KC-46 refueling system flaws will take years to fix and cost hundreds of millions, GAO says

Sur le même sujet

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  20 septembre 2018 | International, Aérospatial, C4ISR

  The new critical capabilities for unmanned systems

  By: Ryan Hazlett With unmanned systems becoming ever more ubiquitous on the battlefield, the question of where unmanned systems and accompanying technologies, such as autonomy, are headed is in the limelight. First, to better understand the future direction of the unmanned field, it is instructive to note some important trends. The number of uses for unmanned systems on the battlefield has increased significantly in the post-9/11 conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, with the U.S. Army's Shadow® Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) program having logged nearly 1 million flight hours in those areas of operation. The proliferation and commoditization of UAS capabilities is a global phenomenon, as demonstrated by both the widespread possession of UAS hardware as well as the ability to indigenously produce at least rudimentary unmanned systems. Growth of the nascent commercial unmanned systems market has added to this trend, as has the government's emphasis on a greater use of commercial off-the-shelf solutions. But while commoditization has occurred at the platform level — particularly among smaller airborne vehicles — overcoming the challenges of adversaries employing anti-access area-denial (A2AD) military strategies requires far more capable solutions than simply having hordes of cheap drones. In this environment, how will U.S. and allied forces retain their advantage? Critical capabilities and technologies are necessary. These include the ability to dynamically swarm, conduct automatic target recognition, possess on-board autonomy and artificial intelligence, as well as have interoperable communications capabilities. First, future platforms — manned or unmanned — will increasingly need better collaboration between the sensors and payloads they carry and with allied forces. This growing level of collaboration and autonomy is already happening. Driven by advances in onboard computing power, as well as smaller and less power-intensive sensors and advanced algorithms, tomorrow's unmanned systems will be able to better communicate among themselves and make their own decisions on basic functions, such as navigation, to enable dynamic swarming or to identify areas of interest during intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. Next, systems that can seamlessly operate and communicate with other military platforms across domains will be the most successful. Gone are the days when largely mission-specific platforms dominated the force composition. With platforms needing to be highly capable to meet A2AD threats, a mission-specific approach will simply be unaffordable. Instead, increasingly we see platforms that can act as highly capable but also flexible “trucks” that can easily swap payloads designed for specific missions, while the overall platform serves many needs. Multi-domain abilities for conducting command and control (C2) and other tasks will also be vital as technologies move from remote-control type operations to more of a “man monitoring the loop” concept. Technological progress in providing secure communications and a level of onboard artificial intelligence are necessary enablers, as will be data fusion technologies. Initial versions of these multi-domain C2 solutions for unmanned systems are already here. For example, the U.S. Army has years of experience operating the Universal Ground Control Station and One System Remote Video Terminal that allow soldiers in tactical units to access overhead sensor video from unmanned aircraft. Next-generation, multi-domain control and collaboration technologies to take the concept to a new level are mature, allowing a single user to simultaneously operate multiple vehicles and sensors, including the ability to control numerous types of aircraft and other multi-domain unmanned systems from different manufacturers. In addition, these systems are ready to incorporate the best available software applications as “plug-ins” to an open architecture. Industry is also investing in additional technology to ensure that tomorrow's unmanned systems continue to meet U.S. and allied needs. Among them are advanced power generation, systems with improved maneuverability, and vehicles designed to deploy with lighter support and operational footprints. Done smartly, the application of technologies such as autonomy can be better integrated into unmanned systems to enable improved navigation, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, as well as other tasks, while leaving a man in the loop for the use of weapons. Moreover, defense users can rightly leverage the commercial sector's work on areas such as self-driving cars and unmanned taxis that are at the forefront of artificial intelligence for navigation. But while the military can leverage such commercial developments, there are, and will remain, cyber hardening, survivability and other specific requirements that are unique to the defense marketplace and require experienced industrial partners with deep knowledge of national security needs. The ongoing move away from only long-term programs of record to the embrace of the “buy, try, and decide” model, as well as greater uses of funded prototyping, is helping to fast-track many of these promising new technologies. Companies can now match their internal research and development funding to move that innovation along and ensure the United States and its allies remain at the forefront of unmanned technologies. Ryan Hazlett is senior vice president at Textron Systems. https://www.c4isrnet.com/thought-leadership/2018/09/19/the-new-critical-capabilities-for-unmanned-systems

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  30 janvier 2024 | International, Aérospatial, C4ISR

  The Czech Republic Joins the F-35 Lightning II Global Team

  Through the U.S. government Foreign Military Sale, the Czech Air Force will receive its first aircraft in 2031, which will be in the latest advanced Block 4 configuration.

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  10 novembre 2020 | International, C4ISR

  Mixed-reality systems can bring soldier feedback into development earlier than ever before. Here’s how the US Army is using it.

  Nathan Strout ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. — The U.S. Army's Combat Capabilities Development Command has made clear it wants to introduce soldier feedback earlier in the design process, ensuring that new technologies are meeting users' needs. “Within the CCDC, the need to get soldier feedback, to make sure that we're building the appropriate technologies and actually getting after the users' needs is critical,” said Richard Nabors, acting principal deputy for systems and modeling at the command's C5ISR Center (Command, Control, Computers, Communications, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance). “There's a concerted effort within the C5ISR Center to do more prototyping not just at the final system level ... but to do it at the component level before the system of systems is put together,” he added. But how can the service accomplish that with systems still in development? One answer: virtual reality. The Army's CCDC is testing this approach with its new artificial intelligence-powered tank concept: the Advanced Targeting and Lethality Aided System, or ATLAS. While tank operations are almost entirely manual affairs, ATLAS aims to automate the threat detection and targeting components of a gunner's job, greatly increasing the speed of end-to-end engagements. Using machine-learning algorithms and a mounted infrared sensor, ATLAS automatically detects threats and sends targeting solutions to a touch-screen display operated by the gunner. By touching an image of the target, ATLAS automatically slews the tank's gun to the threat and recommends the appropriate ammunition and response type. If everything appears correct, the gunner can simply pull the trigger to fire at the threat. The process takes just seconds, and the gunner can immediately move on to the next threat by touching the next target on the display. ATLAS could revolutionize the way tank crews operate — at least in theory. But to understand how the system works with real people involved and whether this is a tool gunners want, CCDC needed to test it with soldiers. The Army has set up an ATLAS prototype at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, and it hopes to conduct a live-fire exercise soon with targets in a field. However, to collect useful feedback, CCDC is giving soldiers a more robust experience with the system that involves multiple engagements and varying levels of data quality. To do this, the command has built a mixed-reality environment. “It gives us the opportunity ... to get the soldiers in front of this system prior to it being here as a soldier touchpoint or using the live system so we get that initial feedback to provide back to the program, to get that soldier-centric design, to get their opinions on the system, be that from how the GUI is designed to some of the ways that the system would operate,” explained Christopher May, deputy director of the C5ISR Center's Modeling and Simulation Division. The virtual world In the new virtual prototyping environment — itself a prototype — users are placed in a 3D world that mimics the gunner station while using a physical controller and display that is a carbon copy of the current ATLAS design. The CCDC team can then feed simulated battlefield data into the system for soldiers to respond to as if they were actually using ATLAS. Like most virtual reality systems, the outside looks less impressive than the rendered universe that exists on the inside. Sitting down at the gunner's seat, the user's vision is enveloped by a trifold of tall blue walls, cutting the individual off from the real world. Directly in front of the chair is a recreation of ATLAS' touch-screen display and a 3D-printed copy of the controller. Putting on the virtual reality headset, the user is immersed in a 3D rendering of the ATLAS prototype's gunner station, but with some real-world elements. “We're leveraging multiple technologies to put this together. So as the operator looks around ... he has the ability to see the hand grips. He also has the ability to see his own hands,” May said. All in all, the mixed-reality environment creates the distinct impression that the user is in the gunner's chair during a real-life engagement. And that's the whole point. It's important to note the virtual reality system is not meant to test the quality of the AI system. While the system populates the virtual battlefield with targets the same way ATLAS would, it doesn't use the targeting algorithm. “We're not using the actual algorithm,” May said. “We're controlling how the algorithm performs.” Switching up the scenarios Another advantage to the mixed-reality environment: The Army can experiment with ATLAS in different vehicles. CCDC leaders were clear that ATLAS is meant to be a vehicle-agnostic platform. If the Army decides it wants ATLAS installed on a combat vehicle rather than a tank — like the current prototype — the CCDC team could recreate that vehicle within the simulated environment, giving users the opportunity to see how ATLAS would look on that platform. “We can switch that out. That's a 3D representation,” May said. “This could obviously be an existing tactical vehicle or a future tactical vehicle as part of the virtual prototype.” But is the virtual reality component really necessary to the experience? After all, the interactions with the ATLAS surrogate take place entirely through the touch screen and the controller, and a soldier could get an idea of how the system works without ever putting on the headset. May said that, according to feedback he's received, the virtual reality component adds that extra level of realism for the soldier. “They thought it added to their experience,” May said. “We've run through a version of this without the mixed reality — so they're just using the touch screens and the grips — and they thought the mixed reality added that realism to really get them immersed into the experience.” “We've had over [40 soldiers] leveraging the system that we have here to provide those early insights and then also to give us some quantitative data on how the soldier is performing,” he added. “So we're looking from a user evaluation perspective: Again, how does the [aided target recognition] system influence the soldier both positively, potentially and negatively? And then what is the qualitative user feedback just of the system itself?” In other words, the team is assessing how soldiers react to the simulated battlefield they are being fed through the mixed reality system. Not only is the team observing how soldiers operate when the data is perfect; it also wants to see how soldiers are impacted when fed less accurate data. Soldiers are also interviewed after using the system to get a sense of their general impressions. May said users are asked questions such as “How do you see this impacting the way that you currently do your operations?” or “What changes would you make based off your use of it?” The virtual prototyping environment is an outgrowth of CCDC's desire to push soldier interactions earlier in the development process, and it could eventually be used for other systems in development. “We're hoping that this is kind of an initial proof of concept that other programs can kind of leverage to enhance their programs as well,” May said. “This is a little bit of a pilot, but I think we can expect that across the C5ISR Center and other activities to spend and work a lot more in this virtual environment,” added Nabors. “It's a great mechanism for getting soldier feedback [and] provides us an opportunity to insert new capabilities where possible.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/artificial-intelligence/2020/11/09/mixed-reality-systems-can-bring-soldier-feedback-into-development-earlier-than-ever-before-heres-how-the-us-army-is-using-it/