The Army is procuring its new tactical network tools

Sur le même sujet

• 

  12 février 2020 | International, Terrestre

  Thales and MKU to co-develop the Elfie Night Vision Device for India and the world

  Lucknow, February 7, 2020 - Taking the association a step ahead, Thales and MKU today announced the co-development of the ELFIE Night Vision Device (NVD) for the armed forces in India and across the world on the sidelines of DefExpo 2020. With this, both companies have further solidified the MoU signed in 2018 for strategic co-operation on developing optronic devices. This co-operation involves co-development of these devices at MKU's facility in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh. A lightweight monocular with the widest field of view, ELFIE provides unprecedented mobility and night combat capability. Whether hands-free (on a face mask or helmet mount) or weapon-mounted, ELFIE is suitable for left or right eye use and provides stereoscopic vision in binocular configuration. ELFIE is ideal for vehicle-driving and for paratroopers and special forces operators. When mounted on a weapon, it provides a red dot sight or laser pointer to the user. The integration of the first pre-series of ELFIE at MKU's facility in Kanpur is expected to be completed in the first trimester of 2020. A true model of the “Made in India” ELFIE night vision device is expected to be available in the first trimester of 2021. “We are enthusiastic about taking our strategic association forward with MKU with the co-development of ELFIE. This embodies the Government's ‘Make in India' initiative. Coming up in the Defence Industrial Corridor of Uttar Pradesh, this versatile night vision device will be offered to the armed forces in India as well as across the world. Together with MKU, we look forward to strengthening the industrial ecosystem while also contributing towards job creation in the country,” said Pascale Sourisse, Senior Executive Vice President – International Development, Thales. Neeraj Gupta, Managing Director, MKU Limited, said, “We are delighted about this partnership with a global technology leader like Thales. This association will combine Thales' expertise with the manufacturing abilities of MKU and boost local manufacturing for the defence industry. We will develop the entire supply chain and the devices will be manufactured to exacting international standards.' For more details on Thales' presence at DefExpo India 2020, please click here. About MKU Limited: MKU Limited is a leading defence company for soldier systems in India with a customer base in over 100 countries. Known for its capabilities of providing innovative protection and surveillance solutions, It has state-of-the-art manufacturing and test facilities for Electro-Optics in India that complies to JSS 55555 & MIL 810G standards. The company is already supplying night vision devices to Special Forces, CAPFs and State Police Forces in India and is participating in various tenders from the tri-services under MoD and CAPFs under MHA. MKU is a Global leader in the development and manufacture of Ballistic solutions for Personnel and Platforms. Its products are trusted and used by over 230 forces in the world. The company is currently executing an Indian MoD contract for 158,279 Ballistic Helmets for the Indian Army and Navy. About Thales Thales (Euronext Paris: HO) is a global technology leader shaping the world of tomorrow today. The Group provides solutions, services and products to customers in the aeronautics, space, transport, digital identity and security, and defence markets. With 80,000 employees in 68 countries, Thales generated sales of €19 billion in 2018 (on a pro forma basis including Gemalto). Thales is investing in particular in digital innovations — connectivity, Big Data, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity — technologies that support businesses, organizations and governments in their decisive moments. About Thales in India Present in India since 1953, Thales is headquartered in New Delhi and has other operational offices and sites spread across Noida, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Mumbai, among others. Over 1600 employees are working with Thales and its joint ventures in India. Since the beginning, Thales has been playing an essential role in India's growth story by sharing its technologies and expertise in Defence, Transport, Aerospace and Digital Identity and Security markets. Thales has two engineering competence centers in India - one in Delhi NCR focused on digital identity and security business, while the one in Bengaluru focuses on hardware, software and systems engineering capabilities for both the civil and defence sectors, serving global needs. View source version on Thales: https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/india/press_release/thales-and-mku-co-develop-elfie-night-vision-device-india-world

• 

  5 septembre 2018 | International, C4ISR

  Next-gen RFID could improve how vehicles get to the battlefield

  By: Adam Stone With incredible volumes of material on the move – think: arms and munitions, supplies, vehicles – the military quite simply needs a better way to track its stuff. “We hear a lot of concerns about getting in-transit visibility in the last tactical mile, from the supply point to the end user,” said Jim Alexander, product lead for automated movement and identification solutions in PEO EIS – Enterprise Information Systems. “We are working with our partners and with transportation command to gather up the requirements for the next generation of in-transit visibility for DoD.” At the heart of transit tracking today is radio-frequency identification (RFID), which allows logisticians to tag and track goods on the move. But RFID has its limitations: It's infrastructure intensive and not globally available. Military planners are looking to do better. Falling short RFID technology took a big step forward about 20 years ago with the widespread adoption of “active RFID.” Rather than scan individual items by hand, active RFID uses a fixed scanner to monitor entire lots. You'll see this equipment at airports and at the gates of military installations. But active RFID isn't an ideal solution. “It consists of a dome-shaped reader on a pole, connected to power and ethernet. So you are running power lines and communication lines, and if the reader goes down someone has to go out and physically service it,” said Rosemary Johnston, senior vice president of government at solutions provider Savi. The company is sole provider for the DoD's RFID-IV contract, which has a $102 million ceiling. “Each reader costs a couple of thousand dollars, plus the cost of hooking it up, running wires via trenches. It becomes a major construction investment project,” said Johnston, a former chief master sergeant with the U.S. Air Force. In addition, active RFID equipment isn't necessarily well-suited to today's highly agile expeditionary fighting style. “The military doesn't know where the next fight is going to be, so they use portable deployment kits rather than do this massive construction, but even those are heavy ― the lightest weighs 25 pounds ― and they require good satellite coverage. It becomes very resource constrained,” she said. With the next-gen RFID contract, the military envisions a better way of doing business. A cellular solution Satellite-readable RFID tags offer some relief, as they expand the military's reach without requiring extensive additional overhead. But satellite time is costly. Savi's emerging solution would leverage widely available cellular signals as a new means to capture and communicate RFID information. Johnston describes early trials of cellular RFID in Africa, where materials tracking has been a perennial problem. U.S. and European forces have just six fixed RFID readers on the entire continent, making supplemental coverage an urgent need, she said. “We have used cellular technology in Africa with a commercial company very successfully for the past three or four years. The networks we would use on the military side would be very similar to what this commercial customer uses, so we believe that represents a great opportunity for Africa Command,” she said. The switch to cellular isn't technically complicated: military planners would need to add a cellular module to the existing RFID tag. That module could then be programmed to automatically report location status to the military's in-transit visibility server. High-value cargo might report hourly, whereas more mundane supplies could be set to check in daily or every couple of days, in order to conserve battery life in the RFID tag. At PEO-EIS, Alexander said he sees strong potential in the technology. With a cellular system, “you could get a much more granular look, a more detailed look at where my stuff is,” as compared to relying on fixed checkpoints, he said. “If you have sensitive cargo you can know where it is every hour on the hour, as opposed to waiting for that cargo to pass by a fixed site.” Some technical details still need to be worked out in order to implement a commercial-grade cellular solution within the military. For example, “you don't want to have anything in the device that would trigger a static charge if you are working around ammunition,” Johnston noted. “We are working through that process right now.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/it-networks/2018/09/04/next-gen-rfid-could-improve-how-vehicles-get-to-the-battlefield

• 

  3 décembre 2021 | International, Aérospatial

  Department of Defense orders $316 million more in anti-jam GPS devices

  The contract is part of the military's efforts to get M-Code ready GPS receivers into the hands of troops.