US Army pushes Air Launched Effects development with $30 million in contracts

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  26 novembre 2019 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  Fusil anti-drone, camionnette espion... Milipol, le grand bazar de la sécurité

  HASSAN MEDDAH Des allées pleines de visiteurs, des exposants toujours plus nombreux, des stands truffés d'innovations... La 21eme édition du salon Milipol dédiée à la sécurité et la sûreté des Etats, qui se tient à Paris du 19 au 23 novembre, fait encore le plein. A Paris Nord Villepinte, du 19 au 23 novembre, la 21eme édition de Milipol, qui vise 30 000 visiteurs professionnels, souligne le dynamisme du marché de la sécurité et de la sûreté au niveau mondial mais en France également. Forte de 130 000 personnes, la filière tricolore génère un chiffre d'affaires de 30 milliards d'euros dont un tiers réalisé à l'export. Outre son cycle de conférences, ce salon s'impose comme le véritable bazar de la sécurité. Les acheteurs professionnels, comme les 170 délégations étrangères qui ont fait le déplacement, ont pu trouver de quoi assurer leurs besoins en protection. Dans les stands, on trouve de tout... ou presque. 1/ Le fusil électromagnétique anti-drone de la gendarmerie Les gendarmes exposent sur le stand du ministère de l'Intérieur leur dispositif de lutte anti-drone. Une mallette équipée d'un dispositif rayonnant permet de détecter toute intrusion dans un rayon de 5 km. Le gendarme arrose alors le drone avec un fusil brouilleur émettant des ondes électromagnétiques avec une portée d'un km environ et dans un cône de 70° d'ouverture environ. Les ondes émises brouillent le GPS et neutralisent les communications entre l'opérateur du drone et son engin, forçant ce dernier à se poser. Cette solution a été conçue par la société italienne CPM Elettronica. 2/ La camionnette espion La société Intellexa expose un van d'un genre très particulier. En plus de ses deux passagers, il embarque un véritable centre de contrôle et d'espionnage pour mener des missions de renseignements dans le plus grand secret : caméras pour filmer les allées et venues dans les environs à travers les vitres teintées, antennes d'interception à 360° des communications sans-fil (Wifi, 2G, 3G, 4G...), outils d'investigation et d'infection numérique à distance... 3/ Des fusils en veux-tu, en voilà Sur le stand de l'armurier italien Beretta, se côtoient des armes pour snipper pour atteindre des cibles à plus de 2km, des armes semi automatiques capables de tirer plus de 800 coups par minute, des fusils d'assaut... 4/ Le laboratoire mobile d'analyse ADN Pour identifier des victimes au plus près du terrain lors d'une catastrophe (crash d'avion, ouragan, terrorisme...), la société TraceIP a conçu un laboratoire mobile d'analyse ADN. Opérationnel deux heures après l'arrivée sur site, il peut analyser une vingtaine d'échantillons en 30 minutes, gr'ce à une innovation développée et brevetée par l'Institut de recherche criminelle de la Gendarmerie nationale. 5/ Le drone dopé à l'intelligence artificielle Drone Volt présente sur son stand un drone de surveillance. L'appareil embarque deux cameras, l'une offrant un zoom optique *30, l'autre thermique pour la surveillance nocturne. Les images traitées par un moteur d'intelligence artificielle, identifient les formes, détectent des plaques d'immatriculation... Pour gagner en robustesse, son fuselage est constitué d'une structure carbone monobloc. 6/ Le détecteur de snippers La PME française Cilas présente sur son stand un système de détection avant-tir de sniper basé sur l'effet «œil de chat». Le laser du dispositif balaie une zone à risque préalablement définie envoyant un rayon invisible susceptible d'être réfléchi par la lunette du fusil du sniper ou ses jumelles. Le système permet alors de localiser le tireur jusqu'à 1 km de distance en fonction de la taille de l'optique détectée. Il est déployable en une dizaine de minutes. 7/ Le dispositif anti-voiture bélier Stopper net un véhicule de 7,5 tonnes lancé à 80 km/heure. C'est la capacité du dispositif contre les voitures bélier développé par la société Kopp. Ce ralentisseur à double sens d'arrêt est composé de deux peignes métalliques biseautés capables de relever à 50 cm de hauteur en moins de 3 secondes. Cet obstacle escamotable nécessite très peu de génie civil, se fondant dans la chaussée à 50 cm de profondeur. 8/ Les smartphones grand public avec une sécurité militaire Ercom, société récemment rachetée par Thales, présente à Milipol des téléphones sécurisés permettant l'échange de données confidentielles gr'ce à une carte SIM capable de chiffrer les appels, les SMS, les data.... Basée sur des smartphones Samsung, l'offre vise les collaborateurs des gouvernements et des grands groupes pour protéger leurs données sensibles en mobilité, et en cas de perte, de vol et d'écoute. Ces appareils bénéficient de l'agrément Diffusion Restreinte de l'OTAN et l'ANSSI, l'Agence nationale pour la sécurité des systèmes d'information. https://www.usinenouvelle.com/editorial/en-images-fusil-anti-drone-camionnette-espion-milipol-le-grand-bazar-de-la-securite.N906149

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  31 août 2018 | International, Aérospatial, Naval

  US Navy selects builder for new MQ-25 Stingray aerial refueling drone

  By: Valerie Insinna and David B. Larter WASHINGTON — Boeing has seized the Navy's MQ-25 tanker drone contract, a major victory for a company that has in recent years struggled to win combat aircraft awards, marking a major step toward a new kind of carrier air wing. The $805 million contract covers the design, development, fabrication, test and delivery of four Stingray aircraft, a program the service expects will cost about $13 billion overall for 72 aircraft, said Navy acquisition boss James Geurts. The award to Boeing kicks off what the Navy would is aiming to be a six-year development effort moving toward a 2024 declaration of initial operational capability. At the end, it will mark a historic integration of drones into the Navy's carrier air wing. The Navy has traversed a long and complicated road in trying to develop a UAS that would fly on and off its aircraft carriers. It first envisioned UCLASS as a surveillance and strike asset, but the program was cancelled in 2016 after stakeholders including the Navy, the office of the secretary of defense and Congress publicly butted heads over the requirements. Instead, the effort to field a carrier drone was reborn that year as an unmanned tanker that could double the range of the carrier air wing. “I think we'll look back on this day and recognize it as a pretty historic event,” said Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson. “From an operational standpoint we are putting our feet in the water in a big way of integrating unmanned with manned into the air wing,” adding that getting the Stingray into the fleet will free up the Hornets now dedicated to the tanking mission While the MQ-25 contract would have been a massive win for any of the competitors, which also included Lockheed Martin and General Atomics, it holds special meaning for Boeing. Boeing has a long history in both naval aviation and the tanking mission, but its Phantom Works advanced technology wing has failed in recent decades to win high-stakes awards like the joint strike fighter and long-range strike bomber contracts. Today's win is a big step in toward reversing the trend. Boeing and General Atomics were widely seen as the favorites for the MQ-25 contest, with each firm offering wing-body-tail designs that were heavily influenced by the company's work in the precursor to the program, the Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike effort. Full article: https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2018/08/30/us-navy-selects-builder-for-new-mq-25-stingray-aerial-refueling-drone

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  9 juillet 2020 | International, Aérospatial

  US Air Force ready to test tech for new battle management system

  Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — The Air Force is ramping up its efforts to test and field a suite of new hardware and software that will become the military's command and control backbone. Since February, the Air Force has published three separate broad area announcements seeking technologies that could be funneled inside the Advanced Battle Management System, the service's effort to seamlessly connect all of the Department of Defense's equipment and pool together its data to form a complete picture of the battlespace. Then, in May and July, it awarded the first two mega-batches of ABMS contracts, with 46 companies in total winning $1000 and a chance to compete for more money down the road. “We want a wide variety of companies, and we definitely want fresh blood in the ABMS competition,” Will Roper, the Air Force's acquisition executive, told reporters on May 14. “There is a lot that can be contributed from companies that are commercially focused, that know a lot about data, that know a lot about machine learning and AI and know a lot about analytics. Those are going to be the most important parts of the Advanced Battle Management System.” ABMS is the Air Force's piece of the military's fledgling Joint All Domain Command and Control concept. The vision involves networking every shooter and sensor to a cloud computing environment and using artificial intelligence to ensure that relevant information is immediately sent to whichever platform needs it. In practice, that could look like compiling data from a Global Hawk drone and a naval destroyer to help cue a fighter jet to lock its missile on a nearby target. While the Air Force has some big picture ideas of the products that will comprise ABMS — such as cloud computing tools, machine learning technologies and apps — it hasn't set firm requirements or laid out exactly what products it needs to build out the system. Through the BAAs, the government plans on bringing in companies using different styles of contracts and agreements, which Roper said will allow startups, commercial tech firms and other nontraditional players to “find their fit with this mission.” Those companies will then bring their products and technologies for week-long field tests, held three times a year. The next phase of experiments is planned to start on Aug. 31. While the service had already performed one experiment with technologies that could become part of ABMS and had put several dozen companies on contract prior to May, the Air Force sees the broad area announcements as vehicles to capture a wider array of technology firms that may not already do business with the government, Roper said. Each BAA has multiple rolling deadlines, with the Air Force hoping to award contracts anywhere from four to six weeks after a company submits a proposal. The first announcement seeks out proposals for traditional indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contracts. The second solicits ideas and technologies through a two-step process, where industry would submit information about the concept before being invited to submit a formal proposal, which the service says will allow participation from contractors “who are unsure about how they want to proceed but want to share their idea.” The third announcement invites companies with existing products to join ongoing ABMS technology demonstrations — at no cost to the government — through cooperative research and development agreements. The service also held a series of industry days, starting May 13, to help answer questions about the effort, especially from businesses that don't usually work with the Defense Department. “We had over a hundred companies just in the first day, and we are expecting more than 300 before the end of this first event,” Roper said. “Three hundred companies for the first industry day ... is a good start. That's certainly broader than the number of defense primes that we have or even the major suppliers.” Each of the announcements specify seven broad areas where the service is seeking new technologies or ideas: Digital architecture, standards and concepts: The Air Force is looking for digital modeling and simulation technologies, trade studies and other standards development tools and processes that it can use to map out the entire ABMS architecture virtually and test how it would work in practice. Sensor integration: In essence, the service wants any hardware or software that will allow different equipment to share data. “A key interest of ABMS is the compatibility and interoperability capabilities through the use of open interfaces to enable improved control of systems and the processing of their data,” the service said in the BAA. Data: The Air Force is also interested in “cloud-based data repositories” that could pass information across domains to the different services. These libraries of data points will be “meta tagged,” analyzed and then fused using AI algorithms to help inform military decision makers. Secure processing: The service needs technologies that will be able to move the appropriate data across technologies with different security levels, ensuring that classified information stays protected while sharing what is feasible. It also includes deployment, training and support services for all devices and processing environments. Connectivity: These tools include line-of-sight and beyond line-of-sight communications networks, as well as technologies that can turn a platform into a data node, reduce latency, provide improved anti-jamming capabilities or other functions that improve the speed and breadth of communications gear. Applications: iPhone analogies have become Defense Department clichés at this point, but the Air Force is hoping to commission the design and development of apps to process, fuse and help present data to different audiences across domains. Effects integration: These involve networked weapons that can be integrated with existing platforms for a greater combined effect. “This includes, but is not limited to smart munitions and low-cost autonomous platforms” that can carry out functions such as data relay. The Air Force is slated to spend $300 million on the Advanced Battle Management System through fiscal year 2021, according to the Government Accountability Office, which has also warned that the nontraditional structure of the program could put it “at greater risk for schedule delays, cost growth, and integration issues.” Preston Dunlap, the Air Force's chief architect charged with overseeing the ABMS effort, said the the price of technologies will undeniably be an important criteria, and the service will try to reduce costs by using affordable and readily available commercial products whenever possible. “That's one of the core principles that we have to manage costs,” he said during a May 7 event hosted by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. “We're able to take advantage of the commercial pressures and marketplace to keep the costs down. That's different. Normally it's flipped. If we're the primary customer here, we've got to be very concerned about cost growth associated with that. Right now, in some sense, we're the small buyer.” While the Air Force will better be able estimate the total cost of ABMS as experiments go on, the current focus of the effort is figuring out how to inject innovative commercial tech into the military system as quickly as it becomes available, Dunlap said. “I'm less worried at the moment about some of those cost issues because if we're in that cycle we're probably not doing it right,” he said. https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/c2-comms/2020/07/08/us-air-force-ready-to-test-tech-for-new-battle-management-system/