Jul 7, 2014 ASDNews Source : Leidos

An autonomous unmanned vessel designed to track quiet diesel-electric submarines spanning miles of ocean depths for months at a time with minimal human input is now under construction and is expected to set sail for testing in 2015. Leidos, a national security, health and engineering solutions company, has begun construction on ACTUV (Autonomous Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel) under a Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) program for the design, development, and construction of a vessel originally conceived for an anti-submarine warfare mission.

"ACTUV's advanced sensor technology should allow for continuous surveillance which, combined with the vessel architecture and design, is expected to provide autonomous safe navigation supporting Navy missions around the world," said Leidos Group President, John Fratamico. ACTUV carries other sensors and mission packages designed to allow it to conduct a variety of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance and other alternate missions. With situational sensors that can ensure safe navigation, the ACTUV trimaran has electro optics, long range and short range radar.

Read more

Apr 08, 2014  (SPX)

Washington DC - Missions in remote, forward operating locations often suffer from a lack of connectivity to tactical operation centers and access to valuable intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) data. The assets needed for long-range, high-bandwidth communications capabilities are often unavailable to lower echelons due to theater-wide mission priorities.

DARPA's Mobile Hotspots program aims to help overcome this challenge by developing a reliable, on-demand capability for establishing long-range, high-capacity reachback that is organic to tactical units.

The program is building and demonstrating a scalable, mobile millimeter-wave communications backhaul network mounted on small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and providing a 1 Gb/s capacity. DARPA performers recently completed the first of three phases in which they developed and tested key technologies to be integrated into a complete system and flight tested in subsequent phases.

"We're pleased with the technical achievements we've seen so far in steerable millimeter-wave antennas and millimeter-wave amplifier technology," said Dick Ridgway, DARPA program manager. "These successes-and the novel networking approaches needed to maintain these high-capacity links-are key to providing forward deployed units with the same high-capacity connectivity we all enjoy over our 4G cell-phone networks."

Phase 1 accomplishments include:

+ Smaller, steerable millimeter-wave antennas: During field testing, the program successfully demonstrated steerable, compact millimeter-wave antennas that rapidly acquire, track, and establish a communications link between moving platforms. Steerable millimeter-wave antennas will enable the formation of a high-capacity backhaul network between aerial and ground platforms.

+ Low-noise amplifiers: Performers also demonstrated an advanced low-noise amplifier (LNA), which boosts the desired communications signal while minimizing unwanted noise. The prototype achieved the record for the world's lowest noise millimeter-wave LNA at about half the noise figure of a typical LNA.

+ More efficient and capable power amplifiers: Efficient millimeter-wave amplification is required to achieve the long ranges (> 50 km) desired in the Mobile Hotspots program. During Phase 1, performers demonstrated output power exceeding 1 watt and 20% power added efficiency (PAE) from a single gallium nitride (GaN) chip operating at E-Band frequencies (71 GHz to 86 GHz). Output powers exceeding 20 watts and approaching 20% PAE were also achieved using power-combining techniques.

+ New approaches for robust airborne networking: Mobile ad-hoc networking approaches were developed to maintain the high-capacity backhaul network among mobile air and ground platforms. Phase 1 performers developed unique solutions to overcome connectivity and network topology challenges associated with mobility and signal blockages due to terrain and platform shadowing.

+ Low-Size, Weight, and Power (SWAP) pod design to carry it all: Performers created engineering designs for small, lightweight pods to be mounted on an RQ-7 Shadow UAV. The pods, with all of the Mobile Hotspots components inside, are designed to meet the challenging program goals of widths no more than 8 inches, weight less than 20 pounds, and power consumption less than 150 watts.

Phase 2 of the program began March 2014. Two performers, L-3 Communications and

FIRST RF, were chosen to lead teams comprising several Phase 1 performers. Phase 2 goals include the integration of the selected Phase 1 technologies into Shadow-compatible aerial pods and ground vehicles.

Phase 2 will conclude with a ground demonstration of at least four Shadow-compatible pods, two ground vehicles and a fixed ground node. A planned third phase will encompass field testing of the Mobile Hotspot systems on networks of multiple SRQ-7 Shadow UAVs and mobile ground vehicles.

Apr 03, 2014 Spacewar.com (SPX)

Washington DC - Technology, like biology, constantly evolves. It is DARPA's mission to stay ahead of the shifting technology curve by making critical, early investments in areas that cut across fields of research and enable revolutionary new capabilities for U.S. national security.

Now DARPA is poised to give unprecedented prominence to a field of research that can no longer be considered peripheral to technology's evolving nature. Starting today, biology takes its place among the core sciences that represent the future of defense technology.

DARPA has created a new division, the Biological Technologies Office (BTO), to explore the increasingly dynamic intersection of biology and the physical sciences. Its goals are to harness the power of biological systems by applying the rigorous tools of engineering and related disciplines, and to design next-generation technologies that are inspired by insights gained from the life sciences.

BTO's programs will operate across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales-from individual cells to humans and other organisms and the communities in which they operate, and from the time it takes for a nerve to fire to the time it may take a new virus to spread around the world one sneeze at a time. All told, BTO will explore the intricate and highly adapted mechanisms of natural processes and demonstrate how they can be applied to the mission of national defense.

BTO expands on the instrumental work undertaken by DARPA's Defense Sciences (DSO) and Microsystems Technology (MTO) Offices. Recent progress in such diverse disciplines as neuroscience, sensor design, microsystems, computer science, and other longstanding areas of DARPA investment has begun to converge, revealing newly emergent potential ready to be realized.

"The Biological Technologies Office will advance and expand on a number of earlier DARPA programs that made preliminary inroads into the bio-technological frontier," said Geoff Ling, named by DARPA Director Arati Prabhakar to be the first director of BTO.

"We've been developing the technological building blocks, we've been analyzing our results, and now we're saying publicly to the research and development community, 'We are ready to start turning the resulting knowledge into practical tools and capabilities.'"

The initial BTO portfolio includes programs transferred from DSO and MTO, but will also include new opportunities, beginning with the recently announced Hand Proprioception and Touch Interfaces (HAPTIX) program that expands on the work of DARPA's Revolutionizing Prosthetics and Reliable Neural-Interface Technology programs.

In keeping with DARPA tradition, future programs will be created from ideas brought to the agency by program managers and through conversations with the research community.

"Before BTO, DARPA had a handful of biologists, neuroscientists, engineers, and the like, interested in synthesizing their work but distributed across different offices," Ling said. "Now we're under one roof, so to speak, and looking to attract a new community of scholars, who will bring a host of new ideas at the intersection of traditional and emerging disciplines."

Three research focus areas reflect the scale and scope of BTO's mission.

+ Restore and Maintain Warfighter Abilities: Because military readiness depends on the health and wellbeing of service members, a critical focus is on cultivating new discoveries that help maintain peak warfighter abilities and restoring those abilities as quickly and fully as possible when they are degraded-including through the development of advanced prosthetics and neural interfaces. BTO will seek to develop new techniques and therapeutic strategies for addressing current and emerging threats, but its work will extend beyond medical applications to include exploration of complex biological issues that can affect a warfighter's ability to operate and interact in the biological and physical world.

+ DARPA's Systems-Based Neurotechnology for Emerging Therapies (SUBNETS) program is an example of work to restore lost function. It pursues advanced therapies to reduce the burden and severity of neuropsychological illness in afflicted troops and veterans.

+ The Autonomous Diagnostics to Enable Prevention and Therapeutics (ADEPT) program, which seeks novel ways to identify and protect against infectious disease, is an example of work to mitigate or neutralize biological threats.

+ Harness Biological Systems: The highly evolved functional and synthetic capabilities of biological systems can be harnessed to develop new products and systems in support of national security with advantages over what even the most advanced conventional chemistry and manufacturing technologies can achieve. BTO seeks to establish a fundamental understanding of natural processes and the underlying design rules that govern the behavior of biological systems, and apply that knowledge to forward-engineer new systems and products with novel functionality.

+ DARPA's Living Foundries program, for example, is focused in part on creating a biologically based manufacturing platform to provide rapid, scalable access to new materials with novel properties that can enable a new generation of mechanical, electrical, and optical products.

+ The Chronicle of Lineage Indicative of Origins (CLIO) program, meanwhile, aims to make biological engineering safer by establishing enduring control elements that protect against intentionally harmful genetic engineering, prevent illegal acquisition or misuse of proprietary strains, provide novel forensic tools to assist in the investigation of biological incidents, and allow responsible investigators to document compliance with safe biological manipulation practices.

+ Apply Biological Complexity at Scale: Biological systems operate over an enormous range of spatial, physical, and temporal scales. Some organisms thrive as individual cells but most depend on dynamic interactions with other species; humans, for example, are colonized by communities of foreign cells that greatly outnumber their own and have potentially significant but still largely mysterious impacts on metabolism, psychological state, performance, and health.

A better understanding of the interactions between mammalian and non-mammalian species and micro- and macro-organisms could foster new approaches to enhancing mental and physical health in routine and threatening situations. Similarly, disease vectors migrate around the globe slowly and stealthily at times, and at other times in devastating waves of breathtaking speed-reflecting poorly understood dynamics that can undermine national security.

And because they are so difficult to parse from larger biological and ecological phenomena, population-level effects of relevance to agriculture and food security remain largely unplumbed. BTO is looking into pursuing new insights derived from biological complexity and living-system dynamics with the goal of developing applications to enhance global-scale stability and human wellbeing.

+ The Biochronicity program studies the role of time in biological functions. By looking for temporal instructions, or "clock signatures," in biological organisms, the program aims to make it possible to manage the effects of time on human physiology.

Because BTO programs push the leading edge of science, they will sometimes be society's first encounter with the ethical, legal, or social dilemmas that can be raised by new biological technologies. For that reason, DARPA periodically convenes scholars with expertise in these issues to discuss relevant ethical, legal, and social issues.

31.03.2014 Romain Guillot journal-aviation.com

Boeing a dévoilé un nouveau concept de lanceur de satellites développé par sa division Phantom Works Advanced Space Exploration, dans le cadre d’un contrat avec la DARPA.

Lancé en 2011 par l’agence de recherche américaine pour la défense, le contrat de lanceurs ALASA (Airborne Launch Assist Space Access), qui vise à réduire de 66% les coûts de mise en orbite basse de microsatellites, a en effet été remporté par Boeing il y a quelques jours.

ALASA sera donc constitué d’un lanceur de 7,3 mètres de long (24 pieds), spécialement conçu pour être emporté sous le ventre d’un F-15E. Le largage du lanceur, qui est propulsé par quatre moteurs du même type, aussi bien pour le premier que le second étage, s’effectuera à une altitude de 40 000 pieds. ALASA pourra ainsi mettre sur une orbite basse une charge pouvant atteindre 45 kg (100 livres).

Boeing précise également que le contrat avec la DARPA, valorisé à 30,6 millions de dollars, comprend la construction de 12 lanceurs sur une durée de 11 mois. L’objectif final est de pouvoir utiliser ALASA avec un coût par tir inférieur au million de dollars.

La DARPA travaille parallèlement sur le véhicule hypersonique réutilisable XS-1 qui vise également à réduire les coûts de mise sur orbite de satellites, mais pour des charges plus importante (1,3 à 2,3 tonnes).

On se souviendra aussi d’un projet similaire proposé par la défunte société AirLaunch, qui utilisait une fusée baptisée Quick Reach larguée depuis la soute d’un C-17 pour emporter une charge d’une demi-tonne en orbite basse. Le lanceur était notamment financé par la DARPA et l’US Air Force dans le cadre du programme Falcon.

Un premier essai de largage seul avait été effectué avec succès en septembre 2005. Ce programme s’inspirait d’une tentative réussie de largage et de mise à feu d’un missile balistique intercontinental (ICBM) de type Minuteman depuis un C-5 Galaxy en 1974.

20.03.2014 Romain Guillot journal-aviation.com

La DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) a finalement sélectionné quatre finalistes pour la phase 1 du programme VTOL-X. Après Sikorsky en décembre et Aurora Flight Science le mois dernier, l’agence de recherche américaine pour les programmes de défense a annoncé que Boeing et Karem Aircraft participeraient également au programme.

Boeing proposera évidemment son Phantom Swift, dont un modèle réduit conçu en à peine un mois a déjà volé dans un hangar de Philadelphie en septembre 2013. Karem Aircraft mise quant à lui sur un appareil avec propulseurs basculables.

Les différents acteurs ont maintenant 22 mois pour finaliser leur projet, le gagnant qui sera retenu par la DARPA devant pouvoir tester son concept en vol entre 2017 et 2018.

Rappelons que l’objectif final du programme VTOL-X est de concevoir (phase 2) et faire voler (phase 3) un démonstrateur capable de décoller et atterrir verticalement, tout en permettant des vitesses en palier comprises entre 300 et 400 nœuds. Le démonstrateur devra aussi être capable d’emporter une charge représentant au moins 40% de sa masse maximale, comprise entre 4,5 et 5,4 tonnes.

La phase 1 est partiellement financée par la DARPA, à la différence des phases 2 et 3 complètement contractualisées. La totalité du programme VTOL-X représente une enveloppe de 130 millions de dollars.

March 20th, 2014 By US Department of Defense  - defencetalk.com

For generations, new designs for vertical takeoff and landing aircraft have remained unable to increase top speed without sacrificing range, efficiency or the ability to do useful work. DARPA’s VTOL Experimental Plane (VTOL X-Plane) program seeks to overcome these challenges through innovative cross-pollination between the fixed-wing and rotary-wing worlds, to enable radical improvements in vertical and cruise flight capabilities.

In an important step toward that goal, DARPA has awarded prime contracts for Phase 1 of VTOL X-Plane to four companies: Aurora Flight Sciences Corporation; The Boeing Company; Karem Aircraft, Inc; Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation.

“We were looking for different approaches to solve this extremely challenging problem, and we got them,” said Ashish Bagai, DARPA program manager.

“The proposals we’ve chosen aim to create new technologies and incorporate existing ones that VTOL designs so far have not succeeded in developing. We’re eager to see if the performers can integrate their ideas into designs that could potentially achieve the performance goals we’ve set.”

VTOL X-Plane seeks to develop a technology demonstrator that could:

    Achieve a top sustained flight speed of 300 kt-400 kt

    Raise aircraft hover efficiency from 60 percent to at least 75 percent

    Present a more favorable cruise lift-to-drag ratio of at least 10, up from 5-6

    Carry a useful load of at least 40 percent of the vehicle’s projected gross weight of 10,000-12,000 pounds

All four winning companies proposed designs for unmanned vehicles, but the technologies that VTOL X-Plane intends to develop could apply equally well to manned aircraft. Another common element among the designs is that they all incorporate multipurpose technologies to varying degrees.

Multipurpose technologies decrease the number of systems in a vehicle and its overall mechanical complexity. Multipurpose technologies also use space and weight more efficiently to improve performance and enable new and improved capabilities.

The next major milestone for VTOL X-Plane is scheduled for late 2015, when the four performers are required to submit preliminary designs. At that point, DARPA plans to review the designs to decide which to build as a technology demonstrator, with the goal of performing flight tests in the 2017-18 timeframe.

Laser Excalibur – photo DARPA

10/03/2014 Par Julien Bergounhoux - industrie-techno.com

L'utilisation de lasers à haute énergie sur de longues distances, à des fins militaires ou de communication, reste inexploitable à l'heure actuelle pour de multiples raisons. La Darpa compte y remédier à l'aide d'un nouveau système à multiéléments.

La Darpa travaille au développement d'un nouveau type de laser à haute énergie (HEL) en vue d'une utilisation militaire. Ces lasers très puissants ont un fort potentiel pour être utilisés comme armes ou pour transmettre de grandes quantités de données, mais jusqu'à présent leur utilisation sur le terrain était rendue impossible par les trois facteurs déterminants de taille, poids et consommation énergétique (SWaP, pour "Size, Weight and Power").

Le programme Excalibur, dirigé par Joseph Mangano, a réussi à créer un OPA (Optical phased-array) composé de 21 éléments disposés en trois groupes de sept, avec chaque élément équipé d'un laser à fibre. Ce dispositif à basse consommation a été capable d'atteindre avec précision une cible située à 7 km de distance, démontrant sa supériorité sur les lasers conventionnels. Car le dernier élément à surmonter pour le déploiement de lasers en conditions réelles n'est pas des moindres, il s'agit des turbulences atmosphériques. En effet, les fluctuations de densité atmosphérique réduisent drastiquement l'efficacité des lasers sur de longues distances en réduisant l'uniformité des faisceaux par une diffusion de la lumière.

L'utilisation d'un système à multiéléments permet de corriger pratiquement parfaitement ce phénomène, à l'aide d'un algorithme extrêmement rapide qui interprête les turbulences et corrige les défauts induits en moins d'une milliseconde. La Darpa prévoit de continuer les tests avec Excalibur pendant trois ans, augmentant la puissance utilisée jusqu'à 100 kilowatts, un niveau autrement impossible à atteindre pour un appareil de si petite taille, dix fois plus léger que ce qui existe actuellement.

February 11, 2014 DARPA

Unmanned aerial logistics system would bypass ground-based threats and enable faster, more effective delivery of cargo and other essential services in hard-to-reach areas

U.S. military experience has shown that rugged terrain and threats such as ambushes and Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) can make ground-based transportation to and from the front lines a dangerous challenge. Combat outposts require on average 100,000 pounds of material a week, and high elevation and impassable mountain roads often restrict access. Helicopters are one solution, but the supply of available helicopters can’t meet the demand for their services, which cover diverse operational needs including resupply, tactical insertion and extraction, and casualty evacuation. 

To help overcome these challenges, DARPA unveiled the Transformer (TX) program in 2009. Transformer aimed to develop and demonstrate a prototype system that would provide flexible, terrain-independent transportation for logistics, personnel transport and tactical support missions for small ground units. In 2013, DARPA selected the Aerial Reconfigurable Embedded System (ARES) design concept to move forward.

“Many missions require dedicated vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) assets, but most ground units don’t have their own helicopters,” said Ashish Bagai, DARPA program manager. “ARES would make organic and versatile VTOL capability available to many more individual units. Our goal is to provide flexible, terrain-independent transportation that avoids ground-based threats, in turn supporting expedited, cost-effective operations and improving the likelihood of mission success.”

ARES would center on a VTOL flight module designed to operate as an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) capable of transporting a variety of payloads. The flight module would have its own power system, fuel, digital flight controls and remote command-and-control interfaces. Twin tilting ducted fans would provide efficient hovering and landing capabilities in a compact configuration, with rapid conversion to high-speed cruise flight similar to small aircraft. The system could use landing zones half the size typically needed by similarly sized helicopters, enabling it to land in rugged terrain and aboard ships.

It is envisioned that the flight module would travel between its home base and field operations to deliver and retrieve several different types of detachable mission modules, each designed for a specific purpose—cargo pickup and delivery, casualty extraction or airborne intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities, for instance. The flight module would have a useful load capability of up to 3,000 pounds, more than 40 percent the takeoff gross weight of the aircraft.

Units could direct the flight modules using apps on their mobile phones or ruggedized tablets. Initially, the system would be unmanned, with a future path towards semi-autonomous flight systems and user interfaces for optionally manned/controlled flight.

ARES is currently in its third and final phase. Lockheed Martin Skunk Works ® is the lead vehicle design and system integration performer for Phase 3 of the program.

November 14, 2013 by Richard Sisk - defensetech.org

The Defense Department’s top research agency has focused on developing a program to make sure that the Navy is not “outsticked” by China as U.S. forces re-balance to the Pacific.

“We’re looking at a long-range anti-ship missile” to counter China’s development of its own long-range strike assets, said Dr. Arati Prabhakar, director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. “We’re concerned about being ‘out-sticked’” in what has been dubbed the “Pacific pivot” of troops and ships following the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Prabhakar said.

Prabhakar spoke at the opening of an all-day forum on military issues sponsored by the Defense One website.

China’s development of the DF-21D ASBM (Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile), technically a cruise missile dubbed the “carrier killer,” has raised alarms on Capitol Hill. “We are technically ‘out-sticked’ by Chinese anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCM) right now,” Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., head of the Readiness Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee.

Forbes told the RealClearDefense website last week that that the Navy’s main anti-ship missile, the Harpoon, “does not have the range or survivability” to match the threat from the Chinese Navy.

However, the non-partisan Congressional Research Service last spring reported that the threat from the Chinese anti-ship missiles was not quite the “game changer” that some defense analysts had feared.

The Navy and the Air Force could counter by “employing a combination of active and passive measures” against the Chinese missiles, the CRS said in a report. One of the methods suggested by the CRS to defeat the Chinese system would be to equip Navy ships with electronic warfare systems that could generate radar “smoke clouds” to confuse the terminal guidance systems of the Chinese missiles.

In August, DARPA and the Office of Naval Research conducted the first flight of a prototype in the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) program, which is meant to develop a weapon that can hit enemy ships out of the range of a counter-strike.

A B-1 bomber from the 337th Test and Evaluation Squadron conducted the mission from Dyess Air Force Base, Tex., to the Point Mugu Sea Test Range off the coast of southern California and successfully hit a moving target, DARPA said. Halfway to the target, the missile switched to its autonomous guidance system, which completed the mission, DARPA said.

“This fully functional test is a significant step in providing the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force with a next-generation anti-ship missile capability,” Artie Mabbett, the DARPA program manager for the LRASM, said after the test.

At the Defense One forum, Prabhakar said the autonomous guidance system for the LRASM was vital vital to counter an enemy’s potential ability to jam Global Positioning Satellite guidance.

Prabhakar also noted DARPA’s difficulty in doing work on space systems in an era of cost-cutting and declining budgets.

Space “is a place where cost is just an overwhelming issue,” Prabhakar said. “It’s so hard, it takes so long to do anything in space. Even the smallest satellite costs tens of millions of dollars,” she said.

The budget cuts also put the future of defense research at risk, Prahhakar said. Unless Congress lifts the sequester cuts that will take about $500 billion out of defense spending over the next 10 years, “we’re going to have a future of power point (presentations) and not real systems,” she said. “We want to do things that really get built.”

WASHINGTON, Sept. 18 (UPI)

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is seeking development of a reusable hypersonic unmanned vehicle for the launch of satellites.

The vehicle -- with operation and reliability similar to traditional aircraft – would lower the cost of launching military satellites, which often costs hundreds of millions of dollars.

"We want to build off of proven technologies to create a reliable, cost-effective space delivery system with one-day turnaround," said Jess Sponable, DARPA program manager heading the development project, which is called XS-1. "How it's configured, how it gets up and how it gets back are pretty much all on the table -- we're looking for the most creative yet practical solutions possible."

The XS-1, or Experimental Spaceplane program, aims for an unmanned vehicle that would allow for daily operations and flights to launch small satellites, without need for specialized infrastructure and with the use of a small number of ground crew, DARPA said.

A reusable first stage would fly to hypersonic speeds at a sub-orbital altitude. One or more expendable upper stages would then separate and deploy a satellite into low Earth orbit.

DARPA has issued a special notice on the program, asking for ideas and proposals for the XS-1 program.

"XS-1 aims to help break the cycle of launches happening farther and farther apart and costing more and more," Sponable said. "It would also help further our progress toward practical hypersonic aircraft technologies and increase opportunities to test new satellite technologies as well."

Sep 9, 2013 ASDNews Source : BAE Systems PLC

    New Integrated Targeting Device will support U.S. forces as part of DARPAaEUR(tm)s Persistent Close Air Support program

BAE Systems will lead the development of an advanced technology that seeks to detect and identify targets at tactically significant ranges, providing accurate location of long-range targets for weapons engagement. This technology is intended to enable U.S. ground forces to execute air-ground missions close to friendly forces, more quickly and accurately.

The new Integrated Targeting Device (ITD) will be designed as a lightweight, handheld day-and-night system that will support the Persistent Close Air Support (PCAS) program. It will allow Joint Tactical Air Controllers (JTACs) on the ground to simultaneously visualize, select, and employ weapons against multiple moving targets in a specified area.  At the same time, the JTACs will be able to digitally task close air support assets to engage with enemy targets. The device will provide either GPS coordinates or laser guidance for targeting to enable faster mission implementation by U.S. ground forces, while reducing collateral damage and potential fratricide.

"BAE Systems’ expertise and significant investment in advanced electro-optic and packaging technology is evident in our approach to the ITD, allowing us to achieve the program’s challenging size and performance goals," said Mark Meisner, PCAS technical adviser for BAE Systems. "Through the PCAS program, we are continuing to innovate sensors, lasers, optics, and human factors that open the door to an entirely new set of mission capabilities for the warfighter."

Raytheon Missile Systems selected BAE Systems to develop the ITD under a contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to support the PCAS program. The ITD will be integrated with a handheld tablet computer to help the warfighter visualize, select, and employ weapons as needed. The system will initially be demonstrated with the A-10 Warthog.

Aug. 23, 2013 defense-aerospace.com

(Source: DARPA; issued August 22, 2013)

Warrior Web Closer To Making Its Performance-Improving Suit A Reality

Entering its final phase, program seeks proposals that would help combine promising technologies into a comfortable, lightweight undersuit that would help prevent injury and boost endurance

Of the many risks dismounted Soldiers face in the field, one of the most common is injury from carrying their gear—often topping 100 pounds—for extended periods over rough terrain. Heavy loads increase the likelihood of musculoskeletal injury and also exacerbate fatigue, which contributes to both acute and chronic injury and impedes Soldiers’ physical and cognitive abilities to perform mission-oriented tasks. To help address these challenges, DARPA seeks performers for the last phase of its Warrior Web program.

Warrior Web aims to develop a soft, lightweight undersuit that would help reduce injuries and fatigue and improve Soldiers’ ability to efficiently perform their missions. The garment would protect injury-prone areas and promote efficient and safe movement over a wide range of activities (walking, running, jumping, crawling, etc.). Comfortable, durable and washable, the garment would not interfere with body armor or other standard clothing and gear. DARPA seeks to create a working prototype that significantly boosts endurance, carrying capacity and overall Soldier effectiveness—all while using no more than 100 watts of power.

“Many of the individual technologies currently under development show real promise to reduce injury and fatigue and improve endurance,” said LTC Joseph Hitt, DARPA program manager for Warrior Web. “Now we’re aiming to combine them—and hopefully some new ones, too—into a single system that nearly every Soldier could wear and would provide decisive benefits under real-world conditions.”

The program’s successes to date have resulted from development efforts funded under Warrior Web Task A: Warrior Web Alpha. These efforts have focused on developing a mix of core component technologies worn at the ankles, hips, knees and upper body. Task A performers have been exploring ways to directly mitigate factors that cause injury, as well as reduce physical burdens by augmenting the work done by Soldiers’ own muscles. Component systems within Task A include methods for rapid joint stabilization, functional structures, energy injection, regenerative kinetics, load transfer and distribution, and flexible kinetic and kinematic sensing.

The program’s next phase, Warrior Web Task B: Advanced Technology Development, aims to leverage Task A component technology investments and further advance the development of a fully integrated undersuit system. DARPA now seeks ideas and technical proposals for how to best develop and implement the Warrior Web system.

DARPA has scheduled a Warrior Web Task B Proposers’ Day for potential performers on Thursday, Sept. 5, 2013.

DARPA seeks proposals in the following technology areas:

-- Integrated advanced control systems across multiple joints

-- Materials, fabrics, structures, sensors, sensor interfaces and human factors associated with developing conforming, assistive wearable technologies

-- Technologies that significantly reduce the potential for acute or chronic injury of a wearer under typical warfighter mission profile situations

-- Technologies that increase physical capabilities and/or endurance of humans during activities such as running, lifting, climbing, carrying a load, marksmanship, etc.

-- Additional assistive wearable technologies for rehabilitation, physical therapy or those intended to help improve quality of life for the aging population

Proposers may submit a point solution technology that addresses a single technology area or an integrated technology solution or suit that addresses multiple areas. Proposals are due at 4 p.m. EDT on Thursday, October 3, 2013.

July 12, 2013 By  J. T. Quigley - Tech Biz

Move over, ASIMO. The new humanoid robot from the U.S. Department of Defense’s Advanced Projects Agency (DARPA) does away with the cutesy voice and toy-store design in favor of something much more Terminator-inspired. The hulking 6-foot 2-inch bipedal machine weighs 330 pounds and achieves unparalleled mobility thanks to 28 hydraulically actuated joints.

Atlas, built by Boston Dynamics with funding from DARPS, is modeled after the ultra high-tech robotics firm’s Petman. Judging from Boston Dynamics’ earlier projects, including BigDog and Cheetah, it is highly unlikely that Atlas will suffer from an embarrassing loss of balance like its Honda-made predecessor. In fact, Atlas was designed to take a beating while remaining upright.

In a video released earlier this week, DARPA shows off the Atlas Proto robot jumping from a ledge, navigating over a gap in the ground, and quickly climbing stairs without falling. Then, the current Atlas is shown balancing on one foot and then being hit by a wrecking ball. It stabilizes itself while remaining on only one foot. Finally, researchers put wooden planks under a walking Atlas’ feet. The robot manages to take one step onto the plank, step off, and readjust its path to avoid the obstacle.

“It's designed to not only walk and carry things, but can travel through rough terrain outdoors and climb using its hands and feet. Its head includes stereo cameras and a laser range finder,” said CNET.

While Boston Dynamics’ other robots are primarily designed for military applications, Atlas will be accessible to civilians. For DARPA’s international Robotics Challenge (DRC), seven lucky teams will have the opportunity to program Atlas with their own custom software. The DRC kicked off in October 2011, and will continue this December in Miami.

The DRC will pit teams of robot engineers against each other in a simulated industrial disaster setting, reminiscent of the March 11 2011 disaster in Japan.

“DARPA specifically mentions the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear accident as an example of a disaster that would have benefited from more capable robots. In fact, the scenario DARPA is planning for the final competition closely resembles the dramatic events that unfolded in the first 24 hours at Fukushima, when human workers attempted but ultimately failed to fix one of the crippled reactors,” said IEEE Spectrum.

Tasks that the challengers’ robots must be able to complete will be breaking down a wall, finding a leaky pipe, and fixing a cooling pump.

The winning team will be awarded a $2 million cash prize by DARPA.