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30 June 22. India tests Abhyas HEAT system at low altitudes. India has tested its locally developed Abhyas High-speed Expendable Aerial Target (HEAT) off the country’s east coast.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) in New Delhi said that the test – on 29 June – demonstrated the Abhyas system’s performance at low altitude including capability at “sustained levels” and “manoeuvrability”.
The test was carried out a few months after state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) announced that it had won a contract to mass produce the Abhyas for the Indian military.
In a statement, the MoD said that in the recent test the Abhyas target was flown from a ground-based controller in a “pre-designated low-altitude flight path” that was monitored by tracking sensors including radar and electro-optical targeting systems. (Source: Janes)
24 June 22. Little Rock AFB Selected to Host ANG C-130J Formal Training Unit. The Department of the Air Force selected Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas, as the location to host the Air National Guard C-130J Formal Training Unit, June 24. Four C-130J Hercules will replace aging C-130Hs to establish the FTU, which will ensure aircrews gain the experience and knowledge needed to operate the newer aircraft.
The C-130-J reduces manpower requirements, lowers operating and support costs, and provides life-cycle cost savings over earlier C-130 models. It is also capable of climbing faster and higher, flying father at a higher cruise speed, and takes off and lands in a shorter distance.
Little Rock ANGB was selected to host this mission after conducting a site survey that assessed the location based on factors related to mission, infrastructure capacity, community support, environmental considerations and cost. The environmental analysis is also complete which allowed the Department of the Air Force to make the final decision to base the FTU at Little Rock AFB. (Source: ASD Network)
27 June 22. MBDA and CAE sign MoU to develop simulation environments. The virtual environments will enable armed forces to take up real-time training, testing, and mission planning. Missile systems manufacturer MBDA Deutschland and CAE have entered into a partnership to jointly create virtual simulation environments. The companies have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to develop and deploy simulation environments for network-capable guided missiles.
During the signing ceremony, which took place at Innovation and Leadership in Aerospace (ILA 2022), the partners also planned to display concepts for user environments.
CAE Europe and Middle East region managing director Thibaut Trancart said: “Visualisation and well-founded decisions will be crucial for military success in the future.
“Our years of experience in delivering simulation training and synthetic environments, combined with MBDA’s advanced technologies and effects management in a multi-domain environment, provide our customers with safe, fast, and cost-effective training and deployment opportunities.”
As part of the agreement, the two companies will design a virtual simulation environment to facilitate real-time training, testing, mission planning, and coordination of various effectors.
The live virtual constructive environment will help armed forces with mission planning and optimisation, and operational behaviour forecasts.
The simulation can also be used to evaluate operational deployment and allow the armed forces to adapt tactics, techniques, and procedures.
In addition, MBDA Germany and CAE will develop necessary technologies for mission planning, collaborative algorithms, and sensor data fusion.
MBDA will provide hardware and missile algorithms for development while CAE will support the project with its expertise in complex simulators.
MBDA Deutschland Sales and Business Development director Guido Brendler said: “Virtual simulation helps to validate the operational concepts of collaborative missiles and to further develop our effectors technically.
“This is crucial against the background of constantly changing operational framework conditions.”
In a tweet, CAE said it is honoured to partner with MBDA Deutschland in supporting the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) programme. (Source: army-technology.com)
23 June 22. Battlefield robots getting ‘common sense’ training before deployment. As the Pentagon turns to artificial intelligence to aid operations, researchers at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said they are closer to giving robots the “common sense” they need to survive the battlefield.
While AI has seen massive advances during the past decade, modern machine systems are mostly designed to tackle highly specific problems. Current AI models lack the intuition — or common sense — distinct to humans.
“They don’t understand a great deal that all of us sort of just know,” said Howard Shrobe, the program manager for DARPA’s Machine Common Sense project, in an interview.
DARPA said on Tuesday it has made a series of improvements across multiple experiments involving robotic systems and AI. The experiments are funded through DARPA’s Machine Common Sense project, a $70 m initiative to give AI the vast sea of assumptions that underlie human actions and decisions.
Although legged robots have existed for several years, in order to be deployed, they would need to adapt in real-time to unseen scenarios such as changing terrains, changing payloads and wear and tear.
Researchers want to teach the robots how to learn from their experiences – a phenomenon similar to the learning mechanism that children go through in their early years of life – rather than simply memorize data.
“It’s tricky to really measure how much the systems understand,” Shrobe said. “Sometimes just a raw measurement of performance may not be enough — you need to really tease out what’s actually going on.”
The experiments ranged from giving a multi-fingered robot the capability to grasp different objects to teaching a two-legged robot how to adjust to carrying dynamic loads. One experiment developed by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley focused on teaching a four-legged robot how to adapt to different terrains.
With another year and a half left in the program’s run, Shrobe said the results from the program could eventually be used to develop robots that could replace humans in certain battlefield situations.
Shrobe explained that service members who go through specialist schools to learn how to operate in specific battlefield situations all enter their training with common sense. While robots could be trained to operate in those situations, without common sense they would have a limited understanding of their world and behave improperly in unforeseen situations.
“We would like to start off with a level of common sense that we could assume everybody would know and then have them simply read the instructions, possibly watch demos of it, and be able to perform the tasks themselves,” Shrobe said.
The robots could then replace soldiers in situations that are particularly dangerous or messy, he said.
Although the work is preliminary, Shrobe said the implications of giving AI systems common sense could go beyond the battlefield in the next few years.
“This ability to train robots quickly, simply by letting them explore in a simulated world is something that would be attractive to everybody who works in that field,” Shrobe said. (Source: C4ISR & Networks)
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About InVeris Training Solutions
InVeris Training Solutions combines an agile approach with an unmatched expertise in training technology to design and deliver customized, cutting-edge, first-rate training solutions that keep military, law enforcement and commercial range customers safe, prepared and ready to serve – Because Seconds Matter™. With a portfolio of technology-enabled training solutions, and a team of 400 employees driven to innovate, InVeris Training Solutions is the global leader in integrated live-fire and virtual weapons training solutions. With its legacy companies, FATS® and Caswell, InVeris Training Solutions has fielded over 15,500 (Source: Janes)
history. The Company is headquartered in Suwanee, Georgia and partners with clients in the US and around the world from facilities on five continents.
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