9 décembre 2019 | International, Aérospatial, C4ISR
By: Valerie Insinna
ORLANDO, Fla. — The U.S. Air Force wants to tap into the augmented and virtual reality technologies that are proliferating in the commercial market, but the service has run into a problem: Many have parts from China, limiting their ability to be used by the U.S. military in operational environments.
“Can we not have an AR [augmented reality] solution that's made in China? I don't think that's good for us,” Col. Gerard Ryan, chief of the Air Force's operational training infrastructure division, said during a panel discussion Tuesday at the Interservice/Industry, Training, Simulation and Education Conference.
“I don't think the security policy is going to pass. And I say that sarcastically, but it's true. If we're going to use a gaming engine, let's make sure it's not made by a foreign country that we don't like,” he added.
The Air Force is dipping its toes into using virtual reality through its Pilot Training Next program, which seeks to get airmen through basic pilot training more quickly and cheaply. While the PTN program is currently considered an experiment, with only a handful of airmen participating at any given time, the Air Force has already shown it may be able to shave months off the existing training timeline by supplementing live flights spent in the T-6 trainer with virtual ones using Vive virtual reality headsets and flight simulation software.
An unclassified environment like basic pilot training is a perfect place for the Air Force to use the augmented and virtual reality devices currently on the market. But for such products to ever see use by fighter and bomber pilots — or any operator that deals with secure information — the service must be sure that no part of the device is made by China, or any other foreign entity that could insert technology that allows for data collection.
The Air Force has begun talking to companies about its concerns, Ryan said. The hope is those firms can examine their supply chains and shift away from buying Chinese components.
“I've talked to some people in industry. A smaller company has said they've found a set of goggles that's American-made. I'm like: ‘Great, you're the first person to tell me that. The only one so far, too,' ” Ryan said.
Another challenge is connecting commercial devices in a classified environment, where Bluetooth and Wi-Fi use may be restricted.
“I've talked to one company that has figured [it] out. They have a system where it's a backpack laptop. So it's a direct connect to the goggles,” Ryan said. “Unfortunately it's more expensive, probably, to do that. It's probably more challenging to find the parts.”
When augmented or virtual reality systems can be brought into classified environments, they may not be flexible enough for quick reconfiguration to complement different training scenarios, said Col. David Nyikos, Air Combat Command's deputy director of operations.
“AR/VR is super cool,” he said during the panel. “But now you need it to evolve, you need it to reprogram to adapt to whatever mission rehearsal you're coming up with. Maybe tonight you're going to go out with guys from AFSOC [Air Force Special Operations Command] working with some Norwegian SOF [special operations forces], working with some Afghans. You've got to be able to train together to rehearse that. We don't have that right now.”
12 novembre 2023 | International, Aérospatial
Italy's state-controlled defence and aerospace group Leonardo is aiming to join the German next-generation Leopard 2 tank programme, CEO Roberto Cingolani said on Thursday.
11 août 2020 | International, Aérospatial
Interconnectivity between remote carriers and Eurofighter Typhoons has been successfully proven for the first time during a live exercise. During the recent German Air Force Timber Express exercise over Northern Germany and the North Sea, the Airbus Defence and Space remote carrier technology in a multi-data link environment was demonstrated with real fighter aircraft. The remote carriers were not only connected with all tactical combat aircraft of the Air Force, but could also receive and executed orders without the need for technical modifications to the aircraft. This marks a first in Europe and is also a further milestone towards a future combat air system (FCAS). The communications, which also included Tornado fighters and NATO cooperative ESM Operations, were established within the framework of existing IT security regulations and NATO classification levels. The remote carriers which currently use the Compact Airborne Networking Data Link (CANDL), were successfully connected to Link16, the operational tactical data link of the German Air Force. A further step was the demonstration of interoperability with the NATO concept of Co-operative ESM Operations (CESMO). This is a reconnaissance network spanning several branches of the armed forces aimed at locating threat systems in the electromagnetic spectrum in real time. Airbus has succeeded in integrating the remote carriers as full component in the CESMO reconnaissance network. The simulated reconnaissance results of the remote carriers were made immediately available to the CESMO Fusion Element during the exercise and merged in real time with other reconnaissance results such as those of a flying Tornado ECR. https://www.defenseworld.net/news/27608#.XzK7wShKiUk
18 octobre 2021 | International, Aérospatial
The agreement will allow AFRL and Orbit Fab to share information as the company prepares to launch its orbital refueling operations.