Opinion: Is Pressuring Allies To Pay More For Defense Worth The Cost?

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  26 mars 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  FVL: Army Picks Bell & Sikorsky For FARA Scout

  The Bell 360 Invictus and the Sikorsky Raider-X will vie for the final contract to build FARA, with rival prototypes in flight by 2023. Bell and Sikorsky (with Boeing) are also facing off for the FLRAA transport. By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR WASHINGTON: The Army has now narrowed its future aircraft choices to Sikorsky vs. Bell. This afternoon, the service announced that it had picked Sikorsky and Bell to build competing prototypes for Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA), a high-speed optionally manned scout to replace the retired Bell OH-58 Kiowa. Just eight days ago, it picked the same two firms – plus aerospace giant Boeing, acting as Sikorsky's de facto junior partner – to compete for the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA), which will replace the Sikorsky's UH-60 Black Hawk as the military's aerial workhorse for everything from Ranger raids to medevac. The FLRAA transport decision was no surprise. The Army picked the two teams it had been funding for years to develop prototypes, the Bell V-280 Valor tiltrotor and the Sikorsky-Boeing SB>1 Defiant. There was more uncertainty over the FARA scout, because the service had given five companies Other Transaction Authority contracts to develop designs. Of those five, only Sikorsky had built and flight-tested an actual aircraft, the S-97 Raider, of which its Raider-X design is basically a super-sized version. Sikorsky and Bell now get to build FARA prototypes, while AVX, Boeing, and Karem have been cut. While AVX and Karem are design houses that have never built an actual aircraft, Boeing is a major aerospace player for which this is just the latest in a series of blows. Sikorsky and Bell have taken starkly different approaches to Future Vertical Lift. For both the FARA scout and the FLRAA transport, Sikorsky is offering its signature compound helicopters, descended from its record-breaking X2, that use a combination of ultra-rigid coaxial rotors and a pusher propeller to overcome the aerodynamic limits that cap the speed and range of traditional helicopters. No compound helicopter has ever entered mass production, but Sikorsky has built and flown two S-97 prototypes and, with Boeing, the much larger SB>1 Defiant: Raider-X will fall between the S-97 and SB>1 in size. Bell's marquee technology is the tiltrotor, most famously the widely used V-22 Osprey, using two massive rotors that tilt forward like a propeller for level flight and upwards like a helicopter for vertical takeoff and landing. It's a next-gen tiltrotor, the V-280 Valor, that Bell is flying for FLRAA. But Bell couldn't scale down their tiltrotor design – whose side-by-side rotors inevitably make for a wide aircraft – enough for the Army's FARA scout, which is meant to fly down city streets in urban warzones. So instead, their Bell 360 Invictus is, in essence, a streamlined conventional helicopter with wings: It has a single main rotor and a tail rotor, just like the old Kiowa, but it adds winglets to help with lift for high-speed fleet. Sikorsky argues their compound helicopter configuration is inherently much more efficient, pointing out that Bell's design requires more horsepower to achieve the Army's required speeds. Bell argues their time-tested single-main-rotor configuration will be less risky to develop, cheaper to buy, and easier to maintain. They each have three years to prove their case to the Army. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/03/fvl-army-picks-bell-sikorsky-for-fara-scout

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  10 août 2020 | International, Terrestre

  Heavy robotic combat vehicles put to test in the Colorado mountains

  By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army grappled with the challenge of incorporating heavy robotic combat vehicles into its formations during a monthlong experiment at Fort Carson, Colorado, coming away with a clearer path to bringing robots into the fold. Still, the service is years away from ground robots seamlessly fitting in with units. The Army has been evaluating the performance and possible utility of heavy RCVs for more than a year through the use of robotic versions of M113 armored personnel carriers, but the experiment at Camp Red Devil on Fort Carson is the most complex to date. “We're taking a lot of technology, we're experimenting and this experiment was 100 percent successful,” Brig. Gen. Ross Coffman, who is in charge of the Army's combat vehicle modernization efforts, told reporters in an Aug. 6 briefing. “The whole purpose was to learn where the technology is now and how we think we want to fight with it in the future.” Coffman said that doesn't mean all of the technology was successful or that everything performed perfectly. “Some [technology] knocked our socks off, and some we've got a little bit of work to do. But that is why we do these things, so we can do it at small scales, so we can learn, save money and then make decisions of how we want to fight in the future.” Going the distance In part, the Army is tackling a physics problem as well as a technology challenge involving the distance between the robot and the controller, Coffman said. But the service has found companies that can create waveforms to get the required megabytes per second to extend the range in the most challenging environments like dense forested areas, he added. During the experimentation, Coffman said, the Army tested the waveforms. “We went after them with [electronic warfare], we saw they were self-correcting, so that if they're on one band, they can switch to another,” he said, “so we have a really good idea of what is in the realm of the possible today.” The service was also able to almost double the range between controller and robot using the waveforms available, he explained. “If you could extend the battlefield up to 2 kilometers with a robot, then that means that you can make decisions before your enemy came, and it gives you that trade space of decisions faster and more effectively against the enemy.” The Army was also very pleased with the interface for the crew. The soldiers were able to located themselves and the robots, communicate among themselves, and see the graphics that “just absolutely blows us away,” Coffman said. The software between the robot and control vehicle — a Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle — “while not perfect, performed better than we thought it would,” Coffman said. The software also allowed the robot move in front of the control vehicle by roughly 80-1,000 meters as well as identify hotspots and enemy locations. “I didn't know how that was going to work,” Coffman said. “There were some challenges that we had, like getting exact granularity at distance, but the ability that we could identify hotspots and enemy positions I thought was absolutely exceptional.” As a side experiment, the Army also tested a robotic version of the Stryker Dragoon infantry combat vehicle, which is equipped with a 30mm cannon and uses the same software and hardware in control vehicles, Coffman noted. The experiment included live fire. In the heavy RCV surrogates, the target recognition worked while stationary, but part of the challenge the Army is tackling is how to do that on the move while passing information to a gunner, he added. Work on stabilizing the system for multiple terrains also needs performed, but that was indicative of using clunky, old M113s and turning them into robots rather than having a purpose-built vehicle like the RCV Medium and RCV Light. The Army awarded contracts to a Textron and Howe & Howe team to build the RCV-M, and a QinetiQ North America and Pratt & Miller team to build the light version late last year and early this year. Those are being built now. Training on the system also proved to be much easier than anticipated. Coffman said he asked how long the operators need to train, and was surprised to hear they need roughly 30 minutes to learn. “I thought it was going to take them days, but our soldiers are so amazing and they grew up in this environment of gaming.” What's the Army's next step? Now that the first major experiment is done, the Army plans to build up to a company-level operation in the first quarter of fiscal 2022 at Fort Hood, Texas. The experiment will also include four medium RCV prototypes and four light RCVs. While the experimentation at Fort Carson was focused on cavalry operations where the robots served more in a scout mission and proved they could be effective in a reconnaissance and security role, the experiment in FY22 will move the robots into more of an “attack and defend” role, according to Coffman. A new radio will be added to increase range as well as a tethered UAV and more leap-ahead target recognition capability that uses algorithms trained on synthetic data that is “truly cutting-edge,” Coffman said. After each of these experiments, he added, the Army reaches a decision point where it decides how to proceed, whether that is more experimentation or a fielding decision. “We have enough information tactically and technically that I believe we can move forward to the second experiment,” he noted. Following the second experiment, the Army will reach a decision point in FY23 on whether to move the effort into an official program of record. Once that is decided, an acquisition strategy would be identified if the decision is to move forward, according to Coffman. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2020/08/07/heavy-robotic-combat-vehicles-put-to-test-in-the-colorado-mountains/

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  9 décembre 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  Advanced seeker production for next-generation precision-guided missile

  December 8, 2020 - BAE Systems received a $60 million contract from Lockheed Martin to manufacture and deliver additional advanced missile seekers for the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM). The seeker comprises long-range sensors and targeting technology that help the stealthy missile find and engage protected maritime targets in challenging electromagnetic environments. “Our warfighters need resilient, long-range precision strike capabilities to compete with modern adversaries,” said Bruce Konigsberg, Radio Frequency Sensors product area director at BAE Systems. “We're proud to partner with Lockheed Martin in delivering this distinct competitive advantage to U.S. warfighters.” LRASM combines extended range with increased survivability and lethality to deliver long-range precision strike capabilities. LRASM is designed to detect and destroy specific targets within groups of ships by employing advanced technologies that reduce dependence on intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms, network links, and GPS navigation in contested environments. This LRASM seeker contract continues the transition of the program from Accelerated Acquisition to Low Rate Production. BAE Systems has delivered more than 50 systems to date that have demonstrated excellent technical performance over multiple test events. The company also is working to make the seeker system smaller, more capable, and more efficient to produce. BAE Systems' LRASM seeker technology builds on the company's decades of experience designing and producing state-of-the-art electronic warfare technology, and its expertise in small form factor design, signal processing, target detection, and identification. Work on the LRASM sensor will be conducted at BAE Systems' facilities in Wayne, New Jersey; Greenlawn, New York; and Nashua, New Hampshire. For additional information, visit: www.baesystems.com/lrasm Contact Nicole GableNicole Gable Media Relations Electronic Systems View source version on BAE Systems: https://www.baesystems.com/en/article/advanced-seeker-production-for-next-generation-precision-guided-missile