80% availability and it commits to the $25,000 per flight hour, which we think is the right number to get to,” he said Dec. 5. The F-35 currently costs $35,000 a flight hour. https://aviationweek.com/defense/lockheed-looks-more-f-35-development-work
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9 septembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité
Florence Parly confirme la création d’un fonds dédié à l’innovation dans le secteur de la défense
Pour soutenir l'innovation, les crédits du ministère de la Défense doivent, selon la loi de programmation militaire, augmenter de 25 % pour atteindre le milliard en 2022. « Nous devons poursuivre notre investissement dans les technologies de rupture : les planeurs hypersoniques capables de parcourir 100 kilomètres en une seule minute, les armes à énergie dirigée, ces armes qui sont capables de perturber, neutraliser voire détruire un équipement ciblé à distance sans projectile, ou encore les technologies quantiques », a déclaré Florence Parly. Les projets souffrent cependant toujours du manque de fonds pour lancer leur industrialisation. La ministre a donc confirmé le lancement avant la fin de l'année, d'un nouveau fonds d'investissement dont la gestion sera confiée à BPI France. Dénommé Definnov, il sera dédié au développement de technologies civilo-militaires et sera doté de 200 millions d'euros pour financer en fonds propres des entreprises innovantes. Les Echos du 9 septembre 2020