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Sur le même sujet

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  10 octobre 2019 | International, Naval

  Lockheed Martin-Led Team Begins Construction On Navy's Littoral Combat Ship, The Future USS Nantucket

  MARINETTE, Wis., Oct. 9, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) and Fincantieri Marinette Marine marked the beginning of construction on Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) 27, the future USS Nantucket, with a ceremony in Marinette. As part of a ship-building tradition dating back centuries, a shipyard worker welded the initials of Polly Spencer, USS Nantucket ship sponsor and wife of U.S. Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer, into the ship's keel plate. This plate will be affixed to the ship and travel with Nantucket throughout its commissioned life. "The USS Nantucket will confront many complex challenges," said Richard V. Spencer, the U.S. Secretary of the Navy. "It will confront humanitarian relief all the way to great power competition, drawing on the strength of every weld, every rivet applied by the great people here." Unique among combat ships, the focused-mission LCS is designed to support mine countermeasures, anti-submarine and surface warfare missions today and is easily adapted to serve future and evolving missions tomorrow. The Freedom-variant LCS is: Flexible — Forty percent of the hull is easily reconfigurable, able to integrate Longbow Hellfire Missiles, 30 mm guns, and manned and unmanned vehicles designed to meet today's and tomorrow's missions. Lethal — LCS is standard equipped with Rolling Airframe Missiles (RAM) and a Mark 110 gun, capable of firing 220 rounds per minute. Fast — LCS is capable of speeds in excess of 40 knots. Automated — LCS has the most efficient staffing of any combat ship. "LCS' built-in flexibility makes it unlike any other Navy ship in the water today," said Joe DePietro, vice president and general manager of Small Combatants and Ship Systems. "LCS can serve a multitude of missions to include surface, anti-submarine and mine countermeasure missions by quickly integrating mission equipment and deploying manned and unmanned aerial, surface or sub-surface vehicles." LCS 27 is the first Navy ship to be named after Nantucket, Massachusetts in more than 150 years. Nantucket has a deep connection to sailing and maritime traditions, serving as a whaling hub in the 1800s and as the home of generations of American sailors since the town's beginning. The previous USS Nantucket, the first to be named after the island, was commissioned in 1862 to serve during the American Civil War. "I have been given a very special honor in being the sponsor of the future USS Nantucket. I am happy she is being built here in Marinette, Wisconsin, which has an impressive history of shipbuilding," said Polly Spencer, LCS 27 sponsor. "Thank you to all the talented people who are bringing this ship to life... it is going to be an amazing journey that I am thrilled to be on." LCS 27 will be the 14th Freedom-variant LCS and will join a class of more than 30 ships. It is one of six ships in various stages of construction and test at the Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyard. "We are very excited to begin construction of the future USS Nantucket," said Jan Allman, CEO of Fincantieri Marinette Marine. "Our men and women are proud to put their efforts into giving the Navy versatile ships to keep our country and its interests safe." Multimedia assets are available here: Social media video: https://vimeo.com/365396145 B-roll: https://vimeo.com/365406413 Speaker remarks: https://vimeo.com/365402844 Photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/143371902@N04/albums/72157711268036447 For additional information, visit our website: www.lockheedmartin.com/lcs. About Lockheed Martin Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs approximately 105,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. About Fincantieri Marinette Marine Fincantieri is the leading western shipbuilder with a rich history dating back more than 230 years, and a track record of building more than 7,000 ships. Fincantieri Marine Group is the American subsidiary of Fincantieri, and operates three Great Lakes Shipyards: Fincantieri Marinette Marine, Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding, and Fincantieri ACE Marine. Fincantieri Marine Group's more than 2,100 steelworkers, craftsman, engineers and technicians in the United States specialize in the design, construction and maintenance of merchant ships and government vessels, including for the United States Navy and Coast Guard. About Gibbs & Cox Gibbs & Cox, the nation's leading independent maritime solutions firm specializing in naval architecture, marine engineering and design, is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. The company, founded in 1929, has provided designs for nearly 80 percent of the current U.S. Navy surface combatant fleet; approaching 7,000 naval and commercial ships have been built to Gibbs & Cox designs. SOURCE Lockheed Martin https://news.lockheedmartin.com/2019-10-09-Lockheed-Martin-led-Team-Begins-Construction-on-Navys-Littoral-Combat-Ship-the-future-USS-Nantucket

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  14 décembre 2024 | International, Aérospatial

  Archer Aviation raises $430 mln through equity offering, partners with Anduril

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  27 juillet 2020 | International, Terrestre

  Two Men & A Bot: Can AI Help Command A Tank?

  Instead of a traditional three-man crew, Brig. Gen. Coffman told Breaking Defense, “you have two humans with a virtual crew member, [sharing] the functions of gunning, driving, and commanding.” By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.on July 27, 2020 at 7:00 AM WASHINGTON: Field tests and computer models have convinced the Army that future armored vehicles can fight with just two human crew, assisted by automation, instead of the traditional three or more, the service's armor modernization chief told me. That confidence drove the Army, in its draft Request For Proposals released on the 17th, to require a two-soldier crew for its future Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle. The OMFV is scheduled to enter service in 2028 to replace the Reagan-era M2 Bradley, which has the traditional trio of commander, gunner, and driver. (Both vehicles can also carry infantry as passengers, and the Army envisions the OMFV being operated by remote control in some situations). The Army has already field-tested Bradleys modified to operate with a two-soldier crew instead of the usual three, said Brig. Gen. Richard Ross Coffman, the director of Army Futures Command's Cross Functional Team for Next Generation Combat Vehicles. “As we speak,” he told me in an interview last week, “we've got those Mission-Enabling Technology Demonstrators, or MET-D, actually maneuvering at Fort Carson, Colorado, as part of the Robotic Combat Vehicle test.” With the benefit of modern automation, Coffman said, those two-soldier crews have proven able to maneuver around obstacles, look out for threats, and engage targets — without being overwhelmed by too many simultaneous demands. “They're doing that both in simulation and real world at Carson right now,” Coffman told me. “You have two humans with a virtual crewmember that will remove cognitive load from the humans and allow the functions of gunning, and driving, and commanding the vehicle to be shared between humans and machines,” Coffman said. “We think that the technology has matured to the point where ...this third virtual crewmember will provide the situational awareness to allow our soldiers to fight effectively.” The defense contractors who would have to build the vehicle – even if a government team designs it – aren't so sure. “A two-man crew will be overwhelmed with decision making, no matter how much AI is added,” one industry source told me. A Persistent Dilemma For at least eight decades, combat vehicle designers have faced a dilemma. A smaller crew allows a smaller vehicle, one that's cheaper, lighter, and harder to hit – and if it is hit, puts fewer lives at risk. But battlefield experience since 1940 has shown that smaller crews are easily overwhelmed by the chaos of combat. Historically, an effective fighting vehicle required a driver solely focused on the path ahead, a gunner solely focused on hitting the current target, and a commander looking in all directions for the next target to attack, threat to avoid, or path to take. (Many vehicles added a dedicated ammunition handler and/or radio operator as well). A “virtual crewmember” could solve this dilemma — but will the technology truly be ready by the late 2020s? The Army actually tackled this question just last year and came to the opposite conclusion. You see, the draft Request For Proposals released last week is the Army's second attempt to launch the OMFV program. In March 2019, the Army issued its original RFP for an Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle. In most respects, the 2019 RFP was much more demanding than last week's draft: It wanted the vehicle in service two years earlier, in 2026 instead of 2028, and it had such stringent requirements for weight and amor protection that no company managed to meet them, leading the Army to start over. But for all its ambition in other aspects, the 2019 RFP did not mandate a two-person crew; that's a new addition for the 2020 version. It's worth noting that just one company managed to deliver a prototype by the Army's original deadline in 2019: General Dynamics. They built their vehicle to operate with a crew of three – but with the option to go down to two as automation improved. At the same time, the Army started experimenting with Robotic Combat Vehicles that had no human crew aboard at all. The long-term goal is to have a single soldier oversee a whole wolfpack of RCVs, but the current proto-prototypes are operated by remote control, with a crew of two: a gunner/sensor operator and a driver. The Army has been impressed by how well these teleoperated RCVs have performed in field trials. If two soldiers can effectively operate a vehicle they're not even in, might two be enough to operate a manned vehicle as well? The other piece of the experimental RCV unit is the mothership, an M2 Bradley with its passenger cabin converted to hold the teleoperators and their workstations. These modified M2s, called MET-Ds, also operate with just two crewmembers, a gunner and a driver – without a separate commander – and, says Coffman, they've done so successfully in combat scenarios. The Army is not just adding automation to individual vehicles. It's seeking to create combined units of manned and unmanned war machines that share data on threats and targets over a battlefield network, allowing them to work together as a seamless tactical unit that's far more than the sum of its parts. “This [vehicle] will not fight alone, but as part of a platoon, a company, a battalion,” Coffman said. “The shared situational awareness across that formation will transform the way we fight.”