US Army receives mixed signals from industry on ‘radio as a service’

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  28 août 2018 | International, C4ISR

  Army announces winners of electronic warfare challenge

  By: Kelsey Atherton A platypus, several Australians and a thundering panda walk into an electromagnetic spectrum, then leave with $150,000. The result is, potentially, a technique and a tool that will allow soldiers to discover what signals in a war zone are relevant to their mission and what are merely noise. The Army Rapid Capabilities Office announced Aug. 27 the winners of the Army Signal Classification Challenge, a competition for artificial intelligence and machine learning with the goal of creating a thinking machine that can accurately classify signals on the fly. Platypus Aerospace, a team from the federally funded Aerospace Corporation, won the event, taking home $100,000. A group of data scientists from Australia competing as TeamAU won $30,000, and a team from Motorola Solutions named THUNDERING PANDA placed third, winning $20,000. These winners beat out a pool of over 150 teams from universities, industry, laboratories and government. The challenge ran from April 30 through Aug. 13. Participants had a 90-day period to develop a model and train on data sets provided by the Rapid Capabilities Office. After that, the models were tested against two data sets ranging in complexity. For the challenge, the Army office said that “the classic signal detection process is no longer efficient in understanding the vast amount of information presented to electronic warfare officers on the battlefield” thanks to the multiplicity of satellite signals, radar signals, phones and other devices transmitting across the electromagnetic spectrum. The understated goal is that the winners' creation is needed not just for a hypothetical future battlefield, or even any of the long-running active theaters where soldiers see combat today. Instead, as noted in the release, “this was the office's first competitive challenge, which grew from the fielding of electronic warfare prototypes to address operational needs in Europe earlier this year.” That “operational need in Europe” may refer to the electronic warfare taking place in Ukraine, which has become something of an open laboratory for both Russia and the United States. Or it might be a broader acknowledgement of the potential threat picture in the region generally. In June, the Army conducted an electronic attack within Latvia as part of a NATO training exercise. The Rapid Capability Office already outfitted the Army with several new electronic warfare tools for countering Russian electronic warfare in Europe, and in July announced that it was bringing those capabilities home to field with a unit stateside. Research into a versatile, flexible artificial intelligence that can find electronic warfare specialists the interesting signals amidst the irrelevant noise is likely to continue. The Rapid Capabilities Office will announce a Phase 2 for the program later this year. https://www.c4isrnet.com/electronic-warfare/2018/08/27/army-announces-winners-of-ai-for-electronic-warfare-challenge

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  6 juillet 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  Australia plans US$190 billion defence boost over decade

  Rod McGuirk The Associated PressStaff CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA -- Australia's prime minister on Wednesday announced 270 billion Australian dollars (US$190 billion) in additional defence spending over the next decade, which will include long-range missiles and other capabilities to hold enemies further from its shores. Prime Minister Scott Morrison warned that the post-pandemic world will become more dangerous and announced a renewed focus on Australia's immediate region, although its military would be open to joining U.S.-led coalitions as it did in Afghanistan and Iraq in campaigns that were in the Australian national interest. Australia had not seen such economic and strategic uncertainty in the region since the Second World War for reasons including tensions between the United States and China, he said. "This simple truth is this: Even as we stare down the COVID pandemic at home, we need to also prepare for a post-COVID world that is poorer, that is more dangerous and that is more disorderly," Morrison said. Tensions over territorial claims were rising between India and China and in the South China Sea, Morrison said. "The risk of miscalculation and even conflict is heightened," Morrison said. "Regional military modernization is at an unprecedented rate." "Relations between China and the United States are fractious at best as they compete for political, economic and technological supremacy," he added. Rory Medcalf, head of the Australian National University's National Security College, said the announcement showed Australia was "getting serious about deterrence and the prospect of armed conflict in the Indo-Pacific region." "It was only a matter of time before the Australian government made a choice about the kind of defence force that we're going to have in the 21st century with the rapid deterioration in the strategic environment in recent years," Medcalf said. "The government has accepted that the Australian military needs to be able to attempt to deter armed conflict through its capabilities and to be able to fight in our region if we have to," he added. Australia will invest in more lethal and long-range capabilities that will hold enemies further from its shores, including longer-range strike weapons and offensive cyber capabilities. To increase maritime strike capability, Australia will buy the AGM-158C anti-ship missile from the U.S. Navy at an estimated cost of AU$800 million, the government said. The new missile is a significant upgrade from Australia's current AGM-84 air-launched Harpoon anti-ship missile, which was introduced in the early 1980s. It has a range of 124 kilometres (77 miles), while the missile being purchased can exceed 370 kilometres (230 miles). The new missile will initially be used on the F/A-18F Super Hornet jet fighters but can be used by other defence aircraft. Training on the weapon system would begin next year, the government said. Australia will also invest in advanced naval strike capabilities, including long-range anti-ship and land strike weapons, and will buy long-range rocket artillery and missile systems to give the army an operational strike capability. It also plans to develop and test high-speed, long-range strike weapons, including hypersonic weapons. The announcement comes as Australia's relationship with China, its most important trading partner, is under extraordinary strain over Australian calls for an independent investigation of the pandemic. The United States, Australia's most important security partner since the Second World War, remains "the foundation of our defence policy," Morrison said. "Of course we can't match all the capabilities in our region," Morrison said. "That is why we need to ensure that our deterrence capabilities play to our strengths." https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/australia-plans-us-190-billion-defence-boost-over-decade-1.5006902

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  14 juillet 2024 | International, C4ISR, Sécurité

  AT&T Confirms Data Breach Affecting Nearly All Wireless Customers

  AT&T confirms major data breach affecting wireless customers. Hackers accessed call records and text interactions. Learn about the impact and security