26 janvier 2023 | International, C4ISR
"If we're going to beat China, and we have to beat China in AI," CDAO Craig Martell said, "we have to find a way to label at scale."
16 mars 2021 | International, Aérospatial
Israel and South Korea are to co-operate in the field of unmanned airborne intelligence, surveillance, targeting and reconnaissance (ISTAR), with a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed on 15 March. Showcased at ADEX 2017, KAI's stealth U...
31 août 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR
By: Joe Gould WASHINGTON ― The National Armaments Consortium, along with the DoD Ordnance Technology Consortium and Army Contracting Command-New Jersey, is taking steps to fast-track their armament prototyping efforts, it was announced Thursday. A year after the Army's high-profile reorganization to more quickly field cutting-edge weapons technologies, the Charleston, South Carolina-based National Armaments Consortium ― made up of 900 companies and academic institutions ― wants to better sync with both the government's increased demand and its actual bandwidth for turning research into prototypes. Pentagon modernization efforts have prioritized, in recent years, long-range precision fires, hypersonic and extended-range missiles, and anti-jam GPS devices ― all of which fall in the lane of the armaments consortium, said National Armaments Consortium Executive Director Charlie Zisette. “Armaments is kind of where the rubber hits the road for our war fighter because we're dealing with everything in the kill chain, protection and survivability,” Zisette told Defense News. “All of these things created a fairly large demand signal for modernization of our systems and components.” The 20-year-old NAC is one of a growing number of Pentagon-sponsored consortia that work to translate the government's notional requirements into technological breakthroughs and business opportunities. Consortia members will work with the government through collective “other transaction agreements” or “other transaction authorities.” These OTAs have become a popular tool to allow the government to communicate more openly about its needs and to work with nontraditional defense contractors whose innovations the Department of Defense wants to harness. According to Zisette, the NAC has 650 active projects at various stages to solve tough problems like developing a new heat-resistant composite material, new types of explosives and a complex long-range precision artillery system. So far this year, its efforts have led to 150 new-start acquisition programs, half awarded to “non-traditionals.” Historically, the NAC would release one annual solicitation based on government requirements, and host one annual collaboration event for NAC members to tout their technologies and ask government representatives about requirements. NAC also hosts a members-only online collaboration portal along similar lines. But something had to change. Amid the DoD's modernization efforts, the NAC has grown such that there would be 350 government solicitations and upward of 1,400 whitepapers, almost simultaneously. It was a “huge bow wave” that overwhelmed the procurement, legal and program staffs involved, Zisette said. “It became too much for the Department of Defense, so we were seeing our award-cycle times getting stretched out,” he said. “We realized we had to level that workload out: put in more agreements officers and contracts specialists so we could ... get quickly through the process itself.” The NAC unveiled Thursday it will initiate faster deadlines to develop prototypes, but it will also move to monthly solicitation releases and three virtual collaboration events per year instead of one. Other consortia will often either deal with requirements on an annual or ad hoc basis, meaning they're emailed out as they're developed. To Zisette's knowledge, no other DoD-sponsored consortia have monthly solicitation releases like the NAC is planning, but the idea for tri-annual events was something Zisette borrowed. “The total model will be a pathfinder,” he said, “but absolutely leveraging some of the best practices and input from across the department.” https://www.defensenews.com/2020/08/27/armaments-consortium-launches-new-path-to-field-high-tech-prototypes/
10 juillet 2019 | International, Aérospatial, Autre défense
By: Jen Judson WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is looking to transfer $50 million within its fiscal 2019 budget to cover the cost of the design and development of a prototype mobile launcher for its Long Range Hypersonic Weapon, or LRHW. The Defense Department submitted an omnibus reprogramming requestto Capitol Hill on June 25, which congressional defense committees must approve. The department wants the additional funding for the mobile launch capability in order to reach “residual” operational capability by FY23. Developing hypersonic weapons, capable of flying five times the speed of sound, is a part of the Army's top modernization priority — Long-Range Precision Fires —because of the added capability it would bring in eliminating enemy systems in contested battlespace. There is also a need in the U.S> to develop an offensive hypersonic capability to stay ahead of similar weapon development underway by Russia and China. The mobile LRHW will bring online “a new class of ultra-fast, maneuverable, long-range missiles to neutralize enemy defensive weapons with rockets launched from trucks with Transporter Erector Launchers (TELs),” the reprogramming document states. Follow-on efforts will be funded through the Army's research, development, test and evaluation account in future budget years, the document adds. The Army is leading the Pentagon's effort — Conventional Prompt Strike — but is teamed with the Navy to develop a booster for the hypersonic missile and is building a common glide body internally with both the Navy and Air Force. The service is finishing design work for the prototypes and plans to conduct flight tests focused on range, environmental factors and contested environments. The plan is to field a battery-sized hypersonic weapon to soldiers by 2023. The service will use the Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System and M870 trailers to make the system road-mobile. The Army still needs to build a transporter-erector-launcher to simultaneously accommodate two hypersonic missiles, which is where the extra $50 million comes in. The service plans to spend $1.2 billion over the next five years beginning in FY20 on its hypersonic effort. In FY20 alone, the Army has budgeted $228 million. A total of $181 million is requested in FY21 to move through the preliminary design review, which will end in the first quarter of FY22. In FY22, the Army will conduct a critical design review and then begin testing all-up rounds at the end of the fiscal year into FY23. The service has budgeted $137 million in FY22 to accomplish those tasks. The Army will then move into full-system flight tests in FY23 using a $359 million budget. The service plans to outfit the Multi-Domain Operations Task Force's strategic fires battalion with the battery to field early combat capability to the force, but to also learn how to use the equipment; to develop possible tactics, techniques and procedures that might be used in combat; and to learn how to train to use the weapons. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2019/07/09/to-get-hypersonic-launcher-off-ground-dod-seeks-funding-transfer/