Industry readies for key US Army Bradley replacement decision

Sur le même sujet

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  26 octobre 2018 | International, Terrestre

  Textron buys ground robot manufacturer Howe & Howe

  By: Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — Textron Systems has announced its intention to purchase Maine-based Howe & Howe Technologies, a developer of robotic land vehicles, in a move Textron says will position the company to be a “global leader” in autonomous systems. The purchase, which does not have an announced price tag, is expected to close in mid-December. It comes as industry around the world eyes the potential military unmanned ground vehicles market as an area for future growth. Howe produces a number of systems in use by the U.S. government, including the small Ripsaw Super Tank and the RS2-H1 SMET, which was down-selected to compete to be the U.S. Army's platoon load-carrying robot. The company also produces a pair of firefighting unmanned systems, the Thermite and Bulldog. While having some experience in the ground-based unmanned sector, Textron Systems has largely focused on UAVs. Hence, adding Howe's ground systems expertise to its portfolio makes economic sense, said Textron Systems head Lisa Atherton in a company statement. She called Howe the “original disruptors in the advanced robotic vehicle space.” “Textron Systems is now positioned to be a global provider of unmanned capabilities across all three domains. We are clear on the U.S. military's vision and their future technology needs for autonomy, robotics and unmanned systems,” she added. “Bringing together Textron Systems' and Howe & Howe's talent, capabilities and proven products will join two of the best, and we are excited at the idea of advancing the industry even further as one team.” Michael Howe, president of Howe & Howe Technologies, added that “the deep experience and forward thinking of Textron Systems, coupled with the innovation and sheer competitiveness of Howe & Howe, will make for a formidable combination. We expect that the whole will be immeasurably greater than the sum of our parts and will be positioned to forge the 21st century world leader in ground robotics and mobility.” The Pentagon set aside $429 million for unmanned ground systems in fiscal 2019, doubling in just two years from $212 million in FY17 and $310 million in FY18. And while explosive ordnance disposal systems still represent the biggest spending from the Army in this arena, it will likely be overtaken by programs such as the Army Common Robotic Systems and Robotic Ground System Advanced Technology Development. https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2018/10/25/textron-buys-ground-robot-manufacturer-howe-howe

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  28 août 2020 | International, Naval

  Navy Turns To AI To Save Billions In Fight Against Rust

  By KELSEY ATHERTON ALBUQUERQUE: The Navy is using Google Cloud to speed up a basic but time consuming task: finding and identifying rust. This approach has already been applied to inspect wind turbines and find potholes in roads, and promises advantages both in speed of inspection and in future predictive maintenance. “The AI technology behind this enabled the US Navy to quickly and seamlessly examine tens of thousands of images to prioritize the needs to be repaired immediately and or later on,” Mike Daniels, vice president of Global Public Sector, Google Cloud, told me in an interview. While Google was unwilling to disclose the exact value of the contract, the promise is that speedy, AI-enabled inspections will lower labor and material costs of inspection and repair enough to more than justify the expenditure on inspection AI. “The tools we're providing can not only save the Navy billions each year, but significantly improve readiness and speed deployment,” said Daniels. “And this is a physical job right now. We're improving results for the inspectors.” If AI-facilitated rust inspection can reduce the amount of time a ship needs to stay in harbor for repairs, it can narrow the window in which catastrophic disasters, like the fire which tore apart the Bonhomme Richard, can happen. This work is being done through Simple Technology Solutions (STS), who was awarded the work as a Phase 1 Small Business Innovation Research project. To train the AI, STS flew a drone on inspections to get images of rust. Next, STS combined these drone-filmed images with public domain images of ships, and uploaded both sets to a Google Cloud server. Specifically, the inspections will look for broad area rust and corrosion, as well as subtler damage that human eyes might skip over, like pitting or focused damage. Using native machine learning built into the Google Cloud, STS could then train the algorithm to process, understand and identify rust in the images. This is an iterative process, one where every uploaded inspection improves the accuracy of the next inspection. “There's no classified data that's going to be handled as part of this project,” said Daniels, noting that Google offers a high level of protection for images stored in its cloud by default. As we have seen in the past, aggregated unclassified data can sometimes be enough to reveal classified information, but the immediate utility of cloud-powered inspections should offset any distant concern of weakness revealed through corrosion maintenance. Most importantly, the inspection tool promises savings in time. A widely-cited 2014 report from the US Navy attributed the cost of fighting rust and corrosion at $3 billion. Some of that cost is hard to shake: the paint used to cover rust-scrapped areas can cost as much as $250 a gallon. Catching corrosion quickly and early shortens the amount of time humans need to work to fix a vessel, and should reduce the area that needs repair for each inspection. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/08/navy-turns-to-ai-to-save-billions-in-fight-against-rust/

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  5 septembre 2023 | International, Terrestre

  Bulgaria wants to negotiate $1.5 billion Stryker deal with US

  Sofia aims to establish a heavy mechanized brigade as a contribution to NATO's defense of the Black Sea region.