Sponsored By Oxley Developments
www.oxleygroup.com
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25 Aug 22. U.S. Army Signs Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with HawkEye 360. HawkEye 360 Inc., the world’s leading commercial provider of space-based radio frequency (RF) data and analytics, today announced its two-year Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC). Under the CRADA, HawkEye 360 will develop and demonstrate new commercial overhead RF-sensing capabilities that could provide relevant tactical support for the warfighter. SMDC will assist in the testing of these capabilities in relevant exercises to evaluate the utility to the tactical warfighter.
“We are excited to partner with the U.S. Army to rapidly develop and prove new techniques that can be quickly transitioned into high-value operational capability,” said Alex Fox, HawkEye 360 Chief Growth Officer. “This partnership will support the Army’s modernization initiative to develop more efficient, effective, and resilient systems that strengthen how the U.S. Army mobilizes, protects, and sustains expeditionary forces leveraging tactically relevant commercial RF information. We aim to seamlessly integrate our space-based RF data into their Multi-Domain Operational environment.”
SMDC develops and provides current and future global space, missile defense, and high-altitude capabilities to the Army, Joint Force, and our allies and partners, to enable multi-domain combat effects; enhance deterrence, assurance, and detection of strategic attacks; and protect the nation. SMDC conducts integrated planning and synchronized operations in the execution of their space and missile defense missions and preparing for future conflict. Operating in all domains with allies, partners in the air, at sea, in space, in cyberspace, in the electromagnetic spectrum, and in the information environment.
“We are excited to be able to evaluate the utility of this type of capability for the tactical warfighter. Going forward, small satellite capabilities such as those offered by HawkEye 360 could provide advantages to the tactical warfighter,” said Mr. Chip Hardy, Division Chief of the SMDC Space Applications Division.
Under the agreement, HawkEye 360 will conduct on-orbit experiments and demonstrations of its satellites and ground systems to deliver affordable, timely, and scalable tactical RF information. Activities will include satellite tasking, direct downlink to mobile ground stations, signal detection, characterization, geolocation, integration and dissemination into Army systems, and automated tip-and-cue of Army ISR assets. For more information on HawkEye 360, please visit https://www.he360.com/. (Source: PR Newswire)
24 Aug 22. US Army’s Next Helicopters Are Still a Ways Off—But Their Digital Links Are Already Changing the Battle.
Open, modular electronics are key to a vast leap forward in capability, says Future Vertical Lift Program director.
The U.S. Army’s next big leap in aviation will be as much about moving bits as rotor blades, said Maj. Gen. Walter Rugen, who directs the service’s Future Vertical Lift Program.
“The Analog Age will not give us the decisive transformational capabilities we need on the future battlefield for the future force,” Rugen said Wednesday at a Center for Strategic and International Studies event on the future of Army vertical lift.
So the FVL program is focusing on four lines of development: an attack reconnaissance aircraft, a long-range assault aircraft to replace the Black Hawk, unmanned systems, and a modular open-system approach.
While many of the FVL efforts are classified, this last line of effort—to develop digital modules that are widely compatible across an open system—has already been used in field experiments. And it’s “changing the game,” Rugen said.
One “use case” he was able to share involved an Italian joint terminal attack controller, or JTAC, ordering fire on a training target in the U.S.
“That’s very difficult to do: a cross-border call for fire with an international flavor,” Rugen said.
The Italian JTAC inputs data for a call for fire. That data makes its way through a Dutch enclave communication network which then brings that data into the 82nd Airborne to cue U.S. personnel. The Army’s widely adaptable digital modules and an open system of communication were key in executing this exercise, Rugen explained.
“That’s the kind of agility we’re going to need on a future battlefield. We’re going to need to have a very flat organization across our partners, allies, and friends. And that flat organization needs to be very fast and innovative,” Rugen said.
And the digital modular systems are easy to learn.
“We’ve seen just transformational speed when it comes to things that we hand off to soldiers to fly and fight,” Rugen said. “For example, our UAS used to take 16 minutes to hand off down to the tactical edge. We call it a Class C handover. We did it in 90 seconds. And that’s again at the pace of the battle. And that’s the step change that we’re seeing across a whole host of tactical tasks that we need to accomplish at speed to be better.”
And while all these advancements are certainly exciting, Rugen said “jumps to the future” are just par for the course for the Army.
“The Army modernizes about every 40 or 50 years,” he said. “We’re coming out of 20 years of counterinsurgency, and we’re at a similar inflection point that we were in the 70s coming out of Vietnam, where we jumped to the future to get that capability. Now this is much more transformational than the Huey or the 58 or the Cobra—the Vietnam-era fleet. It’s a great opportunity.” (Source: Defense One)
23 Aug 22. Teal Drones Secures Exclusive License to Use Autonomous Drone Software and Technology from Autonodyne.
- Autonodyne Software on Golden Eagle Platform Increases Red Cat Margins Dramatically
Red Cat Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: RCAT)(“Red Cat” or the “Company), a hardware-enabled software provider to the drone industry, announces today a licensing agreement with Autonodyne, LLC. that will enable Red Cat subsidiary Teal Drones, Inc. to ship its drone for government and military segments – the Golden Eagle – with exclusive autonomous capabilities in late 2022.
Combining Teal’s drones and Autonodyne technology positions Red Cat as a leader in multi-vehicle and autonomous drone operation. Teal’s Golden Eagle drone with Autonodyne software has already successfully demonstrated drone “swarms” and provides features like “unlimited surveillance” that seamlessly rotates multiple drones over a single point of interest for 24/7 coverage.
Under the terms of the license, Teal has secured exclusive right to Autonodyne’s software suite for “autonomy and exchange of control among humans and machines to perform tasks involving crewed and/or uncrewed vehicles.” Autonodyne has agreed to exclusively provide its software to Teal’s current and prospective customers for single vehicles, multi-vehicles, and linked multi-vehicles, whether existing or planned in the future, and includes Autonodyne’s patents and unpatented technology.
Red Cat CEO Jeff Thompson said, “Teal’s products have repeatedly proven in testing that they can handle difficult mission-specific assignments with ease and offer autonomous capabilities that are superior to other drones. Autonodyne is the first of multiple development partners we plan to integrate and test with for prospective applications in the government and military segments served by our Teal division. Under the terms of the agreement, Autonodyne software will only be made available to Teal, effectively jumping Teal ahead of other drone companies seeking to provide multi-vehicle control or capabilities like unlimited surveillance. Competitors will have to develop their own software or secure licenses from others with inferior test performance.
“Adding Autonodyne software to the Golden Eagle is as significant to our Company’s financial success as it is to our customers’ mission success. At 42%, the gross margin on the Golden Eagle is certainly good, but adding Autonodyne software to the Golden Eagle increases our gross margin to over 60%,” concluded Thompson.
George Matus, founder of Teal, said, “Red Cat has immediate potential to be a leader in this industry’s government and military segments. Golden Eagle was selected as one of only a handful of drones certified for U.S. Government procurement and it is continuously being improved, with a new version to be announced soon. Our hardware-enabled software approach allows us to meet or exceed the security and performance requirements for military operation, border control, public safety, and more. As shown by recent international events, small drones irrefutably make a major difference in front-line outcomes. With fleet level operation at just a few thousand dollars per mission versus ms for larger scale equipment, the attraction of our products is clear.” (Source: ASD Network)
22 Aug 22. First-to-market sensor processing development platform introduced by Mercury. New platform enables fast technology adoption for the most compute-intensive applications. Mercury Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: MRCY, www.mrcy.com), a leader in trusted, secure mission-critical technologies for aerospace and defense, today announced the new Model 8258 development platform based on a dual AMD-Xilinx Versal® AI Core device. Incorporating Mercury’s previously announced SCFE6931 signal processing module, this ready-to-run, proven platform enables engineers to start application development right “out of the box,” saving them valuable time and reducing project risk.
The Model 8258 development platform allows customers to rapidly deploy Versal AI Core technology, giving soldiers the ability to react quickly and make real-time tactical decisions that are essential for survivability and mission success.
“There is a growing need for artificial intelligence capabilities in autonomous unmanned vehicles/aircraft and munitions,” said Ken Hermanny, senior director and general manager, Mercury Mixed Signal. “In a world where incremental change is no longer enough, Mercury is helping the A&D industry bend the curve by developing more powerful and secure processing systems, of which our new Model 8258 platform is a prime example.”
“The heterogeneous mix of computing resources inherent to the Versal AI Core series gives designers the freedom to assign computing tasks to the most suitable processing engine, as well as being able to adapt and reassign resources dynamically, as needed.” said Manuel Uhm, Director of Silicon Marketing at AMD. “Mercury’s Model 8258 is a nice addition to the Versal ecosystem by harnessing the resources of two powerful AMD-Xilinx VC1902 adaptive SoCs and simplifying development in a preconfigured platform.”
The 8258 development platform streamlines the path for engineers to immediately start unlocking the tremendous performance needed for advanced defense system solutions found in the SCFE6931 processing module. The 8258 supports application development on the actual SCFE6931 hardware, versus a lab-only evaluation board, so the IP, software and hardware can transition directly to deployed signals intelligence and electronics intelligence systems, where data can be more quickly analyzed and identified.
Versatile development platform ideal for:
- Developing artificial intelligence applications such as target classification, signal decoding/decryption, image recognition and pattern recognition
- Navigator FPGA Development Kit (FDK) allows users to develop custom FPGA IP to add application-specific features
- Navigator Board Support Package (BSP) Includes software functions and libraries to program the board and control the Navigator IP
- Navigator includes ready to run examples to get started immediately
- Optional support for four optical 100 GigE interfaces for fast, parallel processing and data throughput
- Two Versal VC1902 processors on the 6U board doubles the heterogeneous processing resources available
22 Aug 22. Work Begins on Next Generation of Battlefield Obscurants.
DARPA selects teams to produce obscurants that give warfighters an asymmetric advantage. DARPA has selected multiple teams of researchers for the agency’s Coded Visibility (CV) program. CV aims to develop tailorable, tunable, safe obscurants that provide warfighters with an asymmetric advantage, enhancing friendly forces’ visibility while suppressing adversary vision and detection systems.
“The teams we selected aim to develop new types of non-hazardous obscurant particulates that can be tailored to provide asymmetry – that is to allow U.S. and allied forces to see the enemy through the plume in one direction, while the adversary is unable to see through the plume in the opposite direction,” said Rohith Chandrasekar, CV program manager in DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office. “A passive asymmetry approach will likely require multiple obscurant materials deployed in specific ways to allow one-way vision through the plume. We are also exploring a more fundamental challenge of demonstrating active asymmetry, which only requires a single obscurant material, but one that can be tuned in real time to potentially enable dynamic control of its properties after being deployed and in cooperation with sensors.”
In the passive asymmetry technical area, the agency selected Raytheon Technologies Research Center to develop new obscurants composed of multiple particulates with tailored properties and demonstrate asymmetric vision capabilities in lab, pilot, and field tests.
In the active symmetry technical area, the agency selected Northeastern University, Signature Research, and Georgia Tech Research Institute. Teams selected from this technical area will investigate new tunable particulates and associated active modulation mechanisms to demonstrate asymmetry on-demand in lab and pilot tests.
In both technical areas, teams will also develop new obscurant modeling and simulation tools to engineer plumes and assess performance against sensors. Additionally, all new obscurants developed under CV must be safe to inhale compared to current obscurants that can be hazardous and require troops to wear respirators in the field. During the program, a government team will experimentally assess safety of new particulates.
The full teams are as follows:
Passive asymmetry –
- Raytheon Technologies Research Center, teamed with Rice University and Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)
Active asymmetry –
- Northeastern University, teamed with City University of New York, University of Pennsylvania, and Polaris Sensor Technologies
- Signature Research, teamed with Duke University
- Georgia Tech Research Institute, teamed with Georgia Tech (Source: ASD Network)
19 Aug 22. Systematic launches new features for SitaWare suite. New features bolster in-app video capabilities, as well as improvements in situational awareness and intelligence sharing. Systematic announced the latest updates to its SitaWare suite of products, with major new features in SitaWare Frontline and SitaWare Edge allowing users to maximise their situational awareness and share even more intelligence with other operators.
SitaWare Frontline and SitaWare Edge users are now able to watch live video feeds from UAVs within the application; and are able to take snapshots from feeds for sharing through chat attachments. Position information for objects of interest is also automatically added to the image metadata, along with the display of the viewshed information. This allows for the smooth creation of intelligence products and improvements to situational awareness and the recognised intelligence picture. Furthermore, SitaWare Frontline users can record video streams for later replaying in the app or sharing to other users.
“The ability to manage, process, watch, and share video from the SitaWare Frontline and SitaWare Edge platforms is an absolute game-changer in the modern battlespace,” Hans Jørgen Bohlbro, Vice President, Product Management, Defence, said. “In an age where more devices have the ability to transmit video to improve situational awareness to troops on the ground, the ability to distribute precious video intelligence across a wider range of customers helps to support smarter decision-making and support greater understanding of the operational environment.”
Additional video processing and display features of the SitaWare suite are currently being worked on and are expected to be rolled out to users in 2023, Bohlbro added.
Intelligence boost for SitaWare Hedquarters
As part of the update process, SitaWare Headquarters has also received new capabilities, helping to deliver intelligence-led capabilities to users, as well as to its underlying network base.
AI-assisted kinematic track correlation allows for the joint common operating picture to be efficiently compiled when using radars and electronic warfare sensors, using prediction models to remove duplicate tracks, as well as anticipating future moves based on historic track information.
Dead-reckoning and furthest-on-circle tools also help to evaluate the likely position of lost tracks, and further help support the use of open-source intelligence tools such as ADS-B and AIS. These new capabilities allow for more intelligent decision-making, as well as ensuring a comprehensive joint common operating picture that is shared across the land, sea, and air domains. Integration with Systematic’s new intelligence platform, SitaWare Insight, also allows seamless gathering, fusion, dissemination, and analysis of data from internal and third-party open sources.
Communications upgrades
The backbone for SitaWare Headquarters, SitaWare Headquarters Communications (SHC), has also received new capabilities through the upgrades. These include improvements to the synchronisation algorithm to allow for reductions in bandwidth overheads to maintain connections, while retaining high levels of redundancy and optimising network efficiency. This has also helped with scalability improvements, which allow for more nodes in a SHC-based network before the system has to breakup into multiple networks. This also allows for more data to be shared across an SHC network before users experience latency and CPU-load interference.
“Scalability is a key differentiator in the SitaWare suite’s offering. We have the ability to scale upwards and downwards as the user or operation requires and do so with a very small a hardware footprint. These latest improvements to SHC will continue to allow users of our Headquarters product to operate confidently in complex network and operational environments,” Bohlbro said.
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Oxley Group Ltd
Oxley offer a range of Military Marine NVG friendly LED lighting that includes navigation lights and controls, flight deck landing lights and interior compartment lighting. Our lighting products are used by Navies around the world including our own Royal Navy on UK Aircraft Carriers, Canadian Frigates, Swedish Submarines, Australian Surface vessels and Submarines, on board French Naval Carriers and in Naval Gun Turrets.
https://oxleydevelopments.cmail20.com/t/t-l-cdhkulk-yujhutkljd-r/
The technology is extremely energy efficient and built robustly, with proven long life. The lighting is NVG friendly, dimmable and programmable to allow for operations with aircraft pilots using military night vision goggles. They offer superior design giving high reliability for the most demanding environments with high sealing and the ability to meet the most stringent EMC standards.
https://oxleydevelopments.cmail20.com/t/t-l-cdhkulk-yujhutkljd-y/
Oxley are proud to say that we are working in partnership with SeaKing to enable a control panel to be offered with our LED Navigation Lighting. All of Oxley navigation lights have been specifically developed for vessels over 50 metres.
Contact Marcus Goad on 07850 917 263 for more information or to arrange samples.
Oxley specialises in the design and manufacture of advanced electronic and electro-optic components and systems for air, land and sea applications within the military sector. Established in 1942, Oxley has manufacturing facilities in the UK and USA and enjoys representation worldwide. The company’s products include night vision and LED lighting, data capture systems and electronic components. Oxley has pioneered the development of night vision compatible lighting. It offers a total package incorporating optical filters, equipment modification, cockpit and external lighting along with fleet wide upgrade services including engineering, installation, support, maintenance and training. The company’s long experience of manufacturing night vision lighting and LED indicators, coupled with advances in LED technology, has enabled it to develop LED solutions to replace incandescent and fluorescent lighting in existing applications as well as becoming the lighting option of choice in new applications such as portable military hospitals, UAV control stations and communication shelters.
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