25 février 2020 | Local, C4ISR
By PAUL MCLEARY
PENTAGON: Close to 300 companies logged on to a “virtual industry day” with Pentagon leadership last week as the military scrambles to build its own 5G networks. The challenge: moving fast enough to keep up with commercial innovation — but cautiously enough to keep China out.
The event, led by DoD's technical director for 5G, Dr. Joe Evans, marked a starting point for shaping a forthcoming Request for Prototype Proposals planned in the coming weeks. The companies selected will then start work later this year on a series of 5G experiments at four bases across the United States.
Those experiments are intended to help the individual armed services to refine what it is they need, and what they need to ask from industry, as the Pentagon pumps hundreds of millions of new funding into 5G programs across the department.
The experiments run the gamut from logistics to sharing information between radar systems, and each service will play a role in testing out what industry offers. Hill Air Force Base in Utah will develop 5G dynamic spectrum sharing capabilities between airborne radar systems and 5G cellular systems. The Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany, Georgia and Naval Base San Diego will test out a smart warehouse concept, while virtual reality training systems will be tested at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington.
The RPP will be issued through the National Spectrum Consortium, an industry group established under a five-year, $1.25 billion Other Transaction Authority contract with the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Emerging Capabilities and Prototyping. Only vetted companies who belong to the consortium will be considered for the work.
The effort is part of a wider push within the government to develop homegrown tech, and quickly. President Trump's top economic advisor, Larry Kudlow, told reporters Friday the White House is planning a 5G meeting in April with top technology companies in an effort to ensure Huawei does not cornere the global market on the technology. “We're going to have a lot of them in the White House to have a discussion,” Kudlow said, though the event hasn't been officially announced.
The Pentagon fiscal year 2021 budget requests $449 million in research and development for the 5G next generation information communications technology program, $249 million more than provided by Congress last year.
While the Pentagon is paying to run these initial tests, the individual services will ultimately be responsible for paying to 5G technologies once they're matured, adding another budget line at a time when no one expects defense accounts to rise for the foreseeable future.
When that happens, 5G will compete “with all other infrastructure upgrades that the services already have planned for their installations and for the systems that operate on them,” said Morgan Dwyer, a former Pentagon official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “So, how quickly DoD can deploy 5G is really a function of how much utility the technology provides to the services and how willing they are to trade-off other capabilities in order to prioritize 5G instead.”
https://breakingdefense.com/2020/02/pentagon-briefs-industry-on-5g-experiments
28 novembre 2022 | Local, Autre défense
Canada’s military forces are 'ready' to meet their commitments should Russia's war in Ukraine spread to NATO countries, but it would be a 'challenge' to launch a larger scale operation in the long term, with ongoing personnel and equipment shortages, according to Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre.
14 décembre 2021 | Local, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité
Bonjour, Nous aimerions partager l'information suivante qui pourrait susciter votre intérêt, ainsi que celui de vos membres : Avis important : cybersécurité Services publics et Approvisionnement Canada (SPAC) a pris connaissance d'une vulnérabilité de cybersécurité qui affecte des organisations à travers le monde. Par précaution, nous avons pris l'initiative de mettre hors ligne certains services qui ont cette vulnérabilité potentielle pendant qu'on évalue la situation. Ceci inclut le site web www.Achatsetventes.gc.ca. Nos services seront à nouveau disponibles dès que possible. Entretemps, nous travaillons à atténuer les répercussions de cette situation sur les processus d'approvisionnement actifs, et en particulier sur ceux qui se terminent bientôt. Nous vous remercions en avance de diffuser cette information auprès de votre communauté de fournisseurs. Nous vous remercions pour votre patience alors que nous travaillons pour résoudre cette situation. ****** Hello, We would like to share some information that may be of interest to you and your membership: Important notice: Cyber security Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) has become aware of a cyber security vulnerability affecting organizations around the world. As a precaution, we have proactively taken down some services that may be affected by this potential vulnerability while we address the situation. This includes the www.Buyandsell.gc.ca website. Our services will be available as soon as possible. In the meantime, we are working to address the impact of this situation on active procurements, and particularly those closing soon. Thank you in advance for your assistance in sharing this information with your supplier community. We thank you for your patience as we work to resolve the situation.
27 juillet 2020 | Local, Aérospatial
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