DoD SBIR/STTR Pre-Release: DoD SBIR BAA 21.2, DoD STTR BAA 21.B, Air Force CSO X21.2, Air Force CSO X21.B

Sur le même sujet

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  28 novembre 2018 | International, Aérospatial

  Japan to order 100 more F-35 fighters from US

  Nikkei staff writers TOKYO -- Japan is preparing to order another 100 F-35 stealth fighter jets from the U.S. to replace some of its aging F-15s, according to sources. The plan can be considered a response to China's military buildup, as well as a nod to U.S. President Donald Trump's call for Tokyo to buy more American defense equipment. Japan already intended to procure 42 of the new fighters. A single F-35 costs more than 10 billion yen ($88.1 million), meaning the additional order would exceed 1 trillion yen. Japan's government plans to approve the purchase when it adopts new National Defense Program Guidelines at a cabinet meeting in mid-December. It will also include the F-35 order in its medium-term defense program, which covers fiscal 2019 to fiscal 2023. The government wants to obtain 42 F-35s as successors to its F-4s by fiscal 2024. The 42 fighters Japan originally planned to buy are all F-35As, a conventional takeoff and landing variant. The additional 100 planes would include both the F-35A and F-35B, which is capable of short takeoffs and vertical landings. At present, Japan deploys about 200 F-15s, roughly half of which cannot be upgraded. The Defense Ministry wants to replace the planes that cannot be upgraded with the 100 F-35s, while enhancing and retaining the remaining F-15s. To accommodate the F-35Bs, the government intends to revamp the Maritime Self-Defense Force's JS Izumo helicopter carrier to host the fighters. Japan's neighbors are busy introducing their own advanced military aircraft. China deployed its homegrown J-20 stealth fighter in February, and by 2030 some experts expect the country to build a fleet of more than 250 fifth-generation jets -- as the latest generation of fighters like the F-35 is known. Russia, too, is expected to introduce its fifth-generation Sukhoi Su-57 in 2019, at the earliest. To keep up, Tokyo believes it is imperative to significantly increase its procurement of the most sophisticated stealth jets. At the same time, Trump has repeatedly urged Japan to purchase more American hardware and reduce the trade imbalance between the countries. Buying more of the high-priced fighters is a quick way to do that. In September, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told Trump, "Introducing high-performance equipment, including American [materiel], is important for our country to strengthen its defense capabilities." https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-Relations/Japan-to-order-100-more-F-35-fighters-from-US

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  21 août 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  The Pentagon can now buy US-made small drones from these five companies

  Nathan Strout WASHINGTON — Beginning in September, entities across the U.S. Department of Defense will be able to buy small, American-manufactured drones from five select companies, allowing users in the field to quickly and easily gain a bird's eye view of their environment. A spin-off of U.S. Army efforts to develop a rucksack-packable quadcopter with the Short Range Reconnaissance (SRR) program of record, the Defense Innovation Unit's Blue sUAS effort let's U.S. government customers purchase trusted small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS) that can take off and land vertically. The new drones were developed to comply with Section 848 of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, which prohibits the procurement of UAS built in China. Drone configurations will be available from five manufacturers: Altavian, Parrot, Skydio, Teal, and Vantage Robotics. “I think the fact that we started a program with a single requirement around an Army effort and were able to scale it across not only all of the services in DoD to include (U.S. Special Operations Command) and the combatant commands as well as the inter-agency federal government partners ― at least to me ― is super exciting,” Chris Bonzagni, a program manager within DIU's autonomy portfolio and an sUAS subject matter expert, told C4ISRNET. “As a former infantryman, having this capability when I was deployed to Iraq would have been a dream come true.” While Blue sUAS uses the same aerial vehicles as SRR, it offers a vendor-provided ground control system and radio configurations that can be used by customers across DoD and the federal government more broadly. Blue sUAS drones will be available on the GSA schedule starting in September 2020, though DoD entities can also pursue a production contract via Other Transaction Authority, DIU noted in their announcement. “Blue sUAS represents a tremendous first step toward building a robust and trusted UAS domestic industrial base that ensures sustained delivery of highly-capable, secure UAS to the warfighters that depend on it,” said Michael Kratsios, Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. “Blue sUAS showcases how we can both work with small, nontraditional companies and our allies and partners to quickly pilot cutting-edge technologies that support our mutual defense.” The path to Blue sUAS started about two years ago, according to Bonzagni. The Army approached DIU for help adopting commercial quadcopters for use by every platoon. DIU staff walked the Army through their Commercial Solutions Opening process, distilling about 60 pages of requirements to just a page and a half, making them more accessible to commercial companies looking to work with DoD. Those specifications were posted in November 2018, drawing 34 responses from industry. DIU accepted pitches from half of those companies, and ultimately downselected to just six companies five months later in April 2019. Of those six companies, four had never even worked with DoD before. “Blue sUAS is a great example of DoD acquisition reform by lowering the barrier to entry for non-traditional companies to rapidly iterate shoulder to shoulder with warfighters to deliver highly capable sUAS tailored to mission needs,” said Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Ellen Lord in a statement. Under those contracts, DIU worked with those six companies to modify their mature commercial products for broader DoD needs. Among other things, the companies had to incorporate a thermal camera, add a DoD data link, cyber test the drones and ruggedize them for field use. Midway through development, Congress passed a new requirement in the annual defense policy legislation, prohibiting the operation or procurement of UAS manufactured in China. That effort grounded significant numbers of government drones, said Bonzagni, and there were no suitable U.S.-manufactured alternatives available. While the Army continued to focus on developing a solution specifically for its soldiers through SRR, the new requirement opened up a much broader need across the federal government for U.S.-manufactured sUAS. DIU was able to leverage the Army's investment in SRR and make the technology available for all federal government customers — including organizations that use drones every day like the Bureau of Land Management or the U.S. Geological Survey — as Blue sUAS. Drones available through Blue sUAS can be assembled in two minutes or less and will have an operational range of over 3 kilometers, flight endurance greater than 30 minutes, and can fly through dust and rain. All products are three pounds or greater. According to Bonzagni, DIU is looking for a pricing range between $7,000 and $15,000 per unit, although the end price point will vary based on configuration. “While all these offerings were derived from essentially consumer-based [products] ― in some cases toys and some cases fun cameras in the sky — these are sUAS built for work,” explained Matthew Borowski, program manager within DIU's sUAS portfolio and an sUAS subject matter expert. “There really is no consumer offering that has the type of payload package that these drones have on them, including higher resolution thermal cameras [and cameras with seamless zoom].” https://www.c4isrnet.com/unmanned/2020/08/20/department-of-defense-can-now-buy-us-manufactured-small-drones-from-these-five-companies/

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  11 juin 2021 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR

  L’industrie s’engage pour la robotisation des armées

  L'Usine Nouvelle consacre un article à la robotisation croissante des armées, soutenue par les industriels. Nexter, Safran, Thales, comptent notamment parmi les grands maîtres d'œuvre industriels fournisseurs majeurs de l'armée de Terre. Des instituts de recherche apportent également leurs connaissances comme l'ONERA, l'Institut Saint-Louis ou encore l'Institut Vedecom, dédié à la mobilité individuelle, décarbonée et durable. Ils développent principalement des logiciels permettant aux robots de se déplacer de manière autonome et d'agir en meute, voire en essaim. Le magazine rappelle que la France refuse les robots tueurs : la décision de tir ne peut être automatisée, elle appartient au soldat. L'Usine Nouvelle du 11 juin