12 mai 2020 | International, Aérospatial
Months after the Air Force gave Raytheon the axe on the Three-Dimensional Expeditionary Long-Range Radar (3DELRR) program, the service has tapped three new companies to work on next-generation ground-based radars.
Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Australian firm CEA Technologies were each awarded $500,000 on May 8 for a 3DELRR rapid prototyping effort known as “SpeedDealer,” the Air Force announced Monday.
3DELRR will replace the legacy AN/TPS-75 radar used to detect and track aerial targets flying at long distances. Raytheon had beaten Northrop and Lockheed for the contract in 2017 after a protracted competition that included multiple protests over the award.
After schedule delays and technical challenges mounted, the Air Force announced in January that it was concluding its work with Raytheon on the program. Instead, the service would seek out off-the-shelf options from industry that could be fielded faster.
“Each award provides $500,000 for the companies to demonstrate their radar system's capabilities, maintenance concepts and radar performance against operationally-relevant targets and conditions, no later than the end of September,” the Air Force said in a statement. The service would then determine whether a prototype is ready for integration or production, with additional contracts potentially awarded by the end of 2020.
Initial operational capability of a production-ready radar could occur as early as fiscal year 2024, the service said.
Despite a global pandemic, the program is already moving at a fast pace. After holding an industry day in February, the Air Force released a solicitation for the 3DELRR program on March 2, said Lt. Col. Matthew Judge, materiel leader. The three companies were selected less than a month from when industry proposals were due on April 15.
“We are not starting over; this is not a new development contract,” said Col. Michael Harm, 3DELRR's senior materiel leader. “Through the information presented during our industry day and received in the companies' response to the solicitation, we were able to confirm that production-ready systems can be demonstrated this year.”
Judge added: “We are excited to see what these three systems can do.”
Lockheed and Northrop's work will be funded under a contracting mechanism known as an “other transaction authority,” which is typically used for prototype projects. As a foreign company, CEA has been granted a Foreign Comparative Test project award, the service said in a statement.
Northrop Grumman will demonstrate its solution this summer, said Mike Meaney, the company's vice president for land and maritime sensors.
“We are confident that our solution meets the Air Force's needs and is the most affordable, low-risk, and validated system available,” he said. “With successful completion of test demonstrations, a hot full-rate production line and opportunities for capability growth, we are confident that the Northrop Grumman solution is uniquely positioned to fulfill the Air Force 3DELRR mission need."
27 août 2023 | International, Terrestre
August 25, 2023 - The purpose is to demonstrate the possibility to integrate the missile-equipped RBS 70 NG Mobile Firing Unit (MFU) with Saab’s ultra-rugged tactical electronics, low-latency video distribution...
5 août 2019 | International, Naval
NEWPORT NEWS, Va., Aug. 01, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Huntington Ingalls Industries (NYSE: HII) announced today that its Newport News Shipbuilding division has received a $290 million contract modification from the U.S. Navy to continue planning for the refueling and complex overhaul (RCOH) of the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74). The contract funds the second and third years of planning, long-lead-time material procurement, shop fabrication, shipboard inspections, and facilities readiness for the RCOH. As part of the planning contract, Newport News also will perform some shipboard work, which will take place in Norfolk. The initial year of planning was funded at a base value of $187.5 million. “The second and third year of planning is important to the overall success of a project of the magnitude of an RCOH,” said Chris Miner, Newport News' vice president of in-service aircraft carriers. “This contract allows us to continue our critical planning for each step of the process so we're ready to begin execution when the ship arrives in the first quarter of 2021.” Stennis will be the seventh Nimitz-class carrier to undergo a major life-cycle overhaul at Newport News, representing 35 percent of all maintenance and modernization completed during its service life. An RCOH is an extremely complex engineering and construction project that involves more than 680 suppliers from 40 states providing material and services critical to the overhaul process. Once completed, a recapitalized carrier is capable of supporting current and future warfare doctrine and continuing to operate as the centerpiece of the Navy's fleet and national defense for another 25 years. About Huntington Ingalls Industries Huntington Ingalls Industries is America's largest military shipbuilding company and a provider of professional services to partners in government and industry. For more than a century, HII's Newport News and Ingalls shipbuilding divisions in Virginia and Mississippi have built more ships in more ship classes than any other U.S. naval shipbuilder. HII's Technical Solutions division provides a wide range of professional services through its Fleet Support, Mission Driven Innovative Solutions, Nuclear & Environmental, and Oil & Gas groups. Headquartered in Newport News, Virginia, HII employs more than 41,000 people operating both domestically and internationally. For more information, visit: HII on the web: www.huntingtoningalls.com HII on Facebook: www.facebook.com/HuntingtonIngallsIndustries HII on Twitter: twitter.com/hiindustries CONTACT INFORMATION Duane Bourne Manager of Media Relations (757) 380-3581 Duane.A.Bourne@hii-co.com https://newsroom.huntingtoningalls.com/releases/photo-release-huntington-ingalls-industries-continues-planning-for-mid-life-refueling-overhaul-of-uss-john-c-stennis-cvn-74
20 septembre 2018 | International, Aérospatial, C4ISR
By: Ryan Hazlett With unmanned systems becoming ever more ubiquitous on the battlefield, the question of where unmanned systems and accompanying technologies, such as autonomy, are headed is in the limelight. First, to better understand the future direction of the unmanned field, it is instructive to note some important trends. The number of uses for unmanned systems on the battlefield has increased significantly in the post-9/11 conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, with the U.S. Army's Shadow® Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) program having logged nearly 1 million flight hours in those areas of operation. The proliferation and commoditization of UAS capabilities is a global phenomenon, as demonstrated by both the widespread possession of UAS hardware as well as the ability to indigenously produce at least rudimentary unmanned systems. Growth of the nascent commercial unmanned systems market has added to this trend, as has the government's emphasis on a greater use of commercial off-the-shelf solutions. But while commoditization has occurred at the platform level — particularly among smaller airborne vehicles — overcoming the challenges of adversaries employing anti-access area-denial (A2AD) military strategies requires far more capable solutions than simply having hordes of cheap drones. In this environment, how will U.S. and allied forces retain their advantage? Critical capabilities and technologies are necessary. These include the ability to dynamically swarm, conduct automatic target recognition, possess on-board autonomy and artificial intelligence, as well as have interoperable communications capabilities. First, future platforms — manned or unmanned — will increasingly need better collaboration between the sensors and payloads they carry and with allied forces. This growing level of collaboration and autonomy is already happening. Driven by advances in onboard computing power, as well as smaller and less power-intensive sensors and advanced algorithms, tomorrow's unmanned systems will be able to better communicate among themselves and make their own decisions on basic functions, such as navigation, to enable dynamic swarming or to identify areas of interest during intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. Next, systems that can seamlessly operate and communicate with other military platforms across domains will be the most successful. Gone are the days when largely mission-specific platforms dominated the force composition. With platforms needing to be highly capable to meet A2AD threats, a mission-specific approach will simply be unaffordable. Instead, increasingly we see platforms that can act as highly capable but also flexible “trucks” that can easily swap payloads designed for specific missions, while the overall platform serves many needs. Multi-domain abilities for conducting command and control (C2) and other tasks will also be vital as technologies move from remote-control type operations to more of a “man monitoring the loop” concept. Technological progress in providing secure communications and a level of onboard artificial intelligence are necessary enablers, as will be data fusion technologies. Initial versions of these multi-domain C2 solutions for unmanned systems are already here. For example, the U.S. Army has years of experience operating the Universal Ground Control Station and One System Remote Video Terminal that allow soldiers in tactical units to access overhead sensor video from unmanned aircraft. Next-generation, multi-domain control and collaboration technologies to take the concept to a new level are mature, allowing a single user to simultaneously operate multiple vehicles and sensors, including the ability to control numerous types of aircraft and other multi-domain unmanned systems from different manufacturers. In addition, these systems are ready to incorporate the best available software applications as “plug-ins” to an open architecture. Industry is also investing in additional technology to ensure that tomorrow's unmanned systems continue to meet U.S. and allied needs. Among them are advanced power generation, systems with improved maneuverability, and vehicles designed to deploy with lighter support and operational footprints. Done smartly, the application of technologies such as autonomy can be better integrated into unmanned systems to enable improved navigation, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, as well as other tasks, while leaving a man in the loop for the use of weapons. Moreover, defense users can rightly leverage the commercial sector's work on areas such as self-driving cars and unmanned taxis that are at the forefront of artificial intelligence for navigation. But while the military can leverage such commercial developments, there are, and will remain, cyber hardening, survivability and other specific requirements that are unique to the defense marketplace and require experienced industrial partners with deep knowledge of national security needs. The ongoing move away from only long-term programs of record to the embrace of the “buy, try, and decide” model, as well as greater uses of funded prototyping, is helping to fast-track many of these promising new technologies. Companies can now match their internal research and development funding to move that innovation along and ensure the United States and its allies remain at the forefront of unmanned technologies. Ryan Hazlett is senior vice president at Textron Systems. https://www.c4isrnet.com/thought-leadership/2018/09/19/the-new-critical-capabilities-for-unmanned-systems