26 mai 2024 | International, C4ISR
DIU sees new portfolio deepening ties between labs, commercial firms
The head of the new emerging tech portfolio said the goal is bring "DIU flavor" to the S&T community.
27 décembre 2018 | International, C4ISR
Why the Pentagon’s cyber innovation could fall behind
By: Justin Lynch
Silicon Valley is the home to the transistor and the birthplace of the IT industry. Boston is the home of prominent universities and technology companies such as Raytheon and Boston Scientific.
So where will the country's hub of cybersecurity innovation reside? A new paper argues that a nucleus of new cybersecurity technologies may struggle to form in the United States.
Because the Department of Defense's research facilities are dispersed throughout the country and located in smaller metropolitan regions, the Army is in danger of stagnating when it comes to technology innovation, a Dec. 18 paper in the Army's Cyber Defense Review argued.
“Without immediate, bold action, the Army will miss its best opportunity to seize the initiative in the current Cyber Cold War,” wrote Col. Stoney Trent, an Army official who now works for the Pentagon's top IT officer in the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center. “The Secretary of Defense fully understands the need for dramatic improvement, and fifteen years of Army acquisition failures have created the crisis necessary for change.”
Trent took aim at the Army's decision to move its cyber headquarters to Fort Gordon, Georgia, saying it “lacks most of the characteristics that have attracted technologists to other innovation regions.”
“Limited public infrastructure and services, sparse employment options, a humid subtropical climate, a lack of a private research university, and distance from urban centers will likely delay the emergence of innovative technologists in Augusta-Richmond County,” he wrote.
The state of Georgia, which is partnering with the Army on innovation near Fort Gordon, opened the first phase of a planned a $100 million dollar center earlier this year.
But while Trent argued that the Army has “limited input over the location of its installations and major activities,” because basing decisions are made by Congress, the dispersed locations are not ideal for improving the Pentagon's cyber prowess.
“Due to the location of Army research activities, very few scientists and engineers have access to the operators and analysts who will have to use the technologies under development,” he wrote.
On the contrary, large cities are engines of innovation because they have more local resources, a higher degree of subject area experts and a larger local workforce, Trent argued.
“This exponential increase in innovation is related to social networks and access to ideas, resources, and expertise in more populated urban settings.”
That makes locations like Moffett Air Field in Santa Clara County near Silicon Valley, Fort Devens near Boston, and Fort Hamilton in New York City as potential hubs that “have been left fallow,” Trent argued. “Decades of studies indicate the importance of a culture of experimentation. While our adversaries are experimenting, we must not dither.”
https://www.fifthdomain.com/dod/2018/12/26/why-the-pentagons-cyber-innovation-could-fall-behind
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30 novembre 2020 | International, C4ISR
US Army solicits bids for new cryptographic technologies
by Carlo Munoz The US Army is soliciting industry proposals to develop new cryptographic technologies, designed to ensure secure and compartmentalised communication capabilities in the wake of rapidly advancing cyber warfare and electronic warfare threats to those operations. The proposals being sought by the service's Program Manager Tactical Radios (PM TR), under Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communicate – Tactical (PEO C3T), will assist in the development of the advanced variant of the Next Generation Load Device-Medium (NGLD-M). Army officials anticipate developing and fielding a maximum of 265,000 NGLD-M units, at an estimated cost of USD850 million, according to the service's 18 November request for proposals (RFP). The new NGLD-M systems will replace the army's more than decade-old fleet of Simple Key Loaders (SKLs), which are designed to transfer, issue, fill, and manage electronic cryptographic keys to highly sensitive End-Cryptographic Units (ECUs), used by combat units to transmit and receive secure communications transmissions. Designed to meet the Type 1 cryptologic standards for secured data transmissions established by the National Security Agency (NSA), the NGLD-M will provide “the functionality of legacy fill devices while providing network connectivity to support Over the Network Key (OTNK) distribution”, the RFP stated. The new NGLD-M will also provide end users with a “reprogrammable crypto subcomponent to meet future modernisation requirements”, it added. “The NGLD-M will enable delivery of the strongest NSA-generated cryptographic keys to tactical, strategic, and enterprise network systems operating from secret to the highest levels of security classification,” according to a PEO C3T statement, issued shortly after the RFP's release. https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/us-army-solicits-bids-for-new-cryptographic-technologies
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12 décembre 2019 | International, Aérospatial
RFP Reveals Main Thrust Of U.S. Counter-Hypersonic Plan
Steve Trimble The main thrust of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency's counter-hypersonic strategy has just been revealed. The Regional Glide Phase Weapon System (RGPWS) prototype project demonstrates an interception capability against a medium- or intermediate-range threat. The MDA revealed the existence of the program in a request for prototype proposals released to industry on Dec. 5. An industry day for the RGPWS prototype project is scheduled on Dec. 18 at an MDA facility on Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. The RGPWS shows the MDA is moving faster to field at least a prototype counter-hypersonic capability than previous efforts suggested. The MDA had previously defined a concept for a Hypersonic Defense Weapon System (HDWS). The agency selected 21 proposals from industry in September 2018 for concept definition studies. MDA then down selected to five concepts in late August and early September 2019 for a nine-month-long concept refinement phase. The selected proposals included four kinetic concepts based on existing boosters and one Raytheon-directed energy system. The RGPWS is a parallel effort by MDA to the HDWS. The companies selected for the HDWS concept refinement phase could submit separate proposals for RGPWS. But other companies that were rejected after the concept definition phase or did not participate in HDWS can participate in the RGPWS, says Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), who was briefed on the program on Dec. 9. For example, Northrop Grumman's proposal was not down selected for the HDWS concept refinement phase, but it intends to compete for the RGPWS prototype project. “Northrop Grumman is engaged with MDA on Hypersonic Defense Regional Glide Phase Weapon System and will attend the upcoming industry day,” a spokesman says. Northrop has been developing kinetic and non-kinetic options for missile defense, including one concept in the latter category called the Terminal and Regional Electronic Attack Defense System. The acknowledgment of the RGPWS offers a limited glimpse into MDA's development strategy for the burgeoning counter-hypersonic capability. In July 2017, the agency first disclosed plans for funding a hypersonic defense demonstration. An item in the Selected Acquisition Reports for the Ballistic Missile Defense System added $508 million to the program's overall budget to pay for such a demonstration. In March 2019, the agency disclosed it would spend more than $600 million on hypersonic defense capabilities by the end of fiscal 2024. By emphasizing a “glide phase” weapon with a “regional” targeting area, the MDA also provided clues about the intent of the demonstration. It does not appear to be targeting an intercontinental ballistic missile with a nuclear hypersonic glide vehicle as the warhead, such as Russia's Avangard. It is more likely designed to target a hypersonic glide vehicle with regional range, Karako says. Options may include hypersonic glide vehicles on China's DF-17 and DF-21 missiles. “That's a good thing,” Karako says. “It's a smart move for MDA to start there.” Separately, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency continues to pursue the Glide Breaker program. It was revealed in July 2018 as a program with a particular interest in “component technologies that radically reduce risk for development and integration of an operational hard-kill system,” according to a DARPA solicitation document. But no further details about Glide Breaker have been released. https://aviationweek.com/defense/rfp-reveals-main-thrust-us-counter-hypersonic-plan