Sweden should hike military budget to 2.6% of GDP, defence committee says

Sur le même sujet

• 

  27 août 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  Army Researchers Develop Breakthrough Sensors For Small Drones

  Imagine asmall aerial drone navigating a field with electrical power lines. How will it see them? More importantly how will it avoid this significant obstacle in its flight path? At the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command's Army Research Laboratory, researchers developed a novel sensor and software application to detect and avoid energized power lines in the vicinity of unmanned aerial system, or UAS. The goal is to provide autonomous systems sufficient time and distance to react, avoid wires and navigate follow-on maneuvers. Army researcher David Hull developed the innovative approach using a unique configuration of field and 3-D sensors, in conjunction with low-power processing methods. This resulted in detecting power lines and informing the device's autopilot to prevent collision with the wires. This method allows UAS equipped with these to use smaller, lower power and lower cost sensors to detect the location and Poynting vector (i.e. the directional energy flux density) of nearby power lines. This allows the UAS to autonomously avoid or navigate alongside the detected power lines. While existing wire-detection and wire-avoidance technologies that use radar and/or optical sensors have had commercial success, they are known to be expensive, bulky, and power-intensive with technical limitations. The detection algorithm developed at the lab will result in size, weight, power and cost reduction. By combining both sensing modalities in one sensor, Army researchers estimated the direction of power flow, something no traditional sensor can do, Hull said. The lab recently announced a patent license agreement with Manifold Robotics, a startup company based in New York, who will produce the new technology for drone-based commercial applications. Engineers and drone experts at Manifold Robotics said they intend to create a drone-based system that will detect power lines at a distance and determine their precise location to enable safe navigation. They said this will overcome the factors that limit the efficacy of drones in the vicinity of power lines and unleash their full potential for autonomous power line inspection as well as other Beyond Visual Line of Sight operations. From a military perspective, UASs are increasingly used by Soldiers for a variety of missions. In many cases, these drones must successfully operate in urban environments with a high number of power lines in and around the area. The development goal is to see significant improvement in the safe usage of aerial drones in close proximity to power lines and power grids. Researchers said they believe the licensed Army technologies will enable commercial and military drones to detect power lines at a greater distance. Additionally, the technology is expected to accelerate the development of drone applications such as power line inspection systems and freight delivery drones. https://uasweekly.com/2020/08/25/army-researchers-develop-breakthrough-sensors-for-small-drones/

• 

  12 octobre 2023 | International, Terrestre, Sécurité

  Here’s a look at the military firepower the US is providing to Israel

  The buildup reflects U.S. concern that the deadly fighting between Hamas and Israel could escalate into a more dangerous regional conflict.

• 

  20 septembre 2018 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  Obscure Pentagon Fund Nets $2B, Sets Pork Senses Tingling

  John M. Donnelly The Pentagon will soon have received about $2.3 billion in the last nine years — money the military never requested — for a special fund intended to help replace earmarks after Congress banned them, our analysis shows. Buried deep inside the $674.4 billion Defense spending measure for fiscal 2019 that the Senate is expected to vote on this week is a chart with one line showing a $250 million appropriation for the Defense Rapid Innovation Fund, the latest installment of sizable funding for a largely unknown program that quietly disburses scores of contracts every year. To supporters, the fund is a way to bankroll innovative systems that the military may not yet know it needs. To critics, the fund is just earmarking by another name. The kinds of systems that net contracts from the innovation fund run the gamut. In fiscal 2016, they included programs to demonstrate artificial intelligence systems for aerial drones, anti-lock brakes for Humvees and underwater communications systems for undersea drones. The systems may be technologies for which the military services have not yet established a requirement because they may not know what is technically possible. It is not clear how many of the systems actually become operational. The defense fund's eclipsing of the $2 billion mark comes as debate heats up in Washington over whether to revive earmarks. And the special account highlights key elements of that debate. Talk of earmarks 2.0 Earmarks have generally been defined as parochial spending, directed by lawmakers and received by people who have not competed for it. In 2011, after earmarks were tied to several scandals and spending projects seen as excess, Congress barred them — or at least a narrow definition of them, critics contend, noting that, among other loopholes, committees could still add money for parochial projects without spelling out who supports them. President Donald Trump suggested earlier this year that a return of earmarks, which were often used in horsetrading for votes, might be beneficial. Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, has suggested he would aim to bring back earmarks if his party takes control of the House next year. The senior Democrat on Senate Appropriations, Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, has also supported a comeback for the practice. Republican leaders are less vocal right now, but many of them also support a return to earmarks. “I don't doubt that the next organizing conference for the next Congress will probably wrestle with this issue,” outgoing House Speaker Paul D. Ryan told reporters earlier this month. Account quietly amasses funds The Defense Rapid Innovation Fund was launched in 2010 (first as the Rapid Innovation Program) in the fiscal 2011 defense authorization law. It was a way to capture what proponents called the innovative spirit of programs called earmarks that were clearly about to be banned. Unlike earmarks, the defense fund's money would be competitively awarded by the Pentagon, not directed by Congress, supporters of the idea pointed out. Democrat Norm Dicks, then a senior Defense appropriator, and other advocates of the program described it at the time as a way to capture the innovation among smaller companies, including many who had received earmarks. “We have not always had an adequate way of bringing these smaller firms and their innovation into the defense pipeline,” Dicks said in 2010. Each year since its creation, the fund has received another installment of funds, never less than $175 million or more than $439 million. The program has awarded several hundred contracts, averaging about $2 million each, mostly for small businesses with technologies that were relatively mature and that could address some military need, according to a fiscal 2017 Pentagon summary of the program's results. Full article: http://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/obscure-pentagon-fund-nets-2-billion