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03 Dec 13. Brazilian Air Force takes delivery of 400th GRIFO radar. Selex ES, a Finmeccanica company, celebrated the delivery of the 400th GRIFO radar, which is to be used by the Brazilian Air Force. The company, based out of the Lombard Aerospace District, marked the occasion with a ceremony at the Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci, in Milan, Italy. The GRIFO avionic combat radar, was the very first to be wholly designed, developed and produced at the Selex ES site in Nerviano (near Milan). Up until the end of the Eighties the company, at that time known as FIAR, had produced only radars under licence. The GRIFO radar represents an important commercial success for Selex ES at international level: 450 GRIFO radar systems have been so far sold, with the radar being chosen by five different Air Forces around the world; it is in operation in seven different types of aircraft; has accumulated over 150,000 hours in operational flights. The GRIFO is a band X radar characterised by the most powerful avionic radar air cooler transmitter in the world. Its architecture allows the system to be installed in many combat aircraft and can be easily integrated
with the most modern avionic suites.
03 Dec 13. U.S. Army taking 3D electronic printing to the next level. The U.S. Army has been making use of 3D printing technologies for a few years, deploying prototyping and printing equipment in mobile laboratories in Afghanistan and developing a system to repair damaged aircraft and ground vehicles in the field. Researchers at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey are working on the next step, employing 3D electronic printing that could allow antennas to be printed onto a helmet or sensors into clothing – as well as the wing of an unmanned aerial vehicle to be printed in a single pass. The work being done at Picatinny uses an ink jet printer and current-conducting inks to produce such things as an antenna made of silver nanoparticles that can be embedded into a helmet, electronics devices that can be printed onto the side of artillery, fuze elements for munitions, and even batteries, according to a report from Picatinny. Potential benefits from the research include smaller, lighter electronics and, as with any type of deployed 3D printing, the ability to produce items, as needed, on the spot. (Source: C4ISR & Networks)
02 Dec 13. Harris Corporation’s Falcon III® AN/PRC-117G multiband manpack radio has successfully communicated with the new Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) satellite constellation. MUOS is a next-generation military satellite communications system designed to provide U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) users with enhanced cellular telephone-like capabilities through tactical radios. Harris demonstrated third-generation wireless compatibility with the MUOS constellation during a recent high-latitude experiment over the North Pole. The Falcon III radio received and displayed MUOS satellite transmissions during the experiment, demonstrating the viability of MUOS terminals in polar regions, which have been underserved by legacy military UHF satellite communications. The high latitude experiment was led by Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor to the U.S. government for the MUOS satellite system. The experiment involved repeated transmissions between the MUOS system and the Harris radio onboard a cargo plane flying from Alaska to the North Pole and back. The experiment’s success follows favorable results in a similar test during the summer in U.S. government testing labs in San Diego. Harris is able to deliver the MUOS waveform to users through a software upgrade to the widely fielded and combat proven Falcon III AN/PRC-117G manpack radio platform. Of those wideband radios already deployed to users, more than 30,000 are ready to host the MUOS waveform software. Provid