ORDERS RECEIVED IN TOTAL WORTH 2 BILLION NOK FOR DELIVERIES TO F-35 JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER

Sur le même sujet

• 

  13 juillet 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  DoD hands out $84 million in recovery funds for small drone makers and a space firm

  By: Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Defense announced Friday it is issuing $84.4 million in funding through the Defense Production Act to small unmanned technology, space and shipbuilding companies. The money, divided among seven different companies, will be used to “sustain and strengthen essential domestic industrial base capabilities,” per a Pentagon announcement. “These actions will help to retain critical workforce capabilities throughout the disruption caused by COVID-19 and to restore some jobs lost because of the pandemic.” The Defense Production Act has been in the spotlight in recent months, as it's served as a central tool in attempts by the Trump administration to increase production of personal protective equipment to combat the spread of the coronavirus, something critics say the administration was too slow to implement. Title III of the DPA gives the department the opportunity to fund what it sees as critical suppliers of the defense industry who might otherwise be at risk of closing. Although those authorities have been on the books for years, the department became more serious about using them following a 2018 landmark study of the defense industrial base that identified a number of sectors where small companies that provide key parts for America's arsenal could go out of business. The undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, Ellen Lord, previously identified shipbuilding, aviation and the small space sector as three areas that are suffering under the economic impacts from COVID-19. She has said her office will keep an eye on those sectors. That seems to have played out in the Pentagon's announcement about the $84.4 million in funding. Of the funding, $13.4 million went to five small unmanned systems companies. Funding was authorized and appropriated under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, and awarded through the Defense Innovation Unit — the Silicon Valley technology hub for the Pentagon. The department claims the funding “saved 14 jobs, created 20 new positions, and will support continued advancement of capabilities providing the companies additional paths for recurring revenue.” Even before the economic damage from COVID-19, the department had identified small UAS manufacturers as a sector that needs to grow. Included in this latest funding are: AirMap, in Santa Monica, California, which received $3.3 million. The money will “aid product development and engineering support for integration of sUAS mission planning, post-mission analysis, and unmanned traffic management software.” ModalAI, of San Diego, California, which received $3 million to “develop their next generation U.S.-made flight controller that will enable advanced autonomy including GPS-denied navigation, and all-environment obstacle avoidance.” Skydio, in Redwood City, California, which received $4 million to “improve the flight controller hardware/software and data link for their sUAS so that highly capable components can be purchased and used across U.S. Government unmanned systems.” Graffiti Enterprises, located in Somerset, New Jersey, which was given $1.5 million to “modify their commercial data link for DoD's sUAS use including operation in restricted frequency bands, reduction in the size, weight, and power of the hardware, and software developments to improve security and resiliency of their data link.” Obsidian Sensors, from San Diego, California, which received $1.6 million to build a “low-cost, dual thermal sUAS camera that can be mounted onto a stabilization gimbal and then integrated and flown on small, packable, ISR systems.” In addition, the Pentagon awarded $15 million to LeoLabs, based in Menlo Park, California, to “ensure the continued viability of space surveillance capability through the operation and maintenance of a world-wide highly capable phased-array radar network.” The department said LeoLabs is the only domestic commercial supplier with the capability to meet requirements in this area. Last month, the Space Force invoked the DPA to get funding for six small space companies that were considered at risk, before it reversed those awards two weeks later. While those are all fairly small technology firms, the biggest dollar amount awarded was $56 million for ArcelorMittal Inc., a steel and mining company based in Chicago, Illinois. The funding, also from the coronavirus relief package, will be used to “protect” jobs impacted by the pandemic that are critical to military shipbuilding. Specifically, the investment will “expand ArcelorMittal's plate processing footprint and heat-treating capability, subsequently increasing its alloy steel plate production and ensure the U.S. Government gets dedicated long-term industrial capacity to meet the needs of the nation,” per the department. https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2020/07/10/dod-hands-out-84-million-in-recovery-funds-for-small-unmanned-companies-space-firm

• 

  29 mars 2019 | International, Aérospatial

  DARPA: In the Sky and on the Ground, Collaboration Vital to DARPA’s CODE for Success

  On a brisk February morning in the Yuma, Arizona, desert, a swarm of unmanned aerial vehicles equipped with DARPA's Collaborative Operations in Denied Environment system, or CODE, successfully carried out mission objectives, even when communications were offline and GPS was unavailable. One-by-one, six RQ-23 Tigersharks lifted off, fitted with an array of sensors onboard. Next to the runway at the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground, the mission team inside a small operations center tracked the aircraft and as many as 14 additional virtual planes on an aerial map. The capstone demonstration paired program performer Raytheon's software and autonomy algorithms and Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory's White Force Network to create a realistic, live/virtual/constructive test environment. During four demonstration runs, the team activated a variety of virtual targets, threats, and countermeasures to see how well the Tigersharks could complete their objectives in suboptimal conditions. “Exactly how the aircraft continue to work together in degraded conditions is the most challenging aspect of this program,” said Scott Wierzbanowski, the DARPA program manager for CODE in the Tactical Technology Office. “Current procedures require at least one operator per UAV in the field. Equipped with CODE, one operator can command multiple aircraft; and in a denied environment, the aircraft continue toward mission objectives, collaborating and adapting for deficiencies.” Before, if operators lost communications with a UAV, the system would revert to its last programmed mission. Now, under the CODE paradigm, teams of systems can autonomously share information and collaborate to adapt and respond to different targets or threats as they pop up. “CODE can port into existing UAV systems and conduct collaborative operations,” said Wierzbanowski. “CODE is a government-owned system, and we are working closely with our partners at the Air Force Research Laboratory and Naval Air Systems Command to keep each other informed of successes and challenges, and making sure we don't replicate work. In the end, our service partners will leverage what we've done and add on what they need.” The Tigersharks employed in the demonstration are surrogate assets for CODE. Each has about one-tenth the speed and performance of the aircraft planned for integration, but shows traceability to larger platforms. Constructive and virtual threats and effects presented by the White Force Network are appropriately scaled to the Tigersharks' capabilities. “It's easy to take the CODE software and move it from platform to platform, both from a computer and vehicle perspective. It could be a manned aircraft, unmanned aircraft, or a ground vehicle,” said J.C. Ledé, technical advisor for autonomy with the Air Force Research Laboratory. “The concept for CODE is play-based tactics, so you can create new tactics relatively easily to go from mission to mission.” The Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) will take ownership of CODE after DARPA closes out the agency's role in the program this year. It already has built a repository of algorithms tested throughout the development process. “What we're doing with the laboratory we set up is not just for the Navy or NAVAIR. We're trying to make our capabilities available throughout the entire DoD community,” said Stephen Kracinovich, director of autonomy strategy for the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD). “If the Army wanted to leverage the DARPA prototype, we'd provide them not just with the software, but an open development environment with all the security protocols already taken care of.” Kracinovich says NAWCAD has a cadre of people with hands-on knowledge of the system, and is ready to help port the capability to any other DoD entity. That ease of transition puts CODE technologies on a clear path to assist deployed service members by enabling collaborative autonomous systems to operate in contested and denied environments with minimal human supervision. https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2019-03-22

• 

  21 juillet 2024 | International, Aérospatial

  Exclusive: US-Japan Patriot missile production plan hits Boeing component roadblock