4 février 2020 | International, Aérospatial, C4ISR

U.S. Air Force Defines Radical Vision For Command And Control

By Steve Trimble

The U.S. Air Force has released the full, sweeping vision for the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS), a two-year-old concept that proposes to disrupt modern norms for the service's command-and-control doctrine, military acquisition policy and industrial participation.

The newly released ABMS architecture defines not a traditional program of record but 28 new “product lines” divided into six major components. The implementation strategy is not focused around traditional acquisition milestones measured in years, but rather development “sprints” fielding morsels of new capabilities every four months. The rights for much of the technology, including a new radar, communication gateway and software-defined radio, are claimed not by an industrial supplier, but by the Air Force itself.

USAF adopts lead systems integrator-like model
ABMS architecture built on government ownership

The release of the strategy on Jan. 21 comes three weeks before the Air Force plans to release a budget plan that would shift $9 billion over the next five years for a “Connect the Joint Force” initiative. The proposed funding would come from retiring certain capabilities, including aircraft fleets, within the next five years, with a clear implication: The Air Force is willing, if Congress approves, to trade some capability now to obtain the ABMS over time.

“I think of it as we're finally building the ‘Internet of Things' inside the military, something that is very overdue,” says Will Roper, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, explaining the ABMS to journalists during the unveiling of the architecture in the Pentagon.

The scale of the project's ambition has evolved since the ABMS was first proposed in 2018. Air Force leaders unveiled the concept two years ago as a replacement for the airborne Battle Management and Command and Control (BMC2) suite on the Northrop Grumman E-8C Joint Stars fleet. By September 2018, Roper first suggested the same technology could be applied to replace the aging fleet of Boeing RC-135 Rivet Joints and, sometime in the 2030s, the Boeing E-3C Airborne Warning and Control System.

Those aims remain intact, but the revealed architecture clarifies that the goals of the ABMS are far broader. If the system is fully realized, the Air Force will create a “combat cloud” on a mobile ad hoc network, transposing the Internet of Things model from civilian technology to the battlefield.

As a result, the nearly four-decade-old concept of a centralized command-and-control center—either ground-based or airborne—would be swept away by a future, decentralized digital network. Using computer processors and software algorithms instead of humans, machines would identify targets from sensor data, select the weapons and platforms to prosecute the target automatically, and finally notify the human operator when—or, crucially, whether—to pull the trigger.

Roper compares the ABMS' effect on command and control to commercial services on a smartphone, such as the Waze app for drivers navigating traffic. Waze is not driven by a human staff monitoring and reporting traffic hazards, who then review each request for directions and customize a recommended route. Instead, Waze harvests traffic and hazard data from its users, while algorithms mine that information to respond to user requests for services. The Air Force's command-and-control system is constructed around the human staff model, but Roper wants to move the entire enterprise to the Waze approach.

“If it didn't exist in the world around us, you'd probably say it was impossible,” Roper says, “but it does [exist].”

The challenge for the Air Force is to defend and, if successful, execute that vision for the ABMS. The Air Force needs to secure the support of the other armed services, whose participation is vital to extracting the benefits of such a system. Moreover, the Air Force needs to sell the concept to Congress, despite a system that lacks obvious employment connections to specific legislative districts, such as future factory sites and operational bases. Roper acknowledges the problem of building support for an architecture, rather than a platform, such as a new fighter, bomber or ship.

“Those are easy things to sell in this town. You can count them,” he says. “But the internet is not something that's easy to count or quantify, even though we're all very aware of its power.”

The Air Force has briefed congressional defense committee staffs on the ABMS concept, but some remain skeptical. A Capitol Hill staffer familiar with the ABMS program doubts that other services will support the Air Force's vision. The ABMS model also appears unlikely to be embraced by industry, the staffer says. A key point of Roper's plan requires companies to cede some intellectual property rights on key elements of the ABMS architecture to the Air Force.

But the Air Force is not waiting. Development of the ABMS started last year, even before an analysis of alternatives is completed. In December, the service staged the first demonstration of four new capabilities: transmitting data on a low-probability of intercept link via a gateway between stealthy Air Force and nonstealthy Navy fighters; connecting a C-130 to the SpaceX Starlink satellite constellation; demonstrating a cloud-based, command-and-control network up to a “secret” classification level; and setting up an unclassified common operational picture display at a remote command center inside a tent.

As the second in the planned series of triannual events, the Air Force plans to stage the next ABMS demonstration in April, this time involving U.S. Space Force, Strategic Command and Northern Command.

Roper, an Oxford-trained physicist, has little patience for the military's traditional development process, although he has made exceptions for complex, hardware-driven programs, such as the Northrop Grumman B-21 bomber and the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent. For most other programs, Roper wants to trickle out new features at Silicon Valley-speed. A common refrain by military acquisition reformers for decades has been to emphasize delivering an incomplete, “80% solution” sooner than waiting for a system that meets each of sometimes hundreds of detailed requirements. However, for Roper the timeline for delivering even an 80% solution in certain cases is far too long.

“[We should] covet the 10-15% solutions that take the next step forward,” Roper said. “Because the learning in that step is so valuable to keep the velocity.”

To execute the ABMS vision, Roper appointed Preston Dunlap last year as the lead architect. Unlike a traditional program executive officer (PEO), the architect is a role introduced to the Air Force by Roper, who previously in his career served as the chief architect for the Missile Defense Agency. The six components and 28 production lines for the ABMS are spread across multiple program offices, rather than consolidated under a single PEO. Thus, the role of the architect is to define the vision and then shape acquisition schedules as the various technologies reach maturity.

Under Dunlap's architecture, the ABMS is built around six components: new sensors feeding databases in a cloud-based computing environment using software-defined radios, with new apps fusing the data into a common operational picture and integrated effects allowing cruise missiles, for example, to automatically retask sensors on other platforms during flight. Among the 28 product lines, the Air Force proposes to own the rights to the radar, software-defined radio and communications gateway.

The Air Force's role resembles the lead systems integrator (LSI) model used for a series of largely failed acquisition programs 15-20 years ago, including the Army's Future Combat System and Coast Guard's Deepwater. In this case, however, the LSI is the Air Force, not an industrial supplier. Such an approach is not unprecedented. The Navy is using a similar model to manage the MQ-25A program, with Boeing selected as a subcontractor to deliver the air vehicle and Naval Air Systems Command providing the ground station and integrating both on an aircraft carrier.

The gateway used in the first ABMS demonstration in December offers an example, Roper says.

“We took a radio system that was actually built in concert with Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin to be able to deal with both platforms with the waveforms, and then a Honeywell antenna was able to speak across the frequencies associated with both radio systems,” Roper said. “So we got those three primary vendors working together underneath our government leadership.”

https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/us-air-force-defines-radical-vision-command-control

Sur le même sujet

17 août 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

Arms trade momentum: Globalization and US defense spending drive defense industry growth
By: Joe Gould 5:00 AM WASHINGTON ― Defense revenues of the top 100 defense companies in the world climbed for a fourth straight year, pushed upward by U.S. defense spending growth combined with strong foreign military sales. Fiscal 2019 defense revenues recorded in Defense News' Top 100 list totaled $524 billion, up about 7 percent from $488 billion in fiscal 2018, according to numbers compiled by Defense News as part of the annual Top 100 list. “The single most striking thing about these data is the year-over-year growth, the median of which is 7 percent,” said Atlantic Council Senior Fellow Steven Grundman. “For an industry generally regarded as mature, revenue growth that runs at two times global GDP is downright sporty.” The defense industry remained top heavy, as the top 10 firms accounted for 50 percent of total defense revenue on this year's list, and the top 25 companies accounted for about 75 percent of the total. Geographically, U.S. firms made up seven of the top 10, and 10 of the top 25. The combined defense revenue of the 41 U.S. firms in the Top 100 list comprised more than half of the total defense revenue. China this year had five firms in the top 15 companies versus six last year. Eight Chinese firms made the Top 100 list this year, with a combined $95 billion in defense revenue for FY19 ― which is $11.7 billion shy of the list's total for Europe and Turkey. The Aviation Industry Corporation of China, which appeared with other Chinese firms for the first time last year, fell from No. 5 to No. 6, though its defense revenue grew by a percentage point over last year. China South Industries Group Corporation fell from No. 11 to No. 18, as its revenue declined 26 percent, from about $12 billion to around $9 billion. China is unquestionably a defense giant in the Asia-Pacific region, dwarfing its nine neighbors (excluding Russia) on the list. Their 2019 defense revenues totaled $21 billion. The combined revenues of the Chinese firms marks the country as the rising superpower it's billed to be in political and strategic circles, said Daniel Gouré, a senior vice president with the Lexington Institute. “For all the discussions we have been having over the last weeks and months about China as a potential threat and challenges, they are building all kinds of blue-water ship classes that mirror the U.S. Navy,” he said. “For a country that was once thought of as a continental or near-shore power, it's amazing the stuff they're building, and its reflected in these companies.” From Europe and Turkey, a NATO ally, there were 35 firms across the list. The combined defense revenue there comprised roughly 20 percent of the Top 100 total. Seven Turkish firms made the list, with FNSS Savunma Sistemleri A.S., and Havelsan A.S. joining the list at No. 98 and No. 99 respectively. For Russia, some past participants declined to provide data this year for unknown reasons. The two that participated made it into the list: Almaz-Antey placed 17th, with $9.2 billion in defense revenue for 2019, and Tactical Missiles Corporation JSC placed 35th, with $3.5 billion in defense revenue. The annual Defense News Top 100 list relies for the most part on self-reporting from companies, many of whom provide estimates rather than definitive data for their defense percentages. That means that while the list is the industry standard, the numbers come with some variance. Heritage firms dominate Lockheed Martin was a lock for No. 1, for the 21st year in a row, with defense revenue that represents nearly 11 percent of the total. Its defense revenue jumped 12 percent between FY18 and FY19, from $51 billion to $57 billion ― with Boeing trailing at No. 2 at $34 billion in defense revenue for FY19. Within the top five, General Dynamics climbed back from No. 6 last year, passing both Raytheon and Northrop Grumman. Northrop fell from No. 3 to No. 4, likely based on a full-year accounting of its acquisition of Orbital ATK in 2017, said analyst Roman Schweizer, managing director of Cowen and Company. GD led Northrop by $912 million in defense revenue, with Raytheon (5th place) trailing Northrop by $1.2 billion in defense revenue. Ten companies increased their defense revenue by $1 billion or more, and Lockheed Martin led the pack with a $6 billion boost. The merger between L3 Technologies (18th place last year) and Harris Corp. (26th place last year) saw a new entry, L3Harris Technologies, take the No. 9 spot, with $13.9 billion in defense revenue ― just ahead of United Technologies Corp., which acquired Rockwell Collins in 2018 and whose merger with Raytheon should be reflected in next year's list. At the same time, the data doesn't support the argument that the defense industry is growing progressively more concentrated, according to Grundman. “The top-quartile of firms account for exactly three-quarters of the revenue both in 2018 and 2019,” he said. “Looking back at the data for 2013, the top quartile took 73 percent of the revenue, but that's not appreciably less than last year.” Still, despite the Pentagon's push to work with nontraditional suppliers, the top of this year's list, and the list overall, is almost like the automotive sector, it's so dominated by familiar names, said Byron Callan, an analyst with Capital Alpha Partners. “The interesting thing is just the relative stability of this,” Callan said. “For all of DoD's emphasis to get new entrants into the sector, and reach out to innovative suppliers, you just don't see it. When you compare it to the technology sector, we're all using things made by companies that weren't even household names 10 years ago. ... Where is the Tesla [of the defense sector]?” It's not out of the question that the list changes over the next five years, if the U.S. Department of Defense and foreign militaries make good on their promises to boost innovation, Callan said. For all the DoD's discussion of the growing role of software, artificial intelligence and machine learning, there's no company known for those things on the list, Gouré observed. Beyond General Dynamics, which completed its acquisition of IT services giant CSRA in 2018, “AI, software, IT aren't there because they're still subcontractors,” Gouré said. “Microsoft and Amazon Web Services, they aren't anywhere on the list.” That's not to say there isn't massive spending on all of the above, but it remains a subcomponent within companies, and therefore not captured on the list, Gouré said. “If we keep saying it's the kill chain, the network matters and the country with the best AI will win, are we not investing enough, are we doing the right thing?” Gouré wondered. “There are more questions than answers.” (Booz Allen Hamilton, No. 26 this year, did win an $800 million Pentagon artificial intelligence contract. But as that occurred in May 2020, it will likely impact future lists.) For now, the large, multiplatform firms dominate and should continue to do so, even if government defense spending declines, Gouré said. “These guys are showing it's good to have a finger in many pies.” Furthermore, the data tend to contradict the conventional wisdom that defense is an industry of mostly large-scale, pure-play firms, according to Grundman. “In fact, the median [defense] revenue of the top 100 is only $2 billion. And on average, only slightly more than half each firm's revenue ... derives from defense sales,” he said. Flat-budget future? The consensus among analysts is that government defense spending will level off amid the coronavirus pandemic, and its effects as well as the result of the upcoming U.S. presidential election in November will be reflected in future lists. “Successful years of investment spending growth appears to be ending, but outlays are still growing due to the surge in spending over the last three years. But they are starting to taper significantly after this year,” Schweizer said. Schweizer sees foreign spending softening, at least in the short term due to COVID-19, but he predicts defense budgets, backlogs, outlays and foreign military sales will hold together for at least 12-18 months to help defense firms weather the unprecedented damage visiting the commercial aerospace sector. The biggest risk is the U.S. budget trajectory, which is likely to be flat, at best, or decline in mid-single digits, at worst, over the next five years, Schweitzer added. He anticipates a drop of 3-5 percent, but with the Pentagon's eye on Russia and China, the department will likely make trade-offs to protect core modernization areas. As global growth rates slow, future lists may see some familiar companies grow leaner. “These companies are going to figure out what their growth businesses are so they can shrink to grow,” Callan said. “They all say they're well positioned [for slower defense spending], but what the hell does that mean? They can't all be right.” Other notable moves included Reston, Virginia-based engineering and construction company Bechtel, which fell to No. 47 from No. 31 last year; the firm's defense revenue declined 39 percent, from $3.7 billion to $2.3 billion. In France, Safran's defense revenue jumped from $1.6 billion in FY18 to $4.4 billion in FY19, bumping it from No. 56 to No. 28. However, the company told Defense News that it attributes the large rise to a difference in calculation for this year's list. Since 2015, the data from Safran were made up of Safran Electronics & Defense activities. This year, the firm changed its approach by adding the military activities of the group's other subsidiaries. Also in France, Dassault nearly doubled its revenue from $2.9 billion in FY18 to $5.7 billion in FY19 ― jumping from No. 38 to No. 22. Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries vaulted back onto the list to No. 21, with $6.6 billion in defense revenue. However, it's worth noting that defense revenue numbers reflect awards made by the Japanese Ministry of Defense, which leads to more year-over-year volatility among Japanese firms. The three Israeli companies on this year's list — Elbit Systems, Israel Aerospace Industries and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems — moved up in the ranking. The sole South American company on the lsit, Embraer, also moved up, from No. 84 to No. 79. Meanwhile, the only non-U.S. North American company on this year's list — Canada's CAE — dropped four spots to No. 74, but its defense revenue grew by a percentage point. https://www.defensenews.com/top-100/2020/08/17/arms-trade-momentum-globalization-and-us-defense-spending-drive-defense-industry-growth
4 octobre 2018 | International, Aérospatial

Boeing Wins $63M Navy Deal for F/A & E/A-18 Aircraft Support
By Zacks Equity Research, Zacks.com The Boeing Company BA recently won a $62.7-million contract for providing inspections, Inner Wing Panel (IWP) modifications, and repairs for the F/A-18 E/F and EA-18G aircraft. Such designated efforts are expected to restore aircraft and IWP service life projections to new design specifications. Work related to the deal will be majorly carried out in Jacksonville, FL; St. Louis, MI; and Lemoore, CA. The entire task related to the deal is expected to get completed in September 2019. The deal was awarded by the Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland. A Brief Note on F/A-18 and E/A-18 Boeing's F/A-18 Block III Super Hornet is a twin-engine, supersonic, all weather multirole fighter jet. The U.S. Navy's tactical and air superiority aircraft is capable of performing virtually every mission in the tactical spectrum, including air superiority, day/night strike with precision-guided weapons, fighter escort, close air support, suppression of enemy air defenses, maritime strike, reconnaissance, forward air control and tanker missions. Whereas, the EA-18G Growler is the most advanced airborne electronic attack (AEA) platform, which operates from either an aircraft carrier or from land-bases. What's Favoring Boeing? Boeing, being one of the major players in the defense business, stands out among its peers by virtue of its broadly diversified programs, strong order bookings and solid backlog. Furthermore, the company's expertise lies in programs related to wide variety of aircraft components, repairs and modification works. Considering Boeing's combat-proven aerospace programs and associated services along with the rapidly growing need for military aircraft in light of the enhancing geopolitical uncertainties worldwide, the company witnesses a solid inflow of orders from Pentagon. These contract wins, in turn, boost top-line growth for the company's defense business segment. Evidently, in second-quarter 2018, revenues at the Boeing Defense, Space & Security (BDS) segment, which manufactures military jets like F/A-18, EA-18 Growler and its related components, increased 9% year over year to $5.59 billion. In line with this, we may expect the latest contract win to help this unit deliver similar top-line performance, in coming quarters. Meanwhile, toward the end of June 2018, the U.S. Senate approved the fiscal 2019 defense budget that provisions for major war fighting investments worth $21.7 billion for aircraft. Boeing, being the largest aircraft manufacturer in the United States, will surely be a significant beneficiary from the budget, which further includes an investment plan of $2 billion for procuring 24 F/A-18E/F aircraft. Such inclusions reflect solid growth prospects for the BDS segment, which, in turn, are likely to boost Boeing's profit margin. Price Movement Boeing's stock has gained 53.4% in the past 12 months compared with the industry 's growth of 25.1%. The outperformance was primarily led by the robust worldwide demand for its commercial aircraft and military jets. Full article: https://www.nasdaq.com/article/boeing-wins-63m-navy-deal-for-fa-ea-18-aircraft-support-cm1032450
11 octobre 2019 | International, Aérospatial

NGC Demos Advanced Capabilities at Northern Edge 2019
Northrop Grumman's air dominance technologies bring new capabilities to U.S. warfighters Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC), together with military partners at Northern Edge 2019, successfully displayed advanced capabilities in air-to-air, air-to-surface and maritime tactical scenarios that address key warfighting gaps in advanced strike; intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR); and electronic warfare. Northrop Grumman's reconfigurable flight test aircraft significantly reduces the technology development process, bringing advanced capabilities to warfighters faster, more affordably and reliably. “Northrop Grumman is developing agile and affordable technologies that address the advanced strike, ISR and multi-domain command and control needs for our customers,” said Tom Jones, vice president and general manager, airborne C4ISR systems, Northrop Grumman. “Using reconfigurable flight-test aircraft outfitted with advanced sensors and cognitive artificial intelligence capability at events such as Northern Edge speeds up the development process significantly.” Northern Edge is the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command's biennial joint training exercise, held May 13-24 at the Joint Pacific Alaska Range Complex and the Gulf of Alaska. It involves all U.S. military services and agency partners, as well as virtual participants from stateside and overseas bases. The exercise is designed to enhance air warfare and interoperability among the services in a highly contested environment. Celebrating 10 years of participation at Northern Edge this year, Northrop Grumman has consistently demonstrated leading technology capabilities at the joint military-industry exercise. Innovative solutions tested at earlier Northern Edge exercises include auto target recognition and combat identification; advanced electronic protection and attack; cognitive mission computing; maritime search and track; long-range surface-to-air missile detection; and infrared search and track. Northrop Grumman also demonstrated Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) gateways and multi-level secure live, virtual and constructive training. Many of these capabilities are now fielded on U.S. platforms, providing a significant warfighting advantage to Air Force, Navy and Marine aircrews. Northrop Grumman is a leading global security company providing innovative systems, products and solutions in autonomous systems, cyber, C4ISR, space, strike, and logistics and modernization to customers worldwide. Please visit news.northropgrumman.com and follow us on Twitter, @NGCNews , for more information. http://www.asdnews.com/news/defense/2019/07/10/ngc-demos-advanced-capabilities-at-northern-edge-2019

Toutes les nouvelles