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Category: military

Drones are neat and fun and all that good stuff (I should probably add the caveat here that I’m obviously not referring to the big, terrible military variety), but when it comes to quadcopters, there’s always been the looming question of general usefulness. The consumer-facing variety are pretty much the exclusive realm of hobbyists and imaging.

We’ve seen a number of interesting applications for things like agricultural surveillance, real estate and the like, all of which are effectively extensions of that imaging capability. But a lot can be done with a camera and the right processing. One of the more interesting applications I’ve seen cropping up here and there is the warehouse drone — something perhaps a bit counterintuitive, as you likely (and understandably) associate drones with the outdoors.

Looking back, it seems we’ve actually had two separate warehouse drone companies compete in Disrupt Battlefield. There was IFM (Intelligent Flying Machines) in 2016 and Vtrus two years later. That’s really the tip of the iceberg for a big list of startups effectively pushing to bring drones to warehouses and factory floors.

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The Air Force Research Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base has released a new analysis of the Department of Defense’s investments into directed energy technologies, or DE. The report, titled “Directed Energy Futures 2060,” makes predictions about what the state of DE weapons and applications will be 40 years from now and offers a range of scenarios in which the United States might find itself either leading the field in DE or lagging behind peer-state adversaries. In examining the current state of the art of this relatively new class of weapons, the authors claim that the world has reached a “tipping point” in which directed energy is now critical to successful military operations.

One of the document’s most eyebrow-raising predictions is that a “force field” could be created by “a sufficiently large fleet or constellation of high-altitude DEW systems” that could provide a “missile defense umbrella, as part of a layered defense system, if such concepts prove affordable and necessary.” The report cites several existing examples of what it calls “force fields,” including the Active Denial System, or “pain ray,” as well as non-kinetic counter-drone systems, and potentially counter-missile systems, that use high-power microwaves to disable or destroy their targets. Most intriguingly, the press release claims that “the concept of a DE weapon creating a localized force field may be just on the horizon.”

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If you’re wondering just how advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems are getting, then know this: the US military is testing an experimental AI network tasked with identifying likely future events worthy of closer attention, and days before they occur.

The series of tests are called the Global Information Dominance Experiments (GIDE), and they combine data from a huge variety of sources, including satellite imagery, intelligence reports, sensors in the field, radar, and more.

Cloud computing also plays an important part in this setup, making sure that vast chunks of data collected from all over the world can be processed efficiently, and then accessed by whichever military officials and agencies need them.

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As the United States looks beyond war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the military is preparing for conflict in new domains, from outer space to cyberspace.
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High-energy #lasers are moving quickly from prototype to deployment for the #USArmy and #USNavy. We’ve helped make that happen.

A brief history of high-energy lasers.

The U.S. military has had electromagnetic spectrum weapons in mind since the 1960s. Throughout the 1980s, industry and military laid the groundwork for figuring out how to reach practical power levels, beam control and adaptive optics. The Department of Defense officially recognized lasers as a plausible future weapon in 1999, marking the beginning of formal research and development.

%{[ data-embed-type= image data-embed-id=6105d4fd38fdfbe3338b45e7 data-embed-element= span data-embed-size=320w data-embed-align= left data-embed-alt= Raytheon has installed the prototype High Energy Laser Weapon System (HELWS) aboard a Polaris MRZR all-terrain vehicle to defend military forces from enemy unmanned aircraft. data-embed-src= https://img.militaryaerospace.com/files/base/ebm/mae/image/2021/07/2107MAEsr_p03.6105d4fa44c8a.png?auto=format&fit=max&w=1440 data-embed-caption= Raytheon has installed the prototype High Energy Laser Weapon System (HELWS) aboard a Polaris MRZR all-terrain vehicle to defend military forces from enemy unmanned aircraft. ]}%However, researchers did demonstrate limited-use lasers earlier than that, with the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) firing a 100-kilowatt laser in 1968 and the Navy-ARPA Chemical Laser producing 250 kilowatts in 1975.

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The company claims its High-Speed Vertical Take-Off and Landing aircraft could blend “the hover capability of a helicopter with the speed, range and survivability features of a fighter aircraft”. Such a system would be capable of “low-downwash hover” and “jet-like cruise speeds over 400kt [740km/h]”, the manufacturer says.

Bell’s conceptual renderings appear to use foldable proprotor technology that the company has disclosed in patent applications. The firm has explored aircraft that can take off vertically using tiltrotors, but then fly forward in cruise mode using wing-borne lift and thrust from jet engines, according to patent applications. Rotor blades would fold back to reduce drag during forward jet-powered flight.

One way such an aircraft might switch between high-speed cruise and VTOL mode is by relying on a “convertible engine”, a jet engine that switches between turboshaft and turbofan modes, according to patent filings. The Lockheed Martin F-35B uses a similar system, called the Rolls-Royce LiftSystem, to facilitate short take offs and vertical landings.

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The US military’s AI experiments are growing particularly ambitious. The Drive reports that US Northern Command recently completed a string of tests for Global Information Dominance Experiments (GIDE), a combination of AI, cloud computing and sensors that could give the Pentagon the ability to predict events “days in advance,” according to Command leader General Glen VanHerck. It’s not as mystical as it sounds, but it could lead to a major change in military and government operations.

The machine learning-based system observes changes in raw, real-time data that hint at possible trouble. If satellite imagery shows signs that a rival nation’s submarine is preparing to leave port, for instance, the AI could flag that mobilization knowing the vessel will likely leave soon. Military analysts can take hours or even days to comb through this information — GIDE technology could send an alert within “seconds,” VanHerck said.

The most recent dry run, GIDE 3, was the most expansive yet. It saw all 11 US commands and the broader Defense Department use a mix of military and civilian sensors to address scenarios where “contested logistics” (such as communications in the Panama Canal) might pose a problem. The technology involved wasn’t strictly new, the General said, but the military “stitched everything together.”

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What do you think?

The idea of using spaceships to travel from one point on the Earth’s surface to another has been around since at least the 1960s, but the cost and complexity of the idea have meant it’s been little more than a pipe dream.

In principle, the approach isn’t that different from the one used by intercontinental ballistic missiles. A rocket is used to blast the payload, be it a nuclear weapon or a passenger spaceship, on a big looping trajectory into space before re-entering the atmosphere on the other side of the planet.

The approach could make it possible to travel between continents in under an hour, and now Japan has outlined its vision for how to make the idea a reality. In a roadmap unveiled at an expert panel earlier this month, its science ministry put forward a two-phase plan it predicts could support a 5 trillion yen ($46 billion) market for spaceships departing from and arriving in Japan.

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