15 mai 2024 | International, Aérospatial
House bill: Time to put Air Force’s ‘flying car’ concept into action
The Air Force has experimented with electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft under the Agility Prime program in recent years.
14 avril 2020 | International, Naval
US Navy should turn to unmanned systems to track and destroy submarines
By: Bryan Clark
Anti-submarine warfare, or ASW, is one of a navy's most difficult missions. Sonars detect submarines with only a fraction of the range and precision possible using radars or visual sensors against ships above the water. Submarines can carry missiles able to hit targets hundreds of miles away, requiring searches to cover potentially vast areas. And the torpedoes that aircraft and surface ships use to sink submarines need to be dropped right on the submarine to have any chance of sinking it.
These challenges led the Cold War-era U.S. Navy to rely on a sequential approach for tracking enemy submarines. Electronic or visual intelligence sources would report when an opposing sub was leaving port, and it would hopefully get picked up by sound surveillance, or SOSUS — sonar arrays on the sea floor — as it entered chokepoints, like that between Iceland and the United Kingdom.
Patrol aircraft would then attempt to track the submarine using sonar-equipped buoys, or sonobuoys, and eventually turn it over to a U.S. nuclear attack submarine, or SSN, for long-term trail.
The U.S. ASW model broke down, however, in the decades following the Cold War as U.S. submarine and patrol aircraft fleets shrank, the Chinese submarine fleet grew, and Russian submarines became quieter. Today, the U.S. Navy devotes enormous effort to tracking each modern Russian submarine in the western Atlantic.
During the 2000s, the strategy of full-spectrum ASW started an essential shift in goals, from being able to sink submarines when needed to being able to defeat submarines by preventing them from accomplishing their mission.
Full-spectrum ASW and other current concepts, however, still rely on aircraft, ships and submarines for sensing, tracking and attacking enemy submarines to bottle them up near their own coasts or sink them in the open ocean. Although SOSUS has improved since the Cold War and is joined by a family of new deployable seabed arrays, the next link in the U.S. ASW chain is still a P-8A Poseidon patrol aircraft, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, or a U.S. SSN. These platforms are in short supply around the world, cost hundreds of millions to billions of dollars to buy and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a day to operate.
With defense budgets flattening and likely to decrease in a post-COVID-19 environment, the U.S. Navy cannot afford to continue playing “little kid soccer” in ASW, with multiple aircraft or ships converging to track and destroy submarines before they can get within missile range of targets like aircraft carriers or bases ashore.
The Navy should instead increase the use of unmanned systems in ASW across the board, which cost a fraction to buy and operate compared to their manned counterparts. Unmanned aircraft could deploy sonobuoys or stationary sonar arrays, and unmanned undersea or surface vehicles could tow passive sonar arrays. Unmanned surface vehicles could also deploy low-frequency active sonars like those carried by U.S. undersea surveillance ships that can detect or drive off submarines from dozens of miles away.
Although autonomous platforms will not have the onboard operators of a destroyer or patrol aircraft, improved processing is enabling small autonomous sensors to rapidly identify contacts of interest. Line-of-sight or satellite communications can connect unmanned vehicles and sensors with operators ashore or on manned ASW platforms.
A significant shortfall of today's ASW concepts is “closing the kill chain” by attacking enemy submarines. Air- or surface-launched weapons have short ranges and small warheads that reduce their ability to sink a submarine, but their cost and size prevents them from being purchased and fielded in large numbers.
Unmanned systems could address this shortfall in concert with a new approach to ASW that suppresses enemy submarines rather than destroying them. During World War II and the Cold War, allied navies largely kept submarines at bay through aggressive tracking and harassing attacks, or by forcing opposing SSNs to protect ballistic missile submarines.
The modern version of submarine suppression would include overt sensing operations combined with frequent torpedo or depth-bomb attacks. Although unmanned vehicles frequently launch lethal weapons today under human supervision, the small weapons that would be most useful for submarine suppression could be carried in operationally relevant numbers by medium-altitude, long-endurance UAVs or medium unmanned surface vessels. Moreover, the large number and long endurance of unmanned vehicles would enable the tracking and suppressing of many submarines over a wide area at lower risk than using patrol aircraft or destroyers.
Today the U.S. Navy uses unmanned systems in ASW primarily to detect submarines. To affordably conduct peacetime surveillance and effectively defeat submarines in wartime, the Navy should increase the role of unmanned systems. Using manned platforms to conduct command and control, and unmanned vehicles to track, deter and engage submarines, could significantly reduce the costs of ASW operations and enable the Navy to scale its ASW efforts to match the growing threat posed by submarine fleets.
Bryan Clark is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. He is an expert in naval operations, electronic warfare, autonomous systems, military competitions and war gaming.
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31 janvier 2020 | International, Aérospatial
Defexpo 2020: UVision Announces a Joint Venture with Aditya Precitech for the Manufacture and Marketing of its Loitering Munitions in India
January 29, 2020 UVision Air Ltd. - a global leader in the area of Loitering Munitions Systems of all sizes for a variety of missions‒ strengthens its presence in India and announces a joint venture with Aditya Precitech, an Indian company, for the manufacture and marketing of loitering munitions under the brand PALM (Precision Attack Loitering Munition) Hero Systems. These systems are already in service and combat-proven. AVision, the company formed under the joint venture agreement, addresses the needs of the Indian defense and paramilitary sectors. AVision will explore various opportunities in India for Loitering Munitions Systems with the intention of initiating a full range of activities including the design, manufacture, sales, maintenance, support, upgrading, and lifecycle management. The partners will also maintain a supply of spare parts for the warranty and post-warranty periods for current and future versions of the smart munitions systems. AVision will be responsible for and will provide the following: design, development manufacture and maintenance support for all PALM Hero series, marketing strategy development and implementation; facilities for the new company's operations; human resources and personnel; supply chain creation and implementation; platform integration; and, after-sale training and customer support services. Commenting on the Joint Venture, Shane Cohen, VP Sales & Marketing at UVision and AVision Board Member, said, “We are very pleased to have partnered with Aditya, a highly respected company with extensive experience as development partner for many of India's Defense Research and Development Organization's (DRDO) most important projects. Aditya has a skilled team able to produce a wide range of complex components, and is an ideal partner for our innovative, cost-effective loitering munitions systems designed for the battlefield of the future.” Regarding this partnership, Aditya's representative and Avision's CEO, Col. (ret.) Anil Yadav, remarked, “This Joint Venture is a major step forward enabling India to achieve significantly higher levels of self-sufficiency in the defense sector with the transfer of state-of-art cutting-edge technologies for the futuristic loitering munitions. We look forward to producing the full range of loitering munitions, which will be offered to India's military, paramilitary forces as an effective response to multiple threats with minimal collateral damage.” The PALM HERO Series and Simulation System will be showcased at the AVision booth Hall 1 R48 At Defexpo, we will also display the entire PALM HERO Series of Lethal Loitering Systems highlighting the high-precision PALM Hero-30 and the Long-Range PALM Hero-400EC as well as the recently launched PALM Hero-120 a modular, customizable loitering weapon system fitted for a variety of missions. The company will also demonstrate its advanced, user-friendly simulation system, allowing a hands-on experience for visitors. The PALM HERO Simulator is used for training forces on the HERO systems, thus avoiding the costs, risks and constraints inherent in live-fire missions. About UVision Air Ltd. UVision Air Ltd. designs and manufactures innovative, cost-effective, unmanned loitering munition systems for customers worldwide. With cutting-edge technology and 30 years of extensive field experience by a professional management team, UVision delivers highly unique aerodynamic platform configurations. The Hero series is comprised of advanced loitering munitions systems (Hero-20, Hero-30, Hero-70, Hero-120, Hero-250, Hero-400EC, Hero-900, Hero-1250), designed for different missions at various ranges using warheads of various types. The company's solutions are tailored for unique flight qualities, precision attack munitions, advanced airborne guidance and navigation systems, and C4 stations fully integrated with communication links. Extensive R&D has yielded a versatile series of loitering munitions systems that are suitable for tactical and strategic targets ‒ whether for short, medium or long ranges – and with a variety of warheads to ensure maximum mission effectiveness. With units deployed and field-proven by the Israel Defense Forces and other customers – including leading NATO countries – UVision is fully committed to providing its extensive network of partners and customers located around the world with high quality and fast-response support. About Aditya Precitech Aditya Precitech Pvt. Ltd. is an Indian MSME company which has been involved in almost all missile projects of the DRDO as a development partner to provide prototypes of critical subsystems and undertake serial production of the same. Over the years, Aditya has developed a core design and development team capable of independently developing components based on customer specifications in mechanical, electro-mechanical and electronic segments. Some of the innovative products from Aditya include Electro-Mechanical Actuators (Rotary as well as Linear), DC – DC convertors and Brushless DC Motors, apart from a whole range of fins, wings, control surfaces and motor casings for all types of missiles and rockets as well as some satellites. For more information on AVision, please visit www.avisionsystems.com Contact Details: Ms. Ronit Konfidan Marketing Communications Manager UVision Air Ltd. Email: ronit.k@uvisionuav.com Mobile: +972-52-3786665