US Air Force awards contracts to start designing F-35 weapon

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  18 décembre 2019 | International, Aérospatial

  BAE Systems to get new CEO in April

  WASHINGTON — BAE Systems Chief Executive Jerry DeMuro will hand over leadership to Tom Arseneault next year, the company announced Tuesday. Arseneault will transition from chief operating officer to CEO of the U.S. subsidiary of U.K.-based BAE Systems plc in April, with DeMuro taking on a newly created role of executive vice president of strategic initiatives. DeMuro will also continue to serve on the board of directors. “I think it is one of the primary responsibilities you have, as a CEO, to develop the talent,” DeMuro told Defense News when asked about succession planning in an exclusive interview Dec. 7, during the Reagan National Defense Forum. “And leadership succession, in particular CEO succession, isn't always smooth. I think this is a natural progression, making it smooth for our customers, our shareholders, all stakeholders and our employees. “It's just about progressing to that point where we on the board feel it's time to hand that baton off.” DeMuro has served as CEO since 2014, when he succeeded Linda Hudson. Among his key priorities during the last five years has been unifying a business primarily born out of acquisition. With Tom's April appointment, Jerry will transition to an advisory role, providing advice and counsel to leadership with both BAE Systems Inc. in the U.S. and BAE System plc in Europe on a number of priority programs. Within the scope of his responsibilities will be chairing the internal program reviews for several key international pursuits. He will also continue to advance the defense industry's positioning regarding evolving cybersecurity requirements. Arseneault, who in May also added “president” to his title and was elected to the company's board, is currently responsible for delivering business and functional performance across the company's three sectors. He's been with BAE for 22 years, having previously served as president of the company's electronic systems sector and executive vice president of the product sectors. “If you've been watching, we had him as the COO [chief operating officer] for several years. I also had him doing strategy and corporate development, and rounding out his portfolio" across the various business units, DeMuro said. “[I]t's just about getting him prepared, and making sure our stakeholders are comfortable.” BAE is currently in low-rate production for the U.S. Army's Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle to replace the M113 armored personnel carrier and family of vehicles. It's also scheduled to deliver its prototype for the Mobile Protected Firepower vehicle program by 2021 — required ultimately to be a 105-120mm cannon and a tracked vehicle that can withstand a classified level of enemy fire. DeMuro has pointed to electronic warfare as another key priority area for the company, delivering capabilities to the F-35 and all other fifth-generation fighter jets, as well as precision-guided munitions and technologies that support space resiliency. Parent company BAE Systems in the U.K. ranked seventh on the Defense News Top 100 list of the largest defense companies in the world. Defense revenue has dropped from $25.45 billion in 2015 to $22.48 billion in 2018. The U.S. subsidiary oversees one of the companies largest operations from Arlington, Virginia. https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2019/12/17/bae-systems-to-get-new-ceo-in-april

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  18 juillet 2018 | International, Aérospatial, C4ISR

  US Air Force looks to accelerate artificial intelligence contracts

  FARNBOROUGH, England — The Air Force is still not moving fast enough to recruit the software talent that it needs to harness emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, its acquisition head said Tuesday. "I don't think we're attracting enough people. Whether they're the right people or not, I think that's a separate question. I'm not sure that we'll be able to answer that until we're working with a broader set of the industry base that's working AI,” Will Roper, the Air Force's undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logstics, told reporters at Farnborough Airshow. “I contend that the companies driving AI are a different breed of company than those who drive evolution in hardware, especially companies that drove hardware that have gotten us to today's military. The paces are faster, turnovers are quicker. Software is done in month cycles not year cycles.” Over the past year, the Air Force has charted some successes and some failures in its attempts to integrate tech like AI and big data analytics with legacy hardware systems like fighter jets or air operations center. It has established the Kessel Run Experimentation Lab, a group of industry and airmen in Boston that are iterating new capabilities for air operations centers. Instead of rolling out a large software package, the coders focus on app-like updates that can more rapidly insert new functionality into the AOC. But it's also suffered setbacks — most notably, Google's stated intention to withdraw from future Defense Department projects after some employees objected to the company's work on Project Maven, a program would allow the Pentagon to use AI to review footage from drones. Some have worried that could have a chilling effect on future efforts. Roper said that a big focus of his job is changing how the Air Force approaches software. In the past, software was a product that could be bought in cycles, just like a physical product like a missile or aircraft. Now, it's a service that must be reworked constantly, he said. “You get a good set of coders in, they can push out so much code per month. You put them with the user that's going to use the code and together they're able to collaborate to make sure that the developer is creating something that the operator is using,” he said. “That's working very well for us in Boston, and we're looking to expand that. That's the basic mechanism to move towards AI. We're going to need people that are working with us that are software people that are working, tweaking algorithms with the users that use them, and it's probably a different company than have worked with us over the past 10 years.” The Air Force has to get those companies under contract faster, in weeks instead of months, Roper said. It's looking for opportunities to use contract vehicles specifically delegated for small businesses and to use AFWERX — its outreach arm to nontraditional contractors who are creating promising commercial technologies — to introduce startups to the service. But Roper acknowledged there was no easy answer to the problem. One possible way to inject AI into Air Force programs — although a mundane one — is to use it for predictive maintenance technologies that use sensors to forecast when a component will break, said Air Force Under Secretary Matt Donovan. “It's very exciting for us and I think it holds a lot of potential to reduce our sustainment costs,” he said, noting that sustainment makes up a whopping 70 percent of the life-cycle cost of any given product. Roper agreed that sustainment was a great area to begin employing AI, and that experience could help the Air Force begin to figure out how to use the technology for classified applications. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/farnborough/2018/07/17/air-force-looks-to-accelerate-artificial-intelligence-contracts

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  21 avril 2024 | International, Aérospatial

  Archer Aviation aims to start electric air taxi trials in India next year