1 octobre 2019 | International, Naval
By: Andrew Chuter
OSLO, Norway — Are you a navy looking to spend less when buying and operating warships? Norwegian defense company Kongsberg reckons it may have the answer.
Kongsberg has taken the wraps off a new multirole warship design that the company says extensively uses commercial systems and can be built in commercial yards for substantially less money and in less time than traditional warships.
With warship procurement becoming eye-wateringly expensive, Kongsberg's defense and aerospace arm is pitching its Vanguard design as a way to save money via a 50 percent life-cycle cost reduction.
Vanguard will have what is effectively a plug-and-play capability, enabling the multipurpose vessel to pack containers — that meet this International Organization for Standardization's guidelines — with equipment to swap missions as diverse as hydrographic survey to anti-submarine, area-denial and other roles in a matter of hours.
Kongsberg doesn't traditionally build or design warships. The Norweigian company is better known in the defense sector for pioneering the use of remote weapons for land vehicles and development of the surface-to-surface Joint Strike Missile for use on the F-35 fighter jet.
Design work on the platform was led by Norwegian maritime consultancy Salt Ship Design. It's the company's first major military program, having previously focused on complex commercial ship design work in the offshore energy sector, among other markets.
Kongsberg and Salt have been collaborating on the project for more than two years. Salt executives said conceptual work was more or less finished, and they are now engaged in initial design work.
Vanguard has been fitted out with Kongsberg equipment like a commercial bridge system overlaid with military specifications. But company officials said the flexibility to install other systems to meet customer requirements is a key element of the program.
Baseline ship equipment is predominantly supplied by Kongsberg Defence Systems. Its sister operation, Kongsberg Maritime, is a major player in the commercial maritime sector and earlier this year acquired Britain's Rolls-Royce Commercial Marine.
Frank Tveiten , Kongsberg's vice president of naval integrated defense systems, said Vanguard has sparked the interest of potential customers and shipyards.
“We have tested it in the market with very positive reactions. The baseline warship fitted with Kongsberg systems and sensors is substantially cheaper than other warships. It's going to rock the market a little bit,“ he said.
Tveiten said the economies stretched beyond procurement with manning levels as low as 16-20 people, and a speed requirement that results in very low fuel consumption.
Build time for a Vanguard in a commercial yard could be as little as two years, according to the Salt executives.
Kongsberg executives said Vanguard would suit emerging navies as well as interest some larger navies looking to increase offshore patrol, corvette and frigate numbers without breaking the bank.
Senior Norwegian naval officers at a Kongsberg briefing in Oslo on Sept. 26 said they are interested in the concept but were guarded about whether Vanguard could be a contender to replace the Navy's Helge Ingstad frigate, which was written off after a collision with an oil tanker last year.
Chief of the Navy Rear Adm. Nils-Andreas Stensones said there is a gradual move to the use of commercial systems onboard warships, and that Norway's experience with Coast Guard vessels and other ships using similar systems had been positive.
“We have had a very good experience when it comes to the Coast Guard over the last 30 years. Also, our new supply ship is built to civilian standards with some military adaptions, and the experience so far is good,” Stensones said. “We see that in many areas we can use civilian technology to great benefit. We see [the use of] commercial equipment sliding gradually to the more high-end applications, but how far [one[ can go with that we don't know yet."
“The cost of building military-specified platforms today is becoming prohibitively expensive. If you can reduce the cost of the platform, you can invest more in weapons and sensors. It's finding the best balance,” he added. “Whether we will end up with this concept [Vanguard], I don't know. The hardest part is the training. If you have a mission module onboard, you also need a trained crew — that may be the biggest challenge.”
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By Stephen Carlson Nov. 27 (UPI) -- BAE Systems has been selected by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop machine learning algorithms to decipher radio frequency signals for protection against enemy hacking and jamming attempts. DARPA is awarding BAE $9.2 million for machine learning algorithm development, the company announced on Tuesday, which will build off of adaptive technology that has already been applied to face- and voice-recognition systems and drones operating autonomously for RF signal processing. "The inability to uniquely identify signals in an environment creates operational risk due to the lack of situational awareness, inability to target threats, and vulnerability of communications to malicious attack," Dr. John Hogan, product line director of BAE Systems Sensor Processing and Exploitation division, said in a press release. "Our goal for the RFMLS program is to create algorithms that will enable a whole new level of understanding of the RF spectrum so users can identify and react to any signals that could be putting them in harm's way," Hogan said. Under the Phase 1 contract, BAE will develop the RFMLS as part of its artificial intelligence efforts utilizing technology from DARPA's Communications Under Extreme RF Spectrum Conditions and Adaptive Radar Countermeasures programs. BAE Systems is already working on DARPA's machine learning and artificial intelligence research in RF called the Spectrum Collaboration Challenge. SCC is meant to help alleviate scarcities in available RF spectrum, which would dovetail with work being performed on RFMLS by identifying spectrum that could evade enemy jamming. https://www.upi.com/Defense-News/2018/11/27/DARPA-BAE-to-develop-AI-for-interpreting-radio-frequency-signals/2371543335188/
15 septembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval
Steve Trimble In December 2018, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems executives still felt the bitter sting of a losing bid two months earlier for the U.S. Navy MQ-25 contract, but a clearly disappointed company president vowed to return for the next competition against the aerospace industry's largest companies. “If the [request for proposals] comes out for a major program of record, we're all-in,” said David Alexander in that December 2018 interview in his offices in Poway, California. “We'll maybe have a few more lessons learned on what to do and what not to do,” he added. "But we'll go in with both feet planted again and go after it.” Eighteen months later, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) is doubling-down on Alexander's commitment, releasing exclusively to Aviation Week a concept rendering of a next-generation unmanned aircraft system (UAS) that reflects the characteristics the company's designers view as essential for the class of aircraft that could replace the MQ-9 by the early 2030s. Ultra-long-endurance UAS proposed GA-ASI hints at propulsion advances GA-ASI was among at least five industry teams that responded to the U.S. Air Force's request for information (RFI) for a next-generation intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and strike UAS to enter service in fiscal 2030. Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin shared concepts for next-generation UAS designs on Sept. 11. Boeing and Kratos also responded to the Air Force RFI by the July 15 deadline but declined to release concepts at this nascent stage of the bidding process. Arguably, GA-ASI invented the role of the ISR/Strike UAS with the MQ-9, and the company's concept for the Reaper is no less provocative, featuring a jet-powered aircraft with distinctive, tear-shaped inlets and a long, high-aspect-ratio wingspan that appear optimized for ultra-long-range flight at high altitudes. “We're embracing ultra-long endurance to keep our next-generation ISR/Strike UAS in the fight for longer periods than many ever imagined possible,” Alexander said in a statement to Aviation Week. Although GA-ASI released no specifications with the rendering, it is clear Alexander means the next-generation concept should have even longer range that the 27-hr. endurance currently offered by the Air Force's MQ-9. The Air Force Research Laboratory defined ultra-long-endurance in 2019, when a popular light sport aircraft, the Pipistrel Sinus, was modified to fly autonomously for 2.5 days over the Dugway Proving Ground, Utah. The modified aircraft was called the Ultra-Long-Endurance Aircraft Platform. How the new GA-ASI concept achieves ultra-long endurance is likely to include intriguing surprises beyond the disproportionately long, thin-chord and highly swept wings. The tear-shape inlets appear to feed airflow through parallel ducts down the middle of the fuselage into a mysterious propulsion system. Alexander's statement hints that the aircraft's engine is a critical element of the ultra-long-endurance capability. “Our advancements in propulsion technology will give commanders a longer reach than ever before,” Alexander said. In the late-1990s, GA-ASI designed the MQ-9 to perform the hunter-killer UAS mission's three “F's”—find, fix and finish—by itself if necessary, with a targeting sensor embedded beneath the nose and AGM-114 Hellfire missiles along with GBU-12 laser-guided or GBU-38 GPS-guided gravity bombs under the wing. GA-ASI's next-generation UAS concept appears capable of performing the role in a similar stand-alone fashion. A faintly visible bulge under the leading edge suggests capacity for a large payload bay, allowing the future concept to carry sensors and weapons internally, unlike the MQ-9. But the Air Force's concept of operations is changing. Whether manned or unmanned, any aircraft in the future combat fleet must be capable of finding and striking targets on their own, but they are expected to be able to operate as part of a network. Data from onboard sensors must be shared to the network, and data coming from other sensors elsewhere on the network must be receivable. GA-ASI's concept is adapted to that approach, Alexander said. “We envision [the] next-gen ISR/Strike [aircraft] as a conduit, supplier and consumer of information,” hesaid. “We believe it is imperative that future unmanned systems are able to communicate, share information and collaborate—together and intuitively with their human counterparts—across systems and domains in record time.” The next-generation UAS also addresses the workforce needed to operate the MQ-9, including separate teams of pilots and sensor operators during cruise flight and takeoff and landing. GA-ASI notes that the company has already qualified technologies to enable the existing fleet to taxi, take off and land automatically as well as a ground control system that allows a single pilot to control six UAS. “Our team has been developing and delivering automation solutions for years,” Alexander said. https://aviationweek.com/shows-events/afa-air-space-cyber-conference/reaper-replacement-reveals-bold-new-ga-asi-vision