Sponsored by Blighter Surveillance Systems
www.blighter.com
————————————————————————-
05 Jan 23. U.S. Army Taps Leonardo DRS to Provide Additional M-LIDS Counter-UAS Platforms. Leonardo DRS, Inc. (Nasdaq: DRS) announced today it was awarded a contract to provide additional counter unmanned aircraft system (C-UAS) platforms in support of U.S. Army’s Integrated Fires/Rapid Capabilities Office’s on-going Mobile-Low, Slow, Small Unmanned Aircraft System
On October 7, 2022, DRS received approximately $40m and on November 11, 2022, the company was awarded approximately $20m through a modification contract.
Under the existing indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract, this new task order requires DRS to deliver additional kinetic defeat vehicles and spares. M-LIDS allows soldiers to detect, identify, track, and defeat small UAS with electronic warfare and kinetic defeat systems. The M-LIDS system includes a mix of kinetic defeat effectors including the XM914 (30mm) cannon hosted by the Moog Inc’s Reconfigurable Integrated-weapons Platform (RIwP ®) turret.
“Leonardo DRS is proud to be a member of the M-LIDS team, and we appreciate the opportunity to deliver additional vehicles. Drones have become a dangerous threat to our warfighters,” said Aaron Hankins, Senior Vice President and General Manager, DRS Land Systems. “Delivering M-LIDS vehicles remains one of our highest priorities, and we are excited about this new task order.”
In March 2022, M-LIDS Increment 2 was identified as a U.S. Army ACAT III program of record, and the U.S. Army leadership directed accelerated deliveries of multiple C-UAS capabilities, including M-LIDS. The two-vehicle capability provides a balance of kinetic and non-kinetic defeat capabilities which have already completed extensive government testing. Several sets of M-LIDS Increment 2 are currently deployed overseas protecting U.S. and allied forces.
The DRS Land Systems business unit serves as the lead systems integrator for this mobile C-UAS capability.
The DRS Land Systems business is part of the company’s Integrated Mission Systems segment which provides force protection products and services including counter-unmanned aerial systems, short-range air defense systems, and active protection systems, across multiple platforms for the men and women of the U.S. armed forces.
05 Jan 23. US Army green lights an advanced version of its ‘mixed reality’ goggle. The Army is moving ahead with an advanced variant of its mixed reality goggle aimed at transforming situational awareness and more for the dismounted soldier.
The service announced today that it had awarded a “task order” to Microsoft to develop the 1.2 variant of the Integrated Visual Augmentation System. The goggle is based on the Microsoft HoloLens.
Earlier versions of the augmented reality device, in development since 2018, will begin fielding to both operational and training units this year. Those are the 1.0 and 1.1 variants, as Army Times previously reported. The specific units to receive those devices have not yet been publicly identified by the Army.
The “do-it-all” goggle brings the situational awareness and systems approach more traditionally available only to platforms, such as fighter pilots or tank crew commanders, but for the individual dismounted soldier networked with a squad and larger units.
And the device has been tested in combination with existing platforms such as Army helicopters and ground vehicles, allowing soldiers to communicate with the crews and virtually “see” outside of the platform and pass data among their unit and the vehicle’s crew.
The Army is receiving 10,000 units total, half of the 1.0 and half of the 1.1. That incremental fielding will begin in September, according to Program Executive Office-Soldier spokesman David Patterson. Previous budget details covered an initial purchase of a total of 40,000 units.
“To date, the Army has conducted over 30 Soldier test events and more than 100 technical sub-tests with more than 1,000 Soldiers contributing nearly 100,000 hours of user feedback for IVAS,” according to an Army release. “These tests validated the system’s continued progress while providing areas for focused improvements.”
In a separate release Tuesday, officials noted that “thousands of IVAS systems are on ground in [Rock Island, Ill. – Joint Manufacturing and Technology Center’s], in preparation for fielding. The Army anticipates procuring up to 121,500 units for close-combat forces over the coming years.”
The IVAS 1.0 version provides baseline capabilities, which include navigation and rapid target acquisition with weapons sight camera linkage.
The 1.1 version adds an improved low-light sensor, and the 1.2 version will use a new form factor and reduce the profile of the heads-up display and distribute counterweight on the helmet-mounted device for better use and comfort, according to the release.
Army Times previously reported further details of the version differences, such as a cable in versions 1.0 and 1.1 runs down the front of the user and connects to batteries will be moved to the rear of the helmet off the user’s chest and shoulder. The 1.2 version will also be slimmer and lighter.
The entire IVAS 1.0 system, excluding the radio, is about 3.4 pounds. Of that, 2.4 pounds is on the soldier’s head.
For version 1.2, developers seek to cut the total weight to 2.85 pounds or less, the same or better than the Enhanced Night Vision Goggle-Binocular, officials said.
The enhanced goggle is an advanced night vision goggle fielded in limited quantities to close combat forces in recent years that has shown vast improvement in night vision quality and improved marksmanship with its rapid target acquisition technology. The target acquisition tech was also developed at PEO Soldier and Night Vision Labs, both at Fort Belvoir, Va.
The incremental fielding is an approach that officials say will allow the service to push cutting-edge technology, and new structural designs while allowing soldiers to use the early versions as the Army advances the gear with new features and capabilities.
That cutting-edge tech has proved somewhat challenging. In an exclusive interview with Army Times in October, PEO Soldier commander Brig. Gen. Christopher Schneider said that the analog night vision the organization developed over nearly 70 years is reaching its technological limits.
New ways of fusing data with the night vision picture and applying advanced computing capabilities needed to process and deliver information to the user are necessary, he said.
Soldiers assigned to 5th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, help each other up a hill on Oct. 14, 2022, during Project Convergence 22 (PC22) experimentation at Camp Talega, California. (Pvt. Nolan Brewer/Army)
That work did cause some delays for earlier-scheduled releases of the equipment in a program that is estimated to cost an anticipated $22 billion over the long term.
The delays triggered a Department of Defense Inspector General audit of the IVAS program in 2022 that directed officials to seek more soldier input.
Exact fielding dates for the 1.2 version have not yet been announced, though officials have planned for fiscal year 2025.
Delivery orders for IVAS 1.2 production systems will be placed after IVAS 1.2 qualification and operational testing, according to the release. (Source: Defense News Early Bird/Army Times)
04 Jan 23. DroneShield Ltd (ASX:DRO) (DroneShield or the Company) is pleased to announce that it has delivered all Contractual elements of the Artificial Intelligence Computer Vision System (ACVS) program to the Australian Department of Defence under the Phase 2 Defence Innovation Hub program originally announced in November 2021.
The contract value is approximately $800,000. The contract amount has been fully received by DroneShield through milestone progress payments, made up to the end of 2022.
The program has resulted in significant improvements to DroneShield’s optical/thermal AI DroneOptID™ engine, as well as development of a ground-breaking multi-Sensor Fusion Artificial Intelligence (SFAI) engine that is expected to be a core part of DroneShield’s Command-and-Control system DroneSentry-C2™ in 2023
After the final demonstration to a wide variety of Defence stakeholders, DroneShield CTO Angus Bean commented, “It is clear that the multi-sensor fusion system created by DroneShield is truly unique on a global scale. The algorithms and architecture being used are producing excellent user outcomes, without the ‘server-farm’ levels of compute-power that similar systems require. The SFAI system represents a significant step-change in our C2 capability”.
DroneShield CEO, Oleg Vornik, added “The Australian Government’s Defence Innovation Hub funding and project support has been critical in accelerating this technology and making it a reality. Development of sovereign industry capability is a key stated priority of the Australian Government. The Defence Innovation Hub is driving this commitment by supporting Australian companies to build real sovereign capability in Australia, by Australians.”
04 Jan 23. U.S. Army Funds Advancement in Perception Sensing for Autonomous Ground Systems. Metawave awarded “Direct to Phase II” contract to develop long-range radar sensing and perception solution for off-road autonomous vehicle operation in adverse weather and complex operating conditions. Metawave Corporation, a leading provider of advanced radar sensing and perception technologies, today announced that it has been awarded a $1.7m Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract by the U.S. Army. Pursuant to the contract, Metawave will enhance its defense application-proven Carson™ radar technology platform to support off-road perception sensing and other advancements for autonomous ground vehicles and systems. The resulting Hudson™ technology platform utilizes Metawave’s unique long-range and all-weather detection, tracking, and perception capabilities enabled by its patented phased array beamforming and steering front-end Marconi™ chips, highly integrated Antenna-in-Package (AiP) modules, and proven high-resolution and accurate radar algorithms. The new Hudson radar platform will also incorporate enhanced processing units (GPUs) from NVIDIA, the world leader in artificial intelligence (AI) computing. The contract also includes an option for a Phase III follow-on contract, which would allow for the further development and deployment of the solution.
Software – A Critical Component
In addition to the Hudson radar platform, Metawave will also develop Anthem™ — a proprietary Recursive Neural Network Machine Learning (ML) software platform comprising lidar, camera, and fusion stacks to support advanced sensing and perception radar platforms. Integral to the Hudson platform, Anthem will expand the capabilities of Aware (the industry standard collaboration intelligence platform that identifies and reduces risk, strengthens security and compliance) to include wider sets of classification libraries and Regions of Interest (RoI) identification. Anthem is trainable over time to support various off-road terrain operations and new scenarios such as the need to differentiate between real and negative obstacles, dense and thin shrubs, trees, rocks etc., allowing vehicles to operate more safely in unknown environments.
“We are thrilled to have been selected by the U.S. Army for this important contract,” said Dr. Maha Achour, founder and CEO at Metawave. “The power of phased array radar is well-known to the defense sector, but rapid innovation and advancements in millimeter, semiconductor-enabled radar solutions for safe, driverless automotive technologies have become increasingly attractive for mission-critical military operations.”
“Autonomous defense applications require the highest level of precision enabled by Metawave’s unique chips, modules, and radar algorithms which have proven to be a valuable asset in the automotive industry,” said Dr. Stephen Aubin, defense industry expert and member of Metawave’s board of directors. “This is a great opportunity for Metawave to take radar technologies to the next level with the Hudson and Anthem solution which could easily support other Department of Defense requirements such as aerial and marine autonomous operations.”
The Hudson Radar Platform – Requirements, Technical Details and Competing Solutions
Through the SBIR Phase II contract, Metawave will be working to address the U.S. Army’s four challenge areas in perception sensing for autonomous ground systems: off-road sensing, adverse weather sensing, long range sensing, and reduction of processing burden for ground vehicles.
Metawave’s Hudson architecture addresses these requirements with the use of Doppler Division Multiple Access (DDMA) advanced waveforms enabled by Marconi chips to provide fast frame rates over wide field-of-view (FoV) in both azimuth and elevation directions at ranges up to 500 meters. By combining DDMA with AiP analog beamsteering capabilities, less processing is needed to deliver real-time high signal power perception sensing and accuracy in challenging environments. The benefit is faster response time and more robust performance in complex operating conditions.
Competing radars solutions operate in either high-resolution or long-range beamforming modes but never in a simultaneous long-range beamforming and high-resolution mode as in the case of Metawave’s Carson and Hudson radar platforms. Metawave has developed a way to combine analog beamforming and digital MIMO into a hybrid scalable radar architecture and software stack that solves the challenges of long-range, high-resolution imaging radar with the lowest size, cost, and weight. Competing all-digital radar products have reduced performance at ranges beyond 150m and face high processing burdens in dense or cluttered environments or in the presence of a high number of moving objects. The Metawave approach overcomes these challenges because the Marconi analog beamformer chip shapes and scans a narrow fan beam along one axis and scans a much wider field of view using Digital MIMO along the other axis. This approach also mitigates interference and eliminates ghost images with its low side lobe-level calibration. Metawave has over 300 filed patent applications with 64 issued and allowed to date related to various aspects of sensing, fusion, perception, and connectivity.
CES attendees can learn more about Metawave’s solutions by stopping by the Westgate Hotel, Suite 1610, Las Vegas, from January 4-7.
About Metawave Corporation
Metawave is pioneering disruptive millimeter wave technologies that accelerate the transition to highly automated and fully autonomous ground and aerial vehicle operation meeting safety and emerging services goals. With its patented, high-resolution all-weather imaging SPEKTRA radar modules, and associated software stacks, Metawave is delivering the missing sensor with unmatched long-range sensing and perception based on novel machine learning and AI to automotive, tracking, trains, aerial and drone customers. Its SPEKTRA radar is the first automotive analog beam steering radar with resolution capable of distinguishing objects close to each other, in difficult driving scenarios and in all-weather conditions, making cars safer and smarter. Metawave TURBO™ active repeaters and KLONE™ passive reflectors enable faster, more efficient, and lower cost 5G deployments, bringing connectivity to bns of users both indoors and out. Metawave’s AWARE™AI object classification platform is the first demonstration of real-time radar object classification. Founded in 2017, Metawave is headquartered in Carlsbad, CA. Visit us at www.metawave.com,
(Source: PR Newswire)
02 Jan 23. Frontex launches EUR950,000 low flying objects detection competition. Frontex – the European Border and Coast Guard Agency – has launched a competition around the Detection of Low Flying Objects (DeLFO).
Frontex invites the participants to carefully read all the documentation that is available on the Prize Award Contest website: https://frontex.europa.eu/about-frontex/prize-contest/
The main challenge for this Prize Award Contest on the Detection of Low Flying Objects is: Considering the existing technological solutions available in the market (or those currently under development) and their potential combination in a multi-layered, multi-sensor model, how can Low Flying Objects be effectively detected, tracked, and identified in a European land border, in a cost-efficient, scalable and integrated way?
The ultimate goal of this Prize Award Contest is to provide an opportunity for selected industry participants to deploy and test their proposed technological solutions in a testing environment, which will simulate a section of an EU land border. This real-world area will create unique conditions for comprehensive Testing and Evaluation, provided free of cost for participants. Applicants are encouraged to develop a participation strategy to this Prize Award Contest that ultimately aims at being selected for Phase 3 (Operational Trials) where they can demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed solution to monitor a hypothetical surveillance volume. This volume is defined as 5 kilometres in length, 1 kilometre in depth and 1000ft in height (from ground level).
Deadline for submissions is February 15, 2023 and the total available prize budget is EUR 950 000. Frontex shall award financial rewards to participants that comply with the requirements and meet or surpass the criteria laid out in in this document. Frontex shall award the following prizes per phase:
- PHASE 1 A prize of EUR 10 000 up to the ten (10) best ranked proposals.
- PHASE 2 A prize of EUR 50 000 up to the five (5) best ranked presentations of technical capacity.
- PHASE 3 A grand prize of EUR 250 000 to the best ranked participant, EUR 200 000 to the second-best ranked participant and EUR 150 000 to the third-best ranked participant.
The exact specifications of the testing areas will be shared at a later stage. During all phases, participants shall be guided by the Challenge, to answer the following aspects:
- What are the capabilities of the proposed technological solution to detect, track and identify Low Flying Objects?
- How is the multi-layered approach designed (concept and architecture)?
- What is the deployment mobility (fixed, deployable/mobile, vehicular, portable, or any combination of these)?
- What are the logistical support requirements (off-the-grid, limited infrastructure, access to public utilities)?
- How does the solution expected to perform in degraded operating conditions (local operational conditions, terrain, wildlife bird activity, weather, and RF interference)?
- What is the level of integration (how are different systems integrated; high-level, low-level)?
- What is the technological maturity of the overall proposed solution?
- How is the proposed solution innovative?
For more information: https://frontex.europa.eu/about-frontex/prize-contest/ (Source: www.unmannedairspace.info)
22 Dec 22. Slow, fast and hypersonic – what happened to UTM, C-UAS and AAM in 2022. Logic plays no part in the successful commercialisation of disruptive industries.
As the advanced air mobility (AAM) and UAS traffic management (UTM) industries move from the pre-commercial to the commercial phases of their development, the events of 2022 have shown that the forces of disruption are fuelled by very different kinds of propulsion systems.
The granular safety rules and standards needed for designers of aircraft, vertiports and traffic management systems to develop the first AAM ecosystems are still some way in the distance. Yet the Spanish police have now started operations with autonomous air vehicles and next year, visitors to New York will be able to speed around the outskirts of Manhattan in an eVTOL after just an hour’s pilot training. More incredible still, detailed planning for UAM services seems to have passed the point of no return in (inter alia) Singapore, Paris, Rome, Osaka and Rio, with none of the aircraft they propose to use close to full industrial production.
In contrast, with the looming deadline of January 2023 for the first stages of U-space implementation in Europe and drone operators around the world applying increasing pressure on regulators to adopt rules that will allow them to automatically manage multiple drones operations by a single operator beyond visual line of sight (the next, vital stage to the industry’s true industrialisation phase), there were just three large-scale UTM programmes announced in the second half of 2022 – Australia, Rotterdam Port and Sweden. At exactly the time you would expect UTM implementation to accelerate, it has slowed down. None of it makes any sense.
Unless, perhaps, you look at who is driving the market.
Behind the UAM and AAM sectors are two of the strongest political forces on the planet: the US Department of Defense and the Chinese Government, who both want to accelerate eVTOL operations for very different reasons (Silicon valley and mobile network operators are also quite interested). Citizens around the world are not taking to the streets demanding eVTOL services tomorrow but the sheer power of the UAM market drivers suggest that, in many parts of the world, commercial eVTOL services will be in place (probably by exemption rather than the rule) before the full range of UTM protocols are agreed.
During 2022, regulators in Europe and the USA reported their progress in edging towards the kind of oversight arrangements they want for UTM service providers. But it will still be 2024 before the rules, standards, technology maturity levels and revenue streams are identified and in place for the launch of UTM commercial operations in key markets. If all goes well.
In the counter-UAS sector, in 2022 the market split irrevocably into defence and civil segments.
In the civil sector, procurement agencies now have a much better idea of what they want. Instead of asking suppliers “Sell me a system which provides me with 100% security against drone attacks” they are now asking “I have USD1 m to spend – what threats should I prioritise?” Cyber take-over is emerging as an important game-changer in defence against commercial small drones.
Unfortunately, we must end on a more chilling note.
All wars are characterised by symbols, normally weapon systems which have provided the victor with a cutting edge. The war in Ukraine is no exception – the Bayraktar TB2 and its precision attacks on Russian military forces and the Shahed 136 (or Geran-2) for its destruction of Ukrainian civilians and civil infrastructure are two symbols which reflect two very different stages of the conflict. But at the end of 2022 the counter-UAS lessons of Ukraine are clear: if States are to protect vulnerable infrastructure (generating plants, hospitals, schools) from drone attacks by other State actors they will need to develop new strategic advanced early warning capabilities and hand-held, low cost, kinetic weapon systems, which can be used by non-military forces as a defence of last resort.
Thank you for reading to the end. I wish you a peaceful, happy and, if appropriate, prosperous 2023. (Source: www.unmannedairspace.info)
20 Dec 22. USAF selects Black Sage and S3 to test novel lidar detection solutions for drones. The US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has awarded Black Sage a contract worth USD4.5m to investigate novel lidar sensing solutions that improve drone detection and discrimination. Black Sage and Spectral Sensor Solutions (S3), a leading provider of lidar-based threat sensing capabilities, are teamed to conduct the research program named: Lidar Unmanned Aerial System Detection and Discrimination (LUASDD). The lidar research and experimentation will be conducted at Black Sage’s new test facility, Sage Works. S3 develops state-of-the-art high-power long-range lidar solutions that utilize multiple active sensing techniques.
“Sage Works was built to emulate a Forward Operating Base (FOB) incorporating a complete C-UAS system within a significant uncontrolled airspace and land use for our Red team to test and evaluate operationally relevant profiles,” said Marshal Minder, Director of Integration at Black Sage.
“Our approach to C-UAS has always been a layered approach that fuses data from multiple sensors such as radar, electro-optical (EO) / infrared (IR) cameras, and passive RF sensors,” said Tim Morris, Black Sage Program Manager for LUASDD. “Lidar brings another layer of sensor data that can potentially address threat detection scenarios and environmental conditions that present challenges to radar or EO/IR sensors.”
For more information visit: www.blacksagetech.com (Source: www.unmannedairspace.info)
20 Dec 22. Threat posed by drone swarms highlighted in recent national defence act passed by Congress. Flight Global reports that Congress believes the US military needs to find better ways to combat drones on the battlefield. According to the news report, lawmakers think the Department of Defense (DoD) needs to pay more attention to the threat posed by so-called swarms of cheap, commercially available drones, and develop technologies to counter them.
“The 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which governs DoD policy for the coming year, directs the Pentagon to conduct an investigation into how swarms of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) could be used by Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and non-state groups to endanger US military facilities. While individual drones are typically remotely piloted by a human operator, swarms concepts feature dozens of small aircraft flown and controlled by artificial intelligence, with minimal input from a human overseer.
“The 2023 NDAA passed by Congress on 15 December pays special attention to the threat of drone swarms, directing the Pentagon to conduct “analysis of the national security implications of swarming technologies such as autonomous intelligence and machine learning”. If the bill is signed into law by President Biden, DoD leaders would also be required to develop technical systems to counter such swarms and incorporate such a capability into the department’s existing military strategy.
“Although UAS manufactured specifically for military use have been an important force on the battlefield for the past two decades, consumer quadcopters and other commercial-off-the-shelf drones have proliferated into war zones in recent years. Both the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War between Armenia and Azerbaijan and the ongoing Russo-Ukraine War have featured heavy use of such platforms for reconnaissance and intelligence gathering, artillery spotting and even modified offensive operations using after-market modifications. Such platforms are typically too small and slow moving to be countered by traditional air defence systems. The concept of massing a large number of small, difficult-to-kill drones holds particular appeal to military planners.
“The US Army and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are both exploring how such swarms can be used for battlefield tasks including surveillance, signal transmission and minefield emplacement. The head of US Special Operations Command in August described cheap and widely available UAS as having the potential to disrupt the global military order,” reports Flight Global. For more information visit: www.flightglobal.com (Source: www.unmannedairspace.info)
————————————————————————-
Blighter Surveillance Systems is a world-leading designer and manufacturer of best-in-class electronic-scanning ground-based radars, surveillance solutions and Counter-UAS systems. Blighter’s solid-state micro-Doppler products are deployed in more than 35 countries across the globe, delivering consistent all-weather security protection and wide area surveillance along borders, coastlines, at military bases and across critical infrastructure such as airports, oil and gas facilities and palaces. Blighter radars are also used to protect manoeuvre force missions when deployed on military land vehicles and trailers, and its world-beating multi-mode radar represents a great leap in threat detection technology and affordability for use in a variety of scenarios.
The Blighter range of radar products are used for detecting a variety of threats, from individuals on foot to land vehicles, boats, drones and low-flying aircraft at ranges of up to 32 km. Blighter Surveillance Systems employs 40 people and is located near Cambridge, UK, where it designs, produces and markets its range of unique patented solid-state radars. Blighter prides itself on being an engineer-led business committed to providing cost-effective and flexible solutions across the defence, critical infrastructure and national security markets.
————————————————————————