15 septembre 2020 | International, Terrestre, C4ISR
The Global Positioning System of satellites remains the prime source of positioning, navigation and timing for the military, but it's increasingly vulnerable as adversaries develop capabilities that can undermine the signal. Delivering capabilities that allow the war fighter to verify such data or replace it in a degraded or denied environment is a major problem that the Army now wants to solve.
Col. Nickolas Kioutas — program manager for position, navigation and timing, Army Program Executive Office Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors — is leading the Army's efforts to develop anti-jamming and anti-spoofing technology and get it into the hands of war fighters as soon as possible.
Kioutas and Director of the Assured PNT Cross-Functional Team Willie Nelson held a media roundtable Oct. 4 announcing the fielding of one such solution: the Mounted Assured Position Navigation and Timing System (MAPS). Kioutas sat with C4ISRNET Oct. 15 at the Association of the U.S. Army's annual conference to discuss MAPS, the Military Encrypted GPS Signal and what he would like to see from industry as he looks for assured PNT solutions.
C4ISRNET: Your office recently announced that you fielded MAPS with 62 Stryker vehicles in the Army's 2nd Cavalry Regiment in Germany. What's next in the development of the MAPS program?
COL. NICKOLAS KIOUTAS: We've got two generations right now that we're working with. Generation 1 is really an anti-jamming capability that we fielded to 2CR second cavalry unit in Germany just this last month, and we're looking to upgrade now to our Gen. 2 capability, which would add the spoof protection. Right now we're doing prototyping with the Gen. 2 and we're actually going to compete the Gen. 1. Hopefully, it can integrate some spoof protection, but we'll be competing the Gen. 1 against the Gen. 2 to ask, “Hey, is that really the right capability to go forward with,” and field a lot more. Obviously, we just fielded 62. We still have in the pipeline some fielding of Gen. 1 before we make that final decision. And then we'll field either Gen. 2, or we'll decide to go to a Gen. 3 and continue fielding more of the Gen. 1 with upgraded spoof capabilities.
C4ISRNET: And what did you learn with the fielding of the Gen. 1 capability?
KIOUTAS: It's great to get a chance to do a little bit of something before you have to do a lot of something. You kind of learn some lessons and figure out what did the soldiers really like? What did they have problems with? Where can we make those little tweaks that allow us to do really well when we go to do the much broader army.
C4ISRNET: Are there lessons from MAPS that can be applied to DAPS? Where is that program now?
KIOUTAS: We are learning from what we're doing. It's really a change in the construct of how we do acquisitions. Instead of having the one huge program that's been perfectly thought out, perfectly tested and built, and then we get it to the field and it's 10 years too late and it's really not what we want, we're doing more iterative learning steps. So, everything that we learn even on the MAPS side — [which] is very similar technology — will apply to the DAPS side. With DAPS we're also developing some prototypes. We've got three vendors right now that we're working with to give us early prototypes, get them to the soldiers, let them touch and play with them, tell us what they like and what they didn't like, and then we'll do an initial capability set. And then we'll decide, hey, was there something that we can do different, better and then upgrade? So, [we're] constantly going to try to do that approach.
C4ISRNET: The Air Force is working to develop M-Code, a military-grade GPS code with anti-jamming capabilities. How does the eventual delivery of that impact the development of anti-spoofing capabilities in the here and now?
KIOUTAS: M-Code is important. It's a much better capability than the existing Selective Availability Anti-Spoof Model, or SAASM. However, it's not the complete answer, and what I always say is PNT does not equal GPS, because it's not just about GPS capability. It's about layering technologies with each other in order to be able to operate in a denied or degraded environment.
C4ISRNET: M-Code delivery may be a ways out, but a limited version called M-Code Early Use is supposed to be available in the near future. How does that interim solution factor into assured-PNT solutions being developed now?
KIOUTAS: There's probably two answers to that. One is we are already working with the M-Code to put it into the MAPS Gen. 2, as well as the DAPS system. So, we're going to have M-Code from the get-go. The other thing is, the Army has really got to decide how many M-Code modules are we going to buy between now and say 2028, when we're really going to get the increment 2 M-Code capabilities. So, we've really got to project out how many systems are we going to buy, what are they going to look like, [and] there's three different vendors so which vendor do we need to buy [from]?
C4ISRNET: Let's talk about the Army's need for a modular open systems architecture as you develop APNT capabilities. How does that inform your acquisitions strategy? What do you want industry to know?
KIOUTAS: For a modular open systems architecture, what we're really going to is [a] change from the previous way we did acquisition. Again, we're not going to do the one megalithic program that is perfectly designed and takes 10 years to build and then it gets to the field too late, we need a modular open systems architecture that allows us to be agile, that allows us to constantly take what industry is developing and integrate it to the solution to pace the threat. We're working with the CMOSS architecture to be able to put a bunch of different cards for our MAPS, maybe Gen. 3 capability. We're also working on a similar approach to the DAPS program. So, again, [we're] always looking for, not what is the best integrated solution, but what are the best individual solutions that we can take from across industry back to breed and integrate together.
C4ISRNET: We're speaking at AUSA and around us many companies are showing off their assured PNT solutions. What are some of the APNT solutions you're excited to see from commercial industry?
KIOUTAS: That's a good question. I don't really know the answer until we do some more testing. Of course, software-defined things are always great. The problem is there's sometimes problems with security and cybersecurity of those systems. And, so, there's probably a balance between do you really want a lockdown solution, where do you want that lockdown solution and where can you accept some risk and have a little more flexibility in software.
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By: Valerie Insinna ORLANDO, Fla. — The U.S. Air Force will know by the end of this month whether it will kick-start a competition for aerial-refueling services, the head of Air Mobility Command told Defense News. The service is in the final stages of a feasibility study that is evaluating whether the Air Force should buy commercial tanking services to support day-to-day needs for training and testing, said Gen. Maryanne Miller in an exclusive Feb. 28 interview. “The interest is high on the commercial side. The commercial companies who are considering this are really waiting to see the feasibility study, which will be completed in March,” she said. “The interest is high on the outside. I talked to a few vendors yesterday that was asking me when the study is going to be done. We're all waiting for that.” The study will help the Air Force determine whether it is cost-effective to use commercial aerial-refueling services as well as help set parameters on how a contract could be structured. However, Miller said, industry-operated tankers would not conduct combat or other overseas operations, and instead would be used exclusively for tasks in the continental United States such as augmenting training or for test and evaluation missions that AMC does not always have the capacity to fill. AMC believes its requirement will amount to about 6,000 hours per year, although the study could influence that number. Currently 14 companies have indicated interest in competing for the opportunity, she said. If the service decides to move forward with a competition, it believes it will be able to move from a contract award to an initial operating capability using a few aircraft in about a year, Miller said. “I love the idea. I hope the feasibility proves positive for us. That way we can get our requirements out there, we can start receiving proposals and then work that process as defined. We're optimistic,” she said. “That would be exciting to relieve some of the tension and stress on our force.” Getting Congress to agree to fund aerial-refueling services could be a hard sell, especially as the service considers paring back some of its own capacity. To free up funds for other priorities, the Air Force proposed retiring 16 KC-10s and 13 KC-135s in fiscal 2021. However, the idea has come under fire from U.S. Transportation Command — which has sought funds to buy back 23 of those tankers — as well as lawmakers who question whether the Air Force would be taking on too much near-term risk. But Miller contended that having the flexibility of commercial aerial-refueling services could relieve pressures on the military's own tankers, filling the gap for U.S. missions when there is high demand abroad. “It really just relieves and fills that market of the service missions we just don't get to today. Some of that is readiness-related,” she said. It also could have a positive impact for acquisition programs, as there will be more aerial-refueling resources available for test and evaluation, allowing test points to be completed more quickly and efficiently, and let the Air Force ensure it doesn't wear out its legacy KC-135s too quickly. “Having one more option is just really, really important.” https://www.defensenews.com/air/2020/03/05/the-us-air-force-is-getting-ready-to-make-a-decision-about-commercial-aerial-refueling-services/
21 mai 2020 | International, C4ISR
Nathan Strout After landing a contract with the U.S. Air Force in April, California-based company Labelbox announced May 20 it is making its artificial intelligence training data platform available more widely to the federal government and intelligence community. Labelbox offers a software platform by the same name that allows development teams to manage the data used to train machine learning algorithms. For instance, in order for a machine learning tool to successfully begin identifying missile launchers in satellite imagery, it needs to be fed hundreds — or even millions — of pre-labeled pictures identifying the objects it needs to identify. The more accurate training data is fed to the algorithm, the better it works. Some government machine learning projects need to process petabytes of data per day, the company says, a flow of data that can be overwhelming. “Labelbox is an integrated solution for data science teams to not only create the training data but also to manage it in one place,” said CEO Manu Sharma in a statement. “It's the foundational infrastructure for customers to build their machine learning pipeline.” The platform can be used in the cloud or on-premises, allowing data science teams to work together across agencies or locations, the company claims. In April, the company announced it had won an Air Force Innovation Hub Network (AFWERX) Phase 1 Small Business Innovation Research contract to conduct feasibility studies on how their platform could integrate with ongoing Air Force efforts. Now, the company is partnering with Carahsoft Technology Corp. to make their platform more widely available to the federal government and the intelligence community. Carahsoft will be able to provide the platform to interested agencies through its NASA Solutions for enterprise-wide procurement contracts and reseller partners, the company announced May 20. https://www.c4isrnet.com/artificial-intelligence/2020/05/20/this-platform-will-help-train-ai-algorithms-for-the-military/