4 février 2019 | International, C4ISR
Leonardo has signed a contract worth approximately €180M to provide new electronic warfare training equipment for the NATO Joint Electronic Warfare Core Staff (JEWCS). Leonardo was selected in an international competition and will incorporate technology from partners Cobham and Elettronica. The contract was placed by the UK Ministry of Defence as the host nation for NATO JEWCS, which is based at the Royal Naval Air Station (RNAS) in Yeovilton. Equipment will be delivered in tranches over the next 4 years from Leonardo's Electronic Warfare (EW) centre of excellence in Luton, UK.
NATO JEWCS is the Alliance agency responsible for the high-tech world of electronic warfare. When NATO forces go on operations, they can expect the enemy to try and disrupt their radars, GPS and communications. Therefore, to train realistically, it is important that NATO Forces experience these effects and practice how to counter them. Part of NATO JEWCS's remit is to improve armed forces training by simulating the effects of an enemy's latest electronic warfare equipment during exercises, creating a ‘hostile environment' in which to train. To deliver the service, NATO JEWCS deploys high-tech EW equipment at training sites around Europe, allowing armed forces to practice their skills in areas such as electronic surveillance and electronic countermeasures while facing true-to-life attempts to disrupt their activity.
In delivering this support, it is important that the EW effects being simulated are state of the art, keeping pace with opposing forces' latest tech developments. Leonardo is Europe's leading provider of electronic warfare technology and training and will be providing representative equipment across three domains: air, land and maritime. In the air, highly capable and flexible pod-based EW systems will be supplied for deployment on aircraft, alongside a NATO Anti-Ship Missile Defence Evaluation Facility (NASMDEF). NASMDEF comprises a set of pods that can be installed on aircraft to simulate anti-ship missiles.
They allow forces to train in the use of ‘soft-kill countermeasures' which are used to protect ships from incoming threats. Cobham will be Leonardo's principle sub-contractor for these elements. For land and maritime applications, fully ruggedised shelters and vehicles will be provided, equipped with modular and flexible EW simulators, stimulators and jamming equipment. Elettronica will act as Leonardo's principal sub-contractor for these elements.
Leonardo's electronic warfare expertise includes designing and manufacturing protective and ISR (Intelligence Surveillance and Recconaisance) equipment for UK and allied aircraft such as the Eurofighter Typhoon and AW159 helicopters, delivering specialist EW training at its Academy in Lincoln and investing in the development of the latest generation of countermeasures such as the anti-IED ‘Guardian' system for troops on the ground and the ‘BriteCloud' decoy for fighter jet pilots.
This contract to upgrade electronic warfare equipment is just the latest example of Leonardo's on-going provision of security technology and expertise to NATO. Leonardo is the Alliance's cyber security mission partner, working with the NATO Communications and Information Agency to protect more than 70,000 Alliance users around the world from cyber-attacks.
The Company has also provided a significant amount of equipment and support for the NATO Air Command and Control System (ACCS). In October 2018, Leonardo received the NATO Science and Technology Organization's (STO) Scientific Achievement Award for its contributions to the development of a promising new approach to modelling, simulation and training. Leonardo has also provided over 50 air defence radars to multiple Alliance member countries under the NATO Security Investment Programme (NSIP) and has delivered its ‘Guardian' counter-IED (improvised explosive device) systems to protect NATO vehicles operating in Afghanistan.
https://www.leonardocompany.com/en/-/nato-protezione-elettronic-warfare-training-academy
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2 octobre 2020 | International, C4ISR
Joe Gould WASHINGTON ― A bipartisan congressional panel is recommending that the Pentagon must “identify, replace, and retire costly and ineffective legacy weapons platforms,” and prioritize artificial intelligence, supply chain resiliency and cyberwarfare in order to compete with China and Russia. The House's Future of Defense Task Force's 87-page report issued Tuesday echoed the accepted wisdom that the Pentagon must expand investments in modern technologies and streamline its cumbersome acquisition practices or risk losing its technological edge against competitors. The task force is co-chaired by House Armed Services Committee members Reps. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., and Jim Banks, R-Ind., who both signaled they'll champion elements of the report in future defense authorization legislation. While lawmakers are broadly in favor, efforts to retire specific platforms often meet resistance on Capitol Hill. On weapons systems, the task force offered some practical steps to this end. Congress, it said, should commission the RAND Corporation, or similar entity, and the Government Accountability Office to study legacy platforms within the Defense Department and determine their relevance and resiliency to emerging threats over the next 50 years. Then a panel should be convened, comprising Congress, the Department of Defense, and representatives from the industrial base, to make recommendations on which platforms should be retired, replaced or recapitalized, the report reads. Investments in science and technology research need to be prioritized nationally, and at the Pentagon level such investments should meet 3.4 percent of the overall defense budget, as recommended by the Defense Science Board. Funding ought to be expanded at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, national and defense research laboratories and partnering universities, the report says. The report recommended that each of the military services ought to spend at least one percent of their overall budgets on the integration of new technologies. The Pentagon must, the report says, scale up efforts to leverage private sector innovation, which is leading the government. The report calls for a tenfold increase in spending for Defense Innovation Unit, AFWERX, Army Futures Command and others ― and more collaborative opportunities like Hacking for Defense. The report calls for a Manhattan Project for artificial intelligence, saying DoD must go further than its increased investment in AI and Joint Artificial Intelligence Center to assist with the transition and deployment of AI capabilities. “Using the Manhattan Project as a model, the United States must undertake and win the artificial intelligence race by leading in the invention and deployment of AI while establishing the standards for its public and private use,” the report's authors wrote. (The Manhattan project is the U.S.-led World War II-era research and development effort that produced the first nuclear weapons.) The report calls for every major defense acquisition program to evaluate at least one AI or autonomous alternative prior to funding. Plus, all new major weapons purchases ought to be “AI-ready and nest with existing and planned joint all-domain command and control networks,” it says. Warning the country's supply chain is one of its “greatest national security and economic vulnerabilities,” the report calls for a national supply chain intelligence center under the Office of Director of National Intelligence and the elimination of single points of failure within DoD's supply chain. The task force, launched last October, includes several lawmakers with practical national security experience: Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., a former Air Force officer who studied technology and policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; as well as Reps. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., and Michael Waltz, R-Fla., who have served in senior Pentagon policy jobs. HASC members Reps. Susan Davis, D-Calif., Scott DesJarlais, R-Tenn., and Paul Mitchell, R-Mich., also served on the task force. In a statement, Moulton said the bipartisan plan could be used, no matter the outcome of the Nov. 3 presidential and congressional elections. “America needs a plan to confront the dual threats of Russia's aggression and China's rise. This is it,” he said. https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2020/09/29/future-defense-task-force-scrap-obsolete-weapons-and-boost-ai/