Minister Blair announces defence investments in Halifax at 15th Halifax International Security Forum

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  30 août 2018 | Local, Naval

  Canada's first Arctic Offshore Patrol Ship expected in October

  DAVID PUGLIESE, OTTAWA CITIZEN The first Arctic Offshore Patrol Ship is expected to be delivered the first week of October, according to Department of National Defence officials. The ship was originally supposed to be delivered this summer. The ship will undergo various tests in the months following delivery. The formal acceptance of the vessel by the Royal Canadian Navy won't take place until early next year. The first vessel, HMCS Harry DeWolf, is expected to be ready for operations starting in the summer of 2019, according to DND officials. Subsequent ships are to be delivered approximately every nine months, according to documents obtained by Postmedia using the Access to Information law. The Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ship project will deliver five ships, with an option for a sixth, if affordable. The ships are designated as the Harry DeWolf Class, after Canadian wartime naval hero Vice-Admiral Harry DeWolf. The official RCN ship's class designation will be Arctic and Offshore Patrol Vessel or AOPV. The AOPV will be capable of armed sea-borne surveillance of Canada's waters, including the Arctic, providing government situational awareness of activities and events in these regions, and cooperating with other government departments to assert and enforce Canadian sovereignty, according to the DND. Construction of the first AOPV began in 2015 with HMCS Harry DeWolf. https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/first-arctic-offshore-patrol-ship-expected-in-october

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  27 juillet 2020 | Local, Aérospatial

  These Companies Will Work on R2-D2-Like Drone Helper for Air Force Pilots

  24 Jul 2020 Military.com | By Oriana Pawlyk Four defense companies have been selected to begin work on the U.S. Air Force's Skyborg program, which aims to pair artificial intelligence with a human piloting a fighter jet. The service chose Boeing Co., General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., Kratos Unmanned Aerial Systems Inc., and Northrop Grumman Systems Corp. to move forward on the program; however, the companies will be competing for the indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract, estimated to be worth up to $400 million, according to an announcement. The autonomous Skyborg is intended for reusable unmanned aerial vehicles in a manned-unmanned teaming mission; the drones are considered "attritable," or cheap enough that they can be destroyed without significant cost. "Because autonomous systems can support missions that are too strenuous or dangerous for manned crews, Skyborg can increase capability significantly and be a force multiplier for the Air Force," said Brig. Gen. Dale White, program executive officer for Fighters and Advanced Aircraft. White and Brig. Gen. Heather Pringle, commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), together lead the Skyborg program. "We have the opportunity to transform our warfighting capabilities and change the way we fight and the way we employ air power," White said in a release. "Autonomy technologies in Skyborg's portfolio will range from simple playbook algorithms to advanced team decision making and will include on-ramp opportunities for artificial intelligence technologies," added Pringle. "This effort will provide a foundational Government reference architecture for a family of layered, autonomous and open-architecture unmanned aerial [systems]." Skyborg is one of three initiatives in the service's Vanguard Program portfolio for rapid prototyping and development of new-age technologies it can leverage for multiple operations. The Vanguard program brings together the research lab and the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center to "quickly identify cutting-edge technology and transition directly into the hands of the warfighter," the release states. The Air Force launched the bidding process for Skyborg in May; it expects Skyborg's initial operation to be ready by the end of 2023. Dr. Will Roper, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics, first spoke of the Air Force Research Lab-led program last year. He told reporters during the 2019 McAleese Conference that, while it is reminiscent of the Air Force's proposed Loyal Wingman program to send out drones ahead of fighters to act as scouts, Skyborg will take the concept even further, with an AI plane that trains with its pilot, acting as a sidekick, rapidly thinking through problems and taking command if necessary. In short, it's R2-D2 from "Star Wars" in an aircraft of its very own, he said. "I might eventually decide, 'I want that AI in my own cockpit,'" Roper said. "So if something happened immediately, [the AI] could take hold, make choices in a way that [a pilot would] know because [a pilot has] trained with it." https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/07/24/these-companies-will-work-r2-d2-drone-helper-air-force-pilots.html

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  18 octobre 2018 | Local, Naval

  Feds aiming to select preferred design for $60B warships by end of month

  OTTAWA — Canada's most expensive military project is entering a critical new phase as the government is on the verge of picking its top design for the country's $60-billion fleet of new warships. Defence insiders say the government wants to select a design by the end of the month from among three options submitted by several of the largest defence and shipbuilding companies in the world. After that the government and Halifax-based Irving Shipbuilding, which will actually build the 15 new warships, will sit down with the selected bidder to hammer out the final cost and other details. The stakes will be high for both sides, with hundreds of millions of dollars in play. There will also be pressure to make up for lost time on a project already running behind schedule even though whatever decisions are taken could have ramifications on the navy — and taxpayers — for decades to come. "That's part of the tension between moving quickly and making the right choice," said defence analyst David Perry of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. The new warships will replace the navy's 12 frigates and three destroyers, the latter of which have already been retired. They will be used for most of this century. Launched in late 2016, the design competition has been the subject of rampant lobbying and complaints by defence industry players, with numerous revisions to the original request for bids and several deadline extensions. That was despite defence officials and Irving having previously warned that time is of the essence when it comes to starting construction, and that they want to shave 18 to 24 months off the project. There have also been questions about Irving's role in the competition, and anger from some companies that British firm BAE was allowed to enter its Type 26 vessel despite the ship having never been built. BAE and U.S.-based defence giant Lockheed Martin partnered together to propose the Type 26 for the design competition, which is up against separate proposals from Dutch firm Alion and Spanish shipbuilder Navantia. A joint French-Italian design was disqualified because Paris-based Naval Group and Italian firm Fincantieri, who promised to build the warships faster and for less than anyone else, did not follow the established process for submitting proposals. One of the big questions heading into the negotiations will be how much the selected design needs to be changed to reflect the navy's needs and how much the navy will have to shift its requirements because changing the design will take more time and money. Irving has warned that it could be forced to lay off hundreds of employees because of a production gap if work on the warships isn't ready to start by the time it finishes building the navy's new Arctic patrol ships in 2021 or 2022. Government negotiators are also facing a battle over the amount of intellectual property that the top bidder will be required to hand over, which Ottawa wants so it can operate and maintain the vessels on its own after they are built. Companies had originally been told that the winner would be required to turn over the full blueprints, but after significant resistance, the two sides agreed that the matter would be negotiated before a contract is awarded. The government however warned that if the winning ship designer drives too hard a bargain on the intellectual property front they face the risk of officials pulling the plug on talks and moving on to the next company. Perry said that while there are many challenges ahead before a deal for a design is signed — and before any of the new warships actually get into the water — this is a critical step forward. "You can't dance until you pick a dance partner," he said. — Follow @leeberthiaume on Twitter. Lee Berthiaume, The Canadian Press https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/news/canada/feds-aiming-to-select-preferred-design-for-60b-warships-by-end-of-month-250594/