12 mars 2019 | International, Naval
By: Sam LaGrone
The Navy is moving fast to acquire a new class of unmanned surface vehicles and hopes to award a contract for USV designs by the end of the year, USNI News has learned.
In the next two months, the service is set to issue a request for proposals for a new class of medium USV, up to 50 meters long, according to an unclassified readout of the program reviewed by USNI News.
A Wednesday USNI News request to Naval Sea Systems Command for additional details related to the competition was acknowledged but immediately returned.
According to a notional list of requirements, the medium USV will function as a sensor and communications relay as part of a family of unmanned surface systems being developed by the service. The craft will be able to carry a payload equivalent to a 40-foot shipping container, will operate on its own for at least 60 days before needing to
return to port, and be capable of refueling at sea.
The craft will have to also be able to autonomously operate under the rules of the maritime road at a cruising speed of about 16 knots with a minimum range of about 4,500 nautical miles and operate via a government-provided communication relay system.
The size of the MUSV – 12 to 50 meters – ranges from about the size of the service's 11-meter rigid hull inflatable boats (RHIBs) to the Navy's Cyclone-class patrol craft (PCs).
It's unclear what the price per hull of the craft will be, but the modular focus of the Navy's USV vision would place the bulk of the costs in the modular payload rather than the hull itself.
Full article: https://news.usni.org/2019/03/06/navy-contract-new-class-unmanned-surface-vehicle-years-end
13 janvier 2023 | International, C4ISR
Asked if there have been any major hiccups or technical glitches, Army Undersecretary Gabe Camarillo said: "None that Iâve been made aware of. At all."
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Taking its experience from other laser weapons programs, the company is scaling its laser technology into what it's calling DEIMOS.
21 mai 2020 | International, C4ISR
Nathan Strout After landing a contract with the U.S. Air Force in April, California-based company Labelbox announced May 20 it is making its artificial intelligence training data platform available more widely to the federal government and intelligence community. Labelbox offers a software platform by the same name that allows development teams to manage the data used to train machine learning algorithms. For instance, in order for a machine learning tool to successfully begin identifying missile launchers in satellite imagery, it needs to be fed hundreds — or even millions — of pre-labeled pictures identifying the objects it needs to identify. The more accurate training data is fed to the algorithm, the better it works. Some government machine learning projects need to process petabytes of data per day, the company says, a flow of data that can be overwhelming. “Labelbox is an integrated solution for data science teams to not only create the training data but also to manage it in one place,” said CEO Manu Sharma in a statement. “It's the foundational infrastructure for customers to build their machine learning pipeline.” The platform can be used in the cloud or on-premises, allowing data science teams to work together across agencies or locations, the company claims. In April, the company announced it had won an Air Force Innovation Hub Network (AFWERX) Phase 1 Small Business Innovation Research contract to conduct feasibility studies on how their platform could integrate with ongoing Air Force efforts. Now, the company is partnering with Carahsoft Technology Corp. to make their platform more widely available to the federal government and the intelligence community. Carahsoft will be able to provide the platform to interested agencies through its NASA Solutions for enterprise-wide procurement contracts and reseller partners, the company announced May 20. https://www.c4isrnet.com/artificial-intelligence/2020/05/20/this-platform-will-help-train-ai-algorithms-for-the-military/