The British Ministry of Defence has a new soldier
that costs £1.1 million (US$1.8 million) and goes by the odd name of
“Porton Man.” Based at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory
(Dstl) in Porton Down, Wiltshire, Porton Man isn't your average
squaddie. He’s a robotic mannequin designed to test suits and equipment
for the British armed forces in order to help protect them against
chemical and biological weapons. Read More
Following on from driving tests that wound up in December last year, the Black Knight Transformer
prototype demonstrator has taken to the air for the first time.
California-based Advanced Tactics, Inc., announced its vehicle, which
combines the capabilities of a helicopter and an off-road vehicle,
completed its first flight tests last month, being remotely piloted at
an undisclosed location in Southern California. Read More
US Army examining next-gen augmented reality "live synthetic" simulations
By David Szondy
April 1, 2014
Modern warfare is sometimes compared to a video
game, but within ten years combat training may become the most realistic
video game imaginable. The US Army’s Future Holistic Training
Environment Live Synthetic program is a new approach to combat training
that integrates various simulations into a single, remotely accessible
system. Used on bases across the country, its goal is to provide the
Pentagon with a cheaper, more effective way of training soldiers for
future military operations. Read More
From robotics to optics and forgery prevention to solar cells,
biomimicry has proven fertile ground for researchers. Recognizing
nature's potential in the development of new technologies, DARPA has
announced the establishment of the Biological Technologies Office (BTO),
a new division that aims to "merge biology, engineering, and computer
science to harness the power of natural systems for national security."
Read More
In November 2009, the Accuracy International L115A3 sniper rifle was the weapon used in the most prodigious feat of marksmanship in military history
– three consecutive strikes from 2.47 km in combat. Now a British
sniper in Afghanistan has reportedly killed six insurgents with one
bullet using the L115A3. Read More
Mortars are one of the oldest forms of artillery,
evolving from devices that fired stone projectiles a few hundred meters
to become a mainstay of any modern army's arsenal. Benét Laboratories
is continuing this evolution by tweaking the 120-mm mortar system
currently used by the US Army to increase range, reduce weight, improve
user safety and cut costs. Read More
According to the US Department of Defense,
corrosion costs the Navy approximately US$7 billion every year. That's
certainly an incentive for developing a method of keeping military
vehicles from rusting. Now, researchers from the Office of Naval
Research and The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory may
be onto something. They're looking into the use a powder that could
allow scratched or chipped paint to "heal like human skin." Read More
The best advice for surviving a nuclear bomb is
to be somewhere else when it goes off. If that doesn't work out for you,
though, a recent study carried out at the USDOE's Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory (LLNL) provides some simple guidance for maximizing
your chances of survival. Read More
Three-year pizza to join US Army MRE delicacies
By Brian Dodson
February 24, 2014
Pizza with a three-year shelf life will soon be
joining the US Army's field rations menu. These infamous MREs (Meal,
Ready to Eat) have a long and checkered history, acquiring such
sobriquets over the years as "Meals Rejected by Everyone" and "Materials
Resembling Edibles." Pizza has long topped the list of requested meals,
but the task of providing a palatable slice of this complex food that
will survive the required three-year shelf life has foiled all attempts.
Now, the folks at Natick's Combat Feeding Directorate have achieved a
minor miracle in food technology: stopping time for a slice of pizza.
Read More
Imagine a scenario where an earthquake brings
down an industrial complex, trapping the survivors inside and as the
disaster response team arrives, they unpack a grenade launcher and start
lobbing rounds into the air. This may seem like madness, but there’s
method in it. In this hypothetical case, the grenades are part of the
Soldier Parachute Aerial Reconnaissance Camera System (SPARCS) built by
Singapore-based ST Engineering. Instead of a warhead, each 40 mm grenade
round has a CMOS camera sending back real-time images to a computerized
receiver; turning disaster teams, police, and foot soldiers into recon
units. Read More
Q -Warrior brings head-up displays to the battlefield
By David Szondy
February 19, 2014
"Great battles are won with artillery" – Napoleon Bonaparte. In the 21st century, he’d probably change that to information.
The trick is to get that information to soldiers on the front line
quickly and in a manner that won’t distract them from the job at hand.
To this end, BAE Systems’ Electronic Systems has developed the Q-Warrior
– a head-up display for foot soldiers that’s designed to provide a
full-color, high resolution 3D display of the battlefield situation and
assets. Read More
The UK's Ministry of Defence (MoD) and BAE
Systems this week announced details of last year's first test flight of
the Taranis
unmanned combat demonstrator aircraft, which BAE bills as the "most
advanced aircraft ever built by British engineers." The 15-minute test
flight took place at an undisclosed location outside of the UK on August
10, 2013 as part of a project to show the UK’s ability to create a
unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) capable of surveillance, targeting,
intelligence gathering, deterrence, and strikes in hostile territory.
Read More
Microsoft's Kinect sensor has provided the basis
for a system now monitoring the demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating
North and South Korea, local news outlet Hankooki reports. Read More
Many lasers become one in Lockheed Martin's 30 kW fiber laser
By David Szondy
February 2, 2014
In another step forward for laser weapons that
brings to mind the Death Star's superlaser, Lockheed Martin has
demonstrated a 30-kilowatt fiber laser produced by combining many lasers
into a single beam of light. According to the company, this is the
highest power laser yet that was still able to maintain beam quality and
electrical efficiency, paving the way for a laser weapon system
suitable, if not for a Death Star, for a wide range of air, land and sea
military platforms. Read More
Lemur Studio Design develops mine detector in a shoe
By David Szondy
January 26, 2014
Boot insoles can turn a pair of really
uncomfortable brogues into podiatric clouds that can take a long hike
and remove the foot ache. Now, Lemur Studio Design based in Bogota,
Colombia, has come up with a concept for insoles that won’t just save
your instep, but could save your life. A submission to the World Design
Impact Prize 2013-2014 competition, SaveOneLife is a wearable mine
detector that fits in a shoe and warns the wearer if and where a
potentially deadly landmine might lurk nearby. Read More
When someone mentions flying cars it conjures up
images of a sporty little number that takes to the air like something
out of the Jetsons. But what about one that’s a cross between a
4x4, an octocopter, and a Blackhawk helicopter? That’s what Advanced
Tactics of El Segundo, California is seeing with its ambitions to
produce a roadable VTOL aircraft capable of unmanned autonomous
operations as a more flexible way to recover casualties, move supplies,
and support special forces. Read More
Pentagon looks to the next 25 years of robot warriors
By David Szondy
January 6, 2014
Last month, the US Pentagon pulled out its
crystal ball and released a report that presents a blueprint of what it
sees as the future of military robots over the next quarter of a
century. It projects likely developments in new unmanned technologies
against a background of shrinking budgets and shifting strategic
policies, and how the dramatic development and expansion of military
unmanned systems requires large-scale consolidation and development to
exploit the technology’s full potential. Read More
As part of an update to Parliament on the
progress of the Trident replacement program, Britain’s Ministry of
Defence (MoD) has released a concept image of the Royal Navy’s next
ballistic nuclear missile submarine. This coincides with the awarding of
two contracts to BAE Systems Maritime-Submarines for £47 million (US$76
million) and £32 million (US$60 million) to begin preliminary design
work on the nuclear-powered submarines, currently called the Successor
class, which are intended to replace the Navy’s aging fleet of of
Vanguard-class boats by 2028. Read More
HEL-MD takes out mortars and UAVs with vehicle-mounted laser
By Darren Quick
December 12, 2013
High energy laser weapons are a hot area of research with companies including Lockheed Martin, Rheinmetall and Northrop Grumman all developing systems. Boeing is also in the mix with its High Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator
(HEL MD), which is being put through its paces by the US Army. Between
November 18 and December 10, the HEL MD successfully took out mortar
rounds and UAVs in flight, marking a first for the vehicle-mounted
system. Read More
Today, the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL)
announced that it had successfully launched a drone from a submerged
submarine. The all-electric eXperimental Fuel Cell Unmanned Aerial
System (XFC) was launched in the Bahamas from the Los Angeles-class
nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Providence (SSN 719) using a system
that allowed the drone to be deployed without modifications to the
boat, or requiring it to surface. Read More
US Army experiments with crowdsourcing equipment design
By C.C. Weiss
November 13, 2013
The US Army Rapid Equipping Force (REF) is
experimenting with internet-based collaboration. With the help of the
crowdsourcing gurus at Local Motors, it has launched ArmyCoCreate.com, a
website designed to let soldiers, designers and engineers collaborate
on identifying soldier requirements and designing prototypes to address
them. Read More
The B-52 heavy bomber is a bit like the Queen of
England – sometimes it seems as though both of them are going to go on
forever. Last week, Boeing announced a new program to extend the life of
the US Air Force B-52 fleet by expanding its capacity to carry smart
weapons by 50 percent as part of a new US$24.6 million contract. Read More
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SOCOM Admiral pushes for Iron Man-style combat suit
By Brian Dodson
October 11, 2013
The US Navy's top SEAL, four-star Admiral William
McRaven, is pushing hard for a modern suit of armor called the Tactical
Assault Light Operator Suit (TALOS). Though not exactly an
Iron Man suit, it's that ballpark. As a result, a Broad Agency
Announcement has now been issued seeking proposals and research in
support of the design, construction, and testing of TALOS, with a basic
version hopefully seeing service within three years. Read More
DARPA proposes flexible new unmanned vehicle network
September 12, 2013
DARPA has floated a fascinating new unmanned
systems project that would see undersea motherships launching smaller
submarines and flying vehicles to conduct pop-up surveillance on
pirates, terrorists and hijackers. The Hydra Project, named after the
Greek legend of the multi-headed snake that grew two new heads whenever
one was cut off, looks to provide low cost response to quickly changing
situations on or near the water. Read More
US Army rolls out a mobile chemical weapons neutralizer
September 12, 2013
The US Department of Defense recently rolled out a
system to rapidly deploy chemical weapons disposal facilities that
could potentially be used quickly and effectively on foreign shores in
the near future. The Field Deployable Hydrolysis System (FDHS) developed
at the US Army's Edgewood Chemical and Biological Center in Maryland is
a mobile system designed to destroy chemical warfare agents in bulk.
The FDHS neutralizes chemical agents by mixing them with water and other
reagents like sodium hydroxide and sodium hypochlorite and then heating
them to produce compounds that are "not usable as weapons." This
heating and mixing process to facilitate chemical reactions purportedly
has destruction efficiency of 99.9 percent. Read More
A green paper published by University College
London (UCL) argues that it is entirely feasible for Australia to
replace its aging fleet of diesel submarines with nuclear-powered craft.
Read More
Boeing solid-state laser weapon system outshines expectations
By David Szondy
August 18, 2013
The likelihood of lasers appearing on the
battlefield was boosted last week when Boeing announced that its Thin
Disk Laser system had achieved unexpected levels of power and
efficiency. In a recent demonstration for the US Department of Defense,
the laser’s output was 30 percent higher than project requirements and
had greater beam quality, a result which paves the way toward a
practical tactical laser weapon. Read More
Despite recent demonstrations by the US Navy,
we still think of laser weapons as being things of the future. However,
previously-classified British documents prove that not only were the
major powers working on laser weapons in the 1970s and 80s, but that
they were already being deployed with combat units in war zones. A
letter from the Ministry of Defence released under the 30-year rule
reveals that laser weapons were deployed on Royal Navy ships during the
Falklands War in 1982, and that the British government was concerned
about similar weapons being developed behind the Iron Curtain. Read More
Radio has come a long way since Marconi bashed a
telegraph key and radar is a miracle compared to when it was just a
squiggle on a cathode tube, but despite a century of advances, they’re
still prone to the same problems as the first pioneers encountered. For
five days in July, the Office of Naval Research’s (ONR) Research Vessel
(R/V) Knorr made a survey in the waters off Virginia Beach, Virginia
using ScanEagle
UAVs to study the effect of oceanic and atmospheric changes on radar
and radio waves with the aim of producing more secure military
communications and improve the ability of radar to detect hostile craft.
Read More
A secret of Cold War came to light recently with
Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico releasing a video tour of
what was once one of the most secret and secure locations in the United
States. For decades, Tunnel Vault was used to house nuclear weapon
components, but the now declassified facility has now become an artifact
of the Dr. Strangelove age. Read More
Feeling cheerful? Why not remedy that by going
online and seeing what would happen if someone dropped an H-bomb on your
hometown? The browser-based Nukemap3D uses a Google Earth plug in to
produce a 3D graphic of the effects of a nuclear weapon on your city of
choice. All you have to do is pick your target, select your favorite
thermonuclear device, and you can see an animated mushroom cloud rising
over ground zero. Gizmag caught up with the creator, Dr. Alex
Wellerstein, to talk about Nukemap3D. Read More
The X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS)
demonstrator put another page in the history books on Wednesday with its
first unmanned arrested-wire carrier landing. The drone flew 35 minutes
from Patuxent River Naval Air Station to the carrier USS George H.W.
Bush (CVN 77) off the coast of Virginia, where is landed at about 145
knots (167 mph, 268 km/h) with an arresting wire catching its tail hook
and bringing it to a stop in 350 ft (107 m). Read More
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA) announced on Monday the winner of the first challenges in its
competition to design the Fast Adaptable Next-Generation Ground Vehicle
(FANG). The US$1 million prize went to “Ground Systems” – a
three-person group with members in Ohio, Texas and California. The first
of three challenges, the purpose of the competition is to bring
crowdsourcing to the problem of creating armored vehicles, with the hope
of reducing the design costs by a factor of five. Read More
The arrest of one of the Boston Marathon bombing
suspects was carried out, in part, with the help of a remote controlled
robot. Such an operation highlights the growing uses of unmanned ground
vehicles (UGV) in anti-terrorist and other operations. Northrop Grumman
Corporation’s CUTLASS robot, developed by its division in Coventry, U.K.
is designed to provide remote handling and surveillance of hazardous
threats and is intended to replace British Army’s Wheelbarrow robot for
bomb disposal. Read More
The U.S. Navy took a step farther away from John
Paul Jones and closer to James T. Kirk as it announced that a
solid-state laser weapon will be deployed on a U.S. Navy ship in fiscal
year 2014. The announcement that the Laser Weapon System
(LaWS) will deployed on board USS Ponce (AFSB[I] 15) two years ahead of
schedule was made on Monday at the Sea-Air-Space exposition, National
Harbor, Maryland. The deployment is the latest in a line of recent
recent high-energy laser demonstrations carried out by the Office of
Naval Research (ONR) and Naval Sea Systems Command. Read More
Pilots need sharp eyes, but Raytheon is looking
to their ears as well. The company has developed a new 3D Audio system
for aircraft, that turns information into an audible three-dimensional
picture. It helps pilots identify where threats are coming from, and
keeps radio channels untangled. Read More
If any soldier needs body armor, its a
paratrooper making a parachute drop. Unfortunately, standard body armor
is too inflexible for paratroopers to use without the risk of being
injured upon landing, but the US Army’s Airborne and Special Operations
Test Directorate hopes to rectify this, conducting test jumps with both
the latest parachutes and body armor. Read More
The U.S. Army is funding Lockheed Martin to
develop hardware and software for the Extended Area Protection and
Survivability (EAPS) program. Under this program, Lockheed Martin has
conducted the first guided test flight of the Miniature Hit-to-Kill
(MHTK) interceptor rocket. The MHTK is designed to defeat incoming
rocket, artillery, and mortar fire out to ranges of 3 - 4 km (1.9 - 2.5
miles). Read More
Last week, the United States Air Force’s 2nd Bomb Wing made its first live run with a new Lockheed Martin Sniper pod
installed on the wing of a B-52H Stratofortress. Taking off from
Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, the practice run introduces new
combat abilities that will give the aging bomber better integration with
ground forces and laser-guided bombs for precision strikes. Read More
If you've ever worried about the threat from
supersonic tennis balls, then BAE Systems’ Artisan medium-range Type 997
3D surveillance radar should put you at ease – it can detect one
traveling at Mach 3 (1,980 mph, 3,186 km/h) at a distance of 25
kilometers (15.5 mi). The new radar, developed for the Royal Navy’s Type
23 Duke-class frigates, is designed to simultaneously detect 900
targets smaller than a bird, against background noise equivalent to
10,000 mobile phone signals at ranges from 200 meters (656 ft) to 200
kilometers (124 mi). Read More
The Rheinmetall Group has been awarded an €84
million (US$112 million) contract to supply a further sixty of its
modular Gladius "future soldier" systems to the German Federal Defense
Force. Read More
When Northrop Grumman announced that it was building the Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV), it looked as if the age of the great airships was returning. When the LEMV took to the air in its maiden flight, it seemed a certainty. Now, the US Army has announced that the US$517 million program has been cancelled. Read More
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