DTI Editor-in-Chief Bill Sweetman and I just finished covering DarpaTech in Anaheim, Calif., an amazing collection of smart—sometimes visionary—people and unconventional ideas that definitely add new meaning to the word “conceptual.” It was a great experience being exposed to the new ideas as well as the challenges that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency faces. Not only did we learn more about Darpa’s programs, we frequently posted live from the conference. Here are some examples of the topics we covered:
It’s good news for training and bad news for contractors: Create computer simulations that can be easily modified by users, who won’t have to wait six months for vendors to fiddle with a map or a database.
AeroVironment is testing a digital data link for its small UAVs including Wasp, Raven and Puma. In addition to improving the performance and security of line-of-sight control, the data link will be an “Ethernet hub in the sky,” says marketing director Steven Gitlin. The data link’s hub will allow an operator to relay control signals via one drone to reach other drones that might be blocked by obstacles or terrain, and to bounce video from distant drones to the operator.
Military Sealift Command operates many ships that are vital to niche functions, but are too few or too specialized for the regular fleet. These include hospital, survey, surveillance and high-speed transport ships, tenders, tugs and salvage vessels.
Three months after U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates declared blast-resistant trucks for Iraq and Afghanistan his top weapons-buying priority, trends are emerging in the expanding Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected (MRAP) program. Several of the roughly dozen companies vying for orders have been rejected by the Marine Corps, which manages the $8-billion program.
A 200-ton naval engine slid off a tractor-trailer outside the National Steel and Shipbuilding Co. shipyard in San Diego on July 26, pulverizing a parked car, partially crushing another and injuring a woman. While investigators probed the accident, Nassco briefly closed the yard. But by the next day, work was again in full swing, as 4,600 employees raced to complete four Lewis and Clark-class logistics ships, also known by their functional designation “T-AKE,” for the U.S. Military Sealift Command.
Industry has been refining the hardware, software and concepts for getting military robots to swarm like insects, but one of the most promising applications for swarming, the U.S. Navy’s Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstrator program, has been gutted by budget cuts. As a result, it might be years before swarming becomes a reality.
Turkey’s defense industry is emerging as a world-class player in the development and export of technology and equipment for air, sea and land forces. With a commitment by the government to expand the nation’s defense and aerospace industries through aggressive modernization programs, and a sizable increase in the current defense budget, Turkey soon could rival some European and Asian countries in the quality and quantity of its weapons and equipment.
U.K. Grand Challenge Britain’s Defense Ministry selected six finalists to participate in its Darpa-inspired Grand Challenge race in August 2008 at Copehill Down, England. Like the U.S. version, the British Grand Challenge will require autonomous vehicles to traverse rough urban terrain in a complex battlefield setting. Teams must autonomously identify and report the position of targets including improvised explosive devices, snipers and enemy soldiers or insurgents who may not be in uniform. The teams include defense contractors, smaller businesses and universities.
Investments in defense R&D do more than keep a nation’s armed forces up to date in equipment and capabilities: they create economic benefits far in excess of the money spent, expand a country’s technology base and improve national competitiveness. This was the message delivered by two CEOs of leading European defense contractors at the recent Handelsblatt Conference on Security Policy and the Defense Industry in Berlin.
We’ve become so accustomed to images from airborne video cameras—whether from a war zone or a freeway snarl-up—that we forget these systems look at the world through a soda straw-size lens. That’s what makes a new system jointly developed by ITT Space Systems and intelligence specialists CenTauri, flight-tested in May 2007 at Eloy, Ariz., so different.
India and Israel will jointly develop a long-range, land-based air-defense missile system to replace aging Indian air force Pechora (SA-3 Goa) missiles. The new missile will have a range of 70 km. (43.5 mi.), which could be extended to 150 km., far exceeding the 60-km. range of the Barak-8 shipborne missile now in development for the Indian and Israeli navies under a five-year, U.S.$480-million program (illustration). The new system is expected to streamline the Barak-8 schedule, and add about $300 million to development costs.
Israel’s Rafael demonstrated its Wizard Naval Corner Reflector Decoy during NATO’s recent MCG/8 electronic warfare trials off Norway. The passive-radio-frequency (RF) decoy depicts shiplike characteristics to divert anti-ship missiles with guidance systems that disregard chaff. Single- and twin-corner decoys were launched from a Dutch navy frigate. RF measurements taken at sea, on shore and in the air were positive. Wizard can be used as a medium-range decoy in distraction mode, or a short-range decoy in seduction mode.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is extending the notion of persistent surveillance. Its latest unmanned aerial vehicle program seeks to develop a platform that will stay airborne for five years—no small feat considering that the endurance of operational UAVs is measured in hours. Known as Vulture—or Very-high-altitude, Ultra-endurance, Loitering Theater Unmanned Reconnaissance Element—the heavier-than-air UAV would carry a 1,000-lb. payload.
One of the biggest competitions for a protected armored vehicle is underway in Britain. The Future Rapid Effects System program, or FRES, could result in expenditures of £16 billion ($32.4 billion) for procurement of as many as 3,500 8 X 8-wheeled utility vehicles designed along the lines of the U.S. Stryker, but with better protection against IEDs and kinetic threats.
Israeli forces know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of anti-armor weapons. In a matter of weeks last summer, Hezbollah made anti-tank missiles (ATM) and other anti-armor munitions a lethal feature of the asymmetric battlefield. Few Israelis can forget the images of smoldering tanks, armored personnel carriers and bulldozers of the IDF’s heralded Armored Corps.
Walking the Dog Boston Dynamics Inc. received a $10-million contract to build a pack-hauling, legged robot for the military. The project, called BigDog, is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. It will provide a vehicle that travels swiftly over rough terrain (top speed thus far is 3.3 mph.); keeps moving despite 1 X 2-meter obstacles, which it will jump over; and operates for 2 hr. on a tank of gas. An onboard computer controls locomotion. The “legs” mimic those of animals by absorbing shock and recycling energy as they move forward.
Crystal Ball Darpa wants a battlefield computer that lets commanders see how certain tactics will turn out. “Proactive analysis will help predict which futures are more likely before they occur,” Darpa states in a solicitation for the “Deep Green” program. “Sketch-to-Plan” and related “Sketch-to-Decide” are key parts of the “commander’s associate” component of Deep Green, which automatically converts hand-drawn plans into a course of action and then integrates feedback from other brigade elements.
U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency analysts, like those at other intelligence agencies, typically rely on conventional keyword searches for data. That works if a user knows what to ask for. The method is inefficient, and some sources say analysts spend an average of 10 hr. per week searching for data, half the time coming away with little of value.
Roadside explosives are among the deadliest weapons facing U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The ubiquitous improvised explosive device has killed and wounded thousands of soldiers in both theaters. The success of its low-tech lethality exposed a major vulnerability in operations and paved the way for introduction of more sophisticated weapons like explosively formed penetrators, which can destroy even heavily armored vehicles.
Putting a bomb on target is the object of aerial bombardment. Civilian casualties and infrastructure destruction have been tragic but secondary concerns. But, ideally, no more. Efforts are underway to minimize collateral damage with a new generation of bombs that limit the potential for incidental death and destruction while retaining the power to destroy targets.
The U.S. Navy’s T-AKE logistics ship design is under consideration by at least one foreign navy, according to National Steel and Shipbuilding Co. (Nassco), which builds the 700-ft. vessels. Nassco confirms the interest but does not identify the prospective customer. Canada and Australia, however, have requirements for large logistics ships. San Diego-based Nassco is slated to build 14 Lewis and Clark-class T-AKEs for the Navy and several medium-sized civil tankers (see related story, p. 34).
Defense Technology International: Which are more important: New technologies or better business practices? Shamir:IAI’s success came from technology. People buy from us because in many areas we give them the closest thing to the edge of the envelope. We have to stay on the cutting edge, because if we lost that, we would be like all the others competing but with less to offer . . . and more subject to political advantages and disadvantages.
Europe’s Neuron unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) project passed a feasibility review on June 1, clearing the program for its next stage and toward a first flight in 2011. Fifteen months into the project—which formally started in early 2006 after Sweden resolved political issues—the Neuron team is reporting progress.
Once touted as a key program in the Pentagon’s efforts to transform the military, the Joint Tactical Radio System fell on hard times around two years ago. Cost overruns and production problems caused Congress to mandate a pause in the development of the software-defined radios while telling the Pentagon to re-examine the program’s direction.
