Now comes apparent proof the military is, indeed, dealing with software glitches in its unmanned “drones.” The New York Times reported that a U.S. Navy drone earlier this month made its way into restricted airspace near Washington, D.C., because operators lost remote control of it for about 20 minutes. The reason for the scary error, according to Navy officials, was a “software issue” that thwarted the drone’s automatic homing feature. When operators lost contact with it, the Northrop Grumman(NOC)-manufactured drone just kept flying the wrong way.

The news brings to mind the case between Intelligent Integration Systems, a small Boston-based company that specializes in high-speed data-analysis systems, and Netezza(NZ), a larger data-warehouse appliance company in nearby Marlborough, Mass. At issue is the source code behind Spatial, geographic-data-analysis software that can parse and pinpoint map-based information such as hurricane patterns, wireless phone calls and, potentially, people. Intelligent Integration Systems developed the technology behind Spatial, which initially ran on an early version of Netezza’s data-warehousing platform, the Netezza Performance Server. Netezza alleges Intelligent Integration Systems was contractually required to develop a new version of the Spatial software for its newer platform, dubbed TwinFin, and sued Intelligent Integration Systems accordingly — along with terminating its relationship with the company. Intelligent Integration Systems countersued.

The court file contained a series of email messages among Netezza executives indicating the company sold an unauthorized version of Spatial for TwinFin to the CIA for use in its predator-drone program before the software was feasible, tested and deemed accurate. The messages reveal accuracy problems with the software, fueling growing concerns about unmanned aircraft that drop missiles on enemy targets.

According to an analysis by the New America Foundation, a public-policy think tank whose board is led by Google(GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt, 142 reported drone attacks in Pakistan killed between 1,013 and 1,362 people from 2004 to this year. Of those killed, up to a third were nonmilitants, the report found.

Nobody was hurt by the recent errant helicopter drone near Washington, but the event served to bring the robot weapon scare closer to home.

Meanwhile, courts have been favoring Intelligent Integration Systems. “The Court concludes that IISI was not contractually obligated to make its Geospatial software product work on Netezza’s TwinFin appliance [computer],” according to an Aug. 20 ruling by the Suffolk Superior Court in Boston. “Because Netezza thus has no reasonable expectation of proving its claim that IISI breached an obligation under the agreement by refusing to make its Geospatial software operate without error on the TwinFin appliance, summary judgment shall enter for ISSI on Netezza’s breach of contract count.”

Netezza has been faring well in the market anyway. Shares in the company rose a whopping 30% Friday on news of a strong quarter and an increased revenue growth forecast.

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The first part of that strategy is to radically overhaul the M4 starting now and give grunts an improved version of the special operations M4A1. Simultaneously, the second part challenges industry to come up with a new carbine that can outperform the M4. The competition opened in early August.

“This is an historic event. We have not done a carbine competition in our lifetimes,” Col. Douglas Tamilio, project manager for soldier weapons, told Army Times. His office is spearheading the M4 Carbine Improvement Program. “We don’t switch rifles and carbines too quickly, and it is not an easy thing.”

The M4 has faced some criticism from soldiers and others who have cited problems with its lethality and reliability, including a 2007 “dust” test in which the M4 performed the worst among four weapons tested, with the greatest number of stoppages.

Tamilio, a career infantry officer, said the weapon has “served the Army extremely well” and touted the 62 improvements made to the M4 in the past 19 years. But, he said, “We can’t sit on our laurels and say M4 is good enough.”

Deadlier weapon

The improvements have begun on thousands of M4s being built now, and thousands more will get conversion kits.

The upgrades will be done in phases. The improvement plan’s first phase essentially distributes an improved M4A1, which is notable for its heavier barrel and automatic fire. The heavier barrel reduces warping and erosion, resulting in better performance and longer life. It also allows for a higher sustained rate of fire.

The Army also is adding ambidextrous controls.

The Army has 12,000 M4s on the production line, and has told manufacturer Colt to turn them into A1s, said Brig. Gen. Peter Fuller, Program Executive Office Soldier.

In addition, 25,000 M4A1s would be purchased beyond existing contracts, as well as roughly 65,000 conversion kits, Tamilio said.

“The Army would like to convert about 150,000 in the near term for infantry brigade combat teams,” he said. The optimal plan would be to convert all the M4s, he added, but funding will be a large factor in that decision.

More changes external to the weapon are also improving its reliability and lethality, Fuller said.

Soldiers will experience fewer jams, thanks to a new magazine that doesn’t allow rounds to move, he said.

And the new M855 A1 ammo provides more stopping power at shorter distances. The older round had to get into a yaw dependency for maximum effect. If it hit the enemy straight, it would punch right through them. The new ammo is not yaw dependent. If it hits the enemy, he is going down.

Many combat vets surveyed in 2006 described how enemy soldiers were shot multiple times but were still able to continue fighting. The survey included 2,600 soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

One in five U.S. soldiers polled recommended a more lethal round. The new round is designed to address that.

“It’s not enhanced performance, it’s consistent performance,” Fuller said. “It really performs the way you want a round to perform, and it’s optimized to the M4.”

Better accuracy

The second phase of the M4 improvement program begins this fall and will focus on increasing the M4’s effectiveness and accuracy, with emphasis on the bolt, bolt carrier assembly and the forward rail assembly.

Over time, reliability will degrade with the bolt, as that component provides the weapon’s action. Officials will host an open competition for a new bolt assembly to determine whether different materials and coatings can enhance the bolt. The Army also is interested in “unique design changes” that have arisen within the industry, Tamilio said.

The service also looks to strengthen the forward rail assembly on top of the receiver. This lends stability to the weapon and serves as the mount for weapon attachments, but restricts the barrel movement that is required for accuracy when re-engaging the target. The Army wants to determine whether a free-floating rail is the answer.

Officials also will look to provide a more consistent trigger pull for better control, according to a June Congressional Research Service report.

New operating system

The third phase, focusing on the operating system, will begin in about 18 months, Tamilio said. The goal is to improve the gas system by allowing less gas and dirt in, or replacing it with a conversion kit similar to the HNK16 that would put a piston in the M4.

Both have their benefits and detractors, the colonel said. The piston reduces the number of moving parts and provides better stability, but there is “a little more metal on metal,” which can diminish durability and accelerate fatigue.

A gas-impingement system is far smoother in operation, and supporters say its reduced heat and carbon deposits will decrease malfunctions. But the gas system requires a lot more elbow grease to get it clean.

The 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, or “Delta Force,” replaced its M4s with the HK416 in 2004, according to the congressional report. That weapon combines the operating characteristics of the M4 with the piston system.

“There’s a lot of dynamics involved,” Fuller said. “When you go to a piston charger, you’re actually driving that bolt down at an angle versus back, so you have to make sure you understand it might not be the same weapon.”

The next carbine

The competition for the Army’s next-generation carbine opened in early August, and the service is looking for the “future Army weapon for any environment,” Fuller said.

The Army’s open, industrywide Individual Carbine Competition was approved Aug. 4 by the Joint Requirements Oversight Council.

No caliber restriction has been placed on a new design. The requirements, instead, are for the most reliable, accurate, durable, easy-to-use and easy-to-maintain weapon out there, Tamilio said.

It will be at least a 500-meter weapon and have a higher incapacitation percentage, meaning if a shot doesn’t kill the enemy, it will put a serious dent in his medical record.

This weapon will be modular and able to carry all the existing attachments soldiers use.

It can have a gas or piston system.

Interchangeable barrel sizes, such as those seen in the SCAR, are not a “must have,” but “certainly won’t be a negative thing,” Tamilio said.

But above all, Fuller wants a weapon that has the soldiers’ approval.

“We really need to figure out lethality from a ‘soldier in the loop’ perspective,” he said. “If you can’t shoot the weapon accurately, it doesn’t matter how lethal it is.”

To meet that goal, Tamilio will release a draft request for proposal late this year. It is a warning order of sorts that will give industry a preliminary idea of what is expected. An industry day will follow in which officials will answer questions and provide clarity.

The official RfP will go out early next year, in the second quarter of fiscal 2011, which begins in January. Manufacturers will have a set time, typically a few months, to respond with their proposed weapons.

Next comes the “extreme, extensive testing” and selection of the weapons, Tamilio said.

During testing, hundreds of thousand of rounds will be fired over 12 to 18 months as weapons are tested to their destruction point. The primary goal is to determine if they meet Army specifications. But evaluators also will know whether a weapon can live up to its manufacturer’s claims.

“If they say it has a barrel life up to 20,000 rounds, we’ll test to that,” Tamilio said.

Weapons will also be tested to see if they maintain accuracy throughout their life cycle — something the military has not tested before, Tamilio said. A weapon typically loses accuracy as it ages.

“This is a huge importance for us,” he said.

Soldiers will be involved in virtually all aspects of this testing, Tamilio said. From the individual to unit, he said the tests will focus on what soldiers really care about: “When he pulls the trigger, it fires in a reliable fashion, and what he aims at, he hits.”

Mixed reviews

Investing in an improved M4 has met some opposition.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., in April 2007 asked Army leadership why the service planned to spend $375 million on the carbine through fiscal 2009 “without considering newer and possibly better weapons available on the commercial market.” The senator’s letter questioned the M4’s reliability and lethality and called for a “free and open competition” to evaluate alternatives.

Nevertheless, improvements have been recommended from within the service. The Army Infantry Center in a Small Arms Capabilities-Based Assessment in 2008 identified 42 separate ideas for material solutions to address capability gaps. Thirteen solutions called for new or improved munitions, and 10 involved aiming devices, optics or laser designators. Only seven suggested modifying or developing new small arms.

After-action reports from soldiers both praise and criticize the M4’s reliability and lethality. The mixed reviews are reflected in the congressional report:

• A February 2001 U.S. Special Operations Command study said the M4A1 was “fundamentally flawed” and suffered “alarming failures … in operations under the harsh conditions and heavy firing schedules common in [special operations forces] training and operations.”

• An Army report from July 2003 on small arms performance during Operation Iraqi Freedom found the M4 was “by far the preferred individual weapon across the theater of operations.”

• A December 2006 survey requested by Army’s Project Manager for Soldier Weapons and conducted by the Center for Naval Analyses polled 2,600 soldiers who had engaged in combat action in Iraq or Afghanistan. More than half said they never experienced a stoppage in the M4 or M16.

The study found that the frequency of disassembled cleaning did not affect the number of stoppages. The type and amount of lubrication used had little effect on stoppages, though dry lubricant decreased reports for M4 stoppages. Nearly nine in 10 soldiers said they were satisfied with the M4.
• A December 2007 test — resulting from Coburn’s letter — evaluated the M4 against the HK416, the HK XM8 and the FNH SCAR. Each system had 10 weapons on the line, and each fired 6,000 rounds under sandstorm conditions. The XM8 had 127 stoppages, the SCAR had 226 stoppages, the HK416 had 233 stoppages and the M4 had 882 stoppages. The Army later modified that number to 296 stoppages, attributing the difference to discrepancies in the test and scoring.
When you’ll get it

A new weapon could be selected by the end of 2011. How long it would take to field a new weapon would depend on funding. Fielding could start fairly quickly, but will take up to 10 years, Tamilio said.

No cost estimate of producing a new weapon is available from the Army, as the dozens of potential manufacturers have yet to receive specifications and generate the subsequent design.

By Aug. 19, the Army had 41 respondents to its market survey, Tamilio said.

“Industry is waiting for this,” he said. “They are excited about this … and that’s exactly what we want.”

How the dual-path strategy unfolds remains to be seen, but it means every soldier should be getting a better carbine.

That’s because there are 1.1 million soldiers, but only 500,000 M4s in the system. If the Army selects a new carbine, it may purchase 1.1 million. But a more likely scenario would see 500,000 purchased for infantry brigade combat teams, and the existing and improved M4s given to support troops to replace their M16s.

If the M4 turns out to be the weapon of choice, then the ICBTs will likely be fitted with the improved M4s, and the existing M4s would again be given to support troops to replace their M16s.

For soldiers “consistently using that M4 and satisfied with that M4, to know the Army is going out there to get you something better … that’s pretty damn exciting,” Tamilio said. “And that’s only going to make you more effective on the battlefield.”

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The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) will next month outline the key technologies it wants to develop to build its Future, Fast, Flexible, Fractionated, Free-Flying Spacecraft or System F6 satellites. The System F6 is intended deploy what DARPA calls “fractionated modules” of current all-in-one satellites. For example, each module would support a unique capability, such as command and control, data handling, guidance and navigation, payload. Modules could replicate the functions of other modules as well. Such modules can be physically connected once in orbit or remain nearby to each other in a loose formation, or cluster, harnessed together through a wireless network they create a virtual satellite, DARPA stated.

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Chief among the requirements being detailed next month will be the development of system software and hardware that will let operators operate and control the virtual satellite system or what DARPA called the F6 Developer’s Kit (FDK). The FDK is a set of open source interface standards, protocols, behaviors, and reference implementations thereof, necessary for any party, without any contractual relationship to any System F6 performer, to develop a new module that can fully participate in a fractionated cluster.

Another big requirement will be the development of the F6 Technology Package (F6TP), which is a hardware instantiation of the wireless connectivity, packet‐switched routing, and encryption capable of hosting the protocol stack and resource‐sharing and cluster flight software needed to enable an existing spacecraft bus to fully participate in a fractionated cluster. In essence, the F6TP is a hardware instantiation of the FDK, DARPA stated.

According to DARPA some of the technical FDK requirements include:
An information assurance/cybersecurity architecture that supports the sharing of common resources across multiple payloads/users at multiple security levels.
A network architecture starting at layer 3 that enables the unique addressability of computing nodes in the cluster and autonomous discovery, authentication, and formation. The network architecture will provide seamless routing and prioritization of data across multiple cluster‐to‐ground data paths, enabling the sharing of data between nodes and the transfer of latency‐insensitive tasks between a space‐based and terrestrially‐based computing resource, while guaranteeing the real-time delivery of critical data across the network for mission‐critical applications.
A middleware architecture enabling resource sharing of common infrastructure resources (such as computing, data storage, communication relay, navigation sensing) that is useful to multiple payloads. The middleware architecture will dynamically allocate resources amongst multiple payloads, providing guaranteed performance for mission critical applications. In addition, the middleware will provide the necessary mechanisms and protocols to enable publishing of data across the cluster network and the ability to transfer applications between any two computing node.
A fault detection and recovery architecture that provides semi‐autonomous fault management at the cluster‐level. The fault detection and recovery architecture will integrate with any spacecraft‐level fault management system, letting each spacecraft independently maintain safety‐critical functions at any point, while managing resources and anomalies such as transient outage as a result of orbital maneuvers, module entry/exit from the cluster and reallocation of resources due to equipment faults.
A parallel development activity is the design of cluster flight algorithms and the subsequent development of cluster flight software. The principal technical problem DARPA wants to address is the ability for the system to safely control clustered flight and “simultaneous capability for rapid maneuver planning as needed for a defensive scatter maneuver, which remains a significant theoretical novelty and practical implementation challenge,” DARPA stated.
The FDK focuses on the protocol specification at the network layer and above. The key objective of this technical area is the development of a wireless communication standard that interfaces with other subsystems and maximizes network availability, Quality of Service , network throughput, flexibility, scalability, and redundancy and safety‐critical standards; while minimizing processing, memory and required bandwidth overhead.

“Our Allison fully automatic equipped trucks are proving to be better in city traffic than automated manuals, with improved trip times coming as a result of quicker acceleration off the mark and an ability to keep up with traffic flow,” comments Merv Rowlands, Boral Transport’s fleet engineering manager.

“We can have two identically laden trucks leave a quarry 100km north of Sydney at the same time travelling together on the F3 Freeway. When they hit the edge of the metro area at Hornsby, the Allison equipped truck really shows its acceleration advantages, leaving its competitor behind,” he added.

Boral operates hundreds of heavy trucks across Australia in a range of configurations including prime movers hauling tippers, powder tankers, bitumen tankers, tipper dog units, and concrete agitators. The company has historically specified Allison transmissions in its large fleet of concrete agitators; however, it had never used Allison equipped heavy duty trucks with gross vehicle weights in excess of 42 tonnes. In 2009, Boral purchased three Western Star 4800FX tipper dog vehicles equipped with Allison 4500 Series transmissions to trial the trucks in day to day city-based operations. The availability of the Allison 4500 series as a standard option with Western Stars was a significant factor in their choice by Boral as a preferred supplier of heavy vehicles. Following the success of those trials, the company has added five more Allison equipped Western Star tipper dog vehicles in the first six months of this year.

Rowlands notes that problems with the reliability of automated manual gearboxes in its truck fleet also gave the company reason to look at the latest generation of fully automatic Allison transmissions for heavy trucks.

“We were eager to try Allison transmissions in city-based vehicles because of our extensive experience with them in agitator trucks over many years and the great success we had with a recent retrofit into a tipper & dog vehicle,” said Rowlands.”We always wanted to run these trucks with two different shift patterns to allow us to maximise efficiency when the vehicles were running unladen. Initially we did this by interfacing with our onboard load sensing equipment which could identify whether the truck was loaded or not and switch the shift program accordingly,” he added.

“Allison’s engineering team then suggested we try the LBSS program, and it worked well, which has led us to use it across all of our Allison equipped trucks.” Allison’s LBSS (Load Based Shift Scheduling) adjusts the transmission shift schedule to best match the current vehicle load and operating conditions. This is achieved by monitoring vehicle throttle/engine torque demand and the vehicle acceleration rate. When light load conditions are identified, shifts are adjusted to ensure engine RPM is maintained at the most efficient point. When load is increased or grades are encountered, the shift schedule is adjusted to provide the operator with maximum performance.

A large segment of the Boral tipper dog fleet is based in the western suburbs of Sydney, but this part of the fleet operates all across the metropolitan area and travels to and from quarries up to 100km from the city, meaning that a flexible and versatile shift pattern is vital for efficiency.

“Reduced trip time, zero downtime, improved driver comfort and safety and outstanding performance both laden and unladen are all advantages with the Allison equipped trucks,” concludes Mr. Rowlands.

GeckoSystems is a dynamic leader in the emerging mobile robotics industry revolutionizing their development and usage with “Mobile Robot Solutions for Safety, Security and Service(TM).”

Martin Spencer, President/CEO of GeckoSystems, stated: “As all of us here at GeckoSystems are excited about this development, due to the nature of the ongoing negotiations I feel it is in the best interest of all parties involved to withhold the name of this national commercial security firm at this time. The upcoming meetings, demonstrations, and potential outcome(s) of it is something that has been in the works since our founding and is now coming to what looks to be an extraordinarily profitable culmination.”

This commercial security firm integrates surveillance and access control systems to live monitor security cameras using advanced video analytics, motion detection and continuously streamed video. This is a higher level of service than anyone else offers. They proactively look for intruders outside a facility well before an event or burglar alarm is triggered. The company targets both large and small businesses as well as cities and municipalities that can benefit from their managed service approach. To date, their live-monitoring clients include large corporations, auto dealers, schools, manufacturers, construction sites, large retailers and many more.

For a mobile service robot to be perceived as capable of providing any form of commercial surveillance it must respond appropriately to the dynamics of its proximate environment. This requires a high level of situational awareness. Since situational awareness is the ability to generate actionable knowledge through the use of timely and accurate information about the immediate environment in a common sense manner, it necessarily requires the environmental understanding resulting from blended sensor systems (i.e. sensor fusion) and the common sense implications of those combined perceptions.

Sensor fusion is a type of scientifically optimized and homogenized disparate detection systems resulting from the implicit synergies in carefully aggregated, subsumptive sensory systems. These deliberately combined detection systems enable heightened, if not extraordinary, environmental perception sufficient to indicate common sense responses. Given the high number of sensors reporting to GeckoNav(TM) and GeckoSuper(TM), it is readily apparent why a GeckoSystems’ SecurityBot(TM) has an extraordinarily high level of situation awareness.

GeckoSuper not only combines sensory data internally, it also inputs synergistically fused sensory data from the GeckoMC(TM) (MotorController), GeckoCSA(TM) (CompoundedSensorArray) and GeckoOrient(TM). These multiple layers of sensor fusion enable GeckoNav to timely execute sense and avoid maneuvers without human guidance and/or intervention to achieve a level of automatic mobile robot navigation for unmanned patrolling of predetermined monitoring areas.

GeckoTrak(TM) merges and interprets data from three different sensor systems to achieve sensor fusion such that it can automatically detect and/or follow an intruder person anywhere within its detection range. GeckoTrak intelligently fuses sensory information internally and also inputs intelligently abstracted sensory data from the CompoundedSensorArray, GeckoOrient, and a machine vision pan/tilt video camera.

GeckoSystems’ proprietary sensor fusion techniques and architecture can be extended to include machine vision, directional microphones, millimeter wave radar, LIDAR, hand gun weapon detect, biohazard detect, toxic gas detect, bomb detect, radioactivity detect, facial recognition, voice recognition, et cetera for the creation of a SuperSentinel(TM) class mobile service robot.

“It has been our long held business strategy to form joint ventures with firms that have existing distribution in commercial security, professional healthcare, agriculture, or defense. As a result of our recent Delphi market research regarding applicability of our mobile robot solutions for commercial security, we can now say with more substance that this marketplace is demonstrably interested due to the extraordinary cost/benefit ratio of our SecurityBot and portends greater ROI for our nearly 1400 stockholders,” concluded Spencer.

The R28 946 305.66 contact was handed Denel Dynamics last Wednesday. The company, SAAB SA and, Reutech Radar Systems (RRS), Rheinmetall Denel Munitions (RDM) have been working on the technology for about a decade. Denel Dynamics CE Jan Wessels in 2008 told the Engineering News active protection was a domain that had opened up from about 2003 “in peacekeeping and asymmetrical warfare situations around the world, with Iraq and Afghanistan being prime examples.”

In these operations, it is often impossible to distinguish between civilians and irregular combatants until the latter unveil their weapons. And by then they may be very close. Wessels noted that today almost every armed faction has RPGs and many groups have access to more sophisticated and powerful anti-armour missiles. “So they can attack and disable, even destroy, the most sophisticated and expensive vehicles,” he told Keith Campbell.

“We now have a product which we have named Mongoose, which is a small missile that gets fired at the incoming RPG or missile and actually destroys it before it hits the vehicle or other asset (like a command post) being protected by Mongoose. Now you can understand that this is a radically new type of technology, a new type of product. This is an example of a technology that is very beneficial in the current situation – for example, when our forces are deployed in peacekeeping operations in the future, this will be a very valuable lifesaver and equipment saver.”

Mongoose is currently the “hardkill” or “active” component in the SAAB Avitronics Land Electronic Defence System (LEDS). Wessels told defenceWeb earlier this year RRS provide the sensor, Denel Dynamics and RDM the Mongoose missile, and SAAB the overall system.

The system consists of a brain called an active defence controller (ADC), a set of sensors, a high-speed directed launcher (HSDL) and countermeasure options ranging from fast deploying multi-spectral smoke and decoys (soft-kill) to rockets (hard-kill munitions) to destroy incoming threats. “It is a unique system,” said Wilfred Moore, Saab Avitronics’ senior executive, marketing and sales in 2006. The control computer, which has a global positioning system capability, integrates with the vehicle intercom and its command and control system. It also draws data from the vehicle wind sensor.

The basic LEDS 50 warns the crew of a vehicle fitted with the system that they are in the beam of a laser. In the military environment, lasers are used to designate targets for artillery and antitank guided munitions, as well as for range finding. The system can deal with up to eight threats simultaneously, while providing analysis on the nature of the threat based on the spectral band used.

LEDS 100 adds jammers and decoys, while LEDS 150 adds the Mongoose counter-munition. LEDS 100 confuses enemy weapons operators and incoming rounds by deploying smoke in their line of sight or flight, hiding the target vehicle. The smoke and an optional infra-red jammer interfere with the acquisition and/or tracking, ranging, launching or guidance of a hostile weapon. The system provides automated warning to the vehicle’s occupants and “dynamically and intelligently screens the vehicle from attack in any direction (including above) in less than 700 milliseconds,” a SAAB official said at African Aerospace and Defence in September 2004. The screen obscures the attackers’ line of sight and gives the vehicle and its occupants to get behind cover. The screen is multispectral and cannot be penetrated by lasers or thermal imagers of the type used to guide weapons. Unlike some comparable systems abroad, one does not have to turn the vehicle or its turret to defeat the threat. “This is achieved by the use of a high-speed directed launcher. The launcher moves extremely fast and can turn to any position in the protected hemisphere in less than 100 milliseconds,” the official added.

LEDS 150 claims to destroy incoming RPG-7 rounds and antitank guided munitions with Mongoose at ranges as close as within 20 metres of the launch vehicle, allowing it to intercept rounds fired “from across the street”. Moore said this would be put to the test in late 2007 in what are called “full dynamic trials”, meaning LEDS would have to detect the rocket travelling at 300 metres per second and fire back within a bare fraction of a single second if the round is not to hit the vehicle. Moore said no other system in use has that ability, and tests prove it: On January 24, 2006, a Mongoose intercepted and destroyed a 105mm high explosive round fired from a tank at a muzzle velocity of 683 metres per second. In a previous test series, three Mongoose hit three fin-stabilised rods travelling at close to 1500 metres per second, breaking their fins and deflecting them from their flight path with concentrated blasts, forcing them to smash into the ground within 150m of the point they were to hit, Moore added. Mongoose should also be able to defeat rounds fired from anti-tank guns and even artillery shells, as well as anti-armour missiles. LEDS can also be used aboard ships and smaller vessels.

Indications are the Mongoose can also be delivered as a light precision guided missile from an unmanned aerial vehicle or light aircraft.

The SA Army has invested substantial amounts of money in the project in recent years: In March 2007 it awarded Denel Dynamics R720 205 for a local active protection system technology maturity study, and in August 2007 R17 192 301 for “active protection system technology establishment”. In October 2008 it added R526 315 for he same purpose and in March this year a further R712 716.46, amounting to R19 151 537.46. Last week’s contract takes the value of “hardkill” work since 2007 to R48 097 843.12. Indications are the latest infusion of money is for R&D work on “more challenging threat scenarios” than those that fit the Mongoose I profile.

“Autonomic Resources has an experienced team of wireless engineers, and we pride ourselves on our ability to take on even the most complex and high-profile wireless projects”

NARA is considered the nation’s record keeper and is perhaps best known for housing the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, as well as public military records, naturalization records, and even the canceled check for the purchase of Alaska. The agency houses approximately 9 billion pages of textual records; 7.2 million maps, charts, and architectural drawings; more than 20 million still photographs; billions of machine-readable data sets; and more than 365,000 reels of film and 110,000 videotapes. Of all documents and materials created in business conducted by the United States federal government, only one to three percent is legally or historically important enough to be kept by NARA.

Autonomic was awarded the NARA wireless network design and deployment contract following their wireless implementations at five Presidential Library pilot sites in the fall/winter of 2008/2009. To date, Autonomic has developed an enterprise wireless network design and roadmap for NARA, completed wireless site surveys at National Records facilities and Presidential Libraries, deployed a Cisco enterprise wireless management and authentication solution at NARA’s data center, and implemented an amigopod guest registration solution. For Web security on the network, Autonomic is deploying Websense® Web Security Gateway on the Websense V10000™ appliance to provide NARA visitors and employees dynamic, real-time malware protection and ensure safe browsing of appropriate content. Additionally, Autonomic enlisted the help of consilium1, a specialized information technology consulting services company, to assist with architecture and implementation services for the project.

“We are pleased that both staff and researchers at the National Archives will now be able to easily and securely access online resources due to the completion of the Wireless Project by Autonomic Resources,” said William Day, government IT Project Manager with NARA.

Autonomic was able to rapidly address several technology challenges in the NARA environment, including working designs that did not disrupt the unique and historic building aesthetics, researching and deploying an easy-to- administer guest access system that allows for complex guest access usage and rule conditions, while continuing to protect NARA from Internet usage that would be harmful to its network.

Autonomic recommended the amigopod solution for its ease of configuration and the number of advanced guest registration features available. amigopod was chosen because it provided an important set of requirements for guest access that other wireless device manufactures had not addressed. amigopod’s Visitor Management Appliance is the first dedicated platform designed for unified visitor management.

NASA has announced that it will buy up to $10 million in data from a commercial lunar lander mission through its Innovation Lunar Demonstrations Data (ILDD) program, with a budget of $30 million. If it all goes according to plan, earnings could translate to $36 million; that’s $10 million from NASA, $24 million for the prize and another $2 million for launching in the state of Florida.

That’s good news for Astrobotics, a top contender in the Google Lunar X pursuit. NASA would deposit $2 million in the company’s bank account before the launch, which is planned for December 2012.The company and Carnegie Mellon have spent about $3 million to date building prototypes and designing the mission. The plan is to raise about $37 million from investors; the rest of the $90 million cost will come from progress payments from customers, which should be equal to about 50% of the final price, says Gump.

“This means that NASA has declared that private sector moon missions are a good idea and they want to buy our data,” says David Gump, president. “We think we’re among the top companies to succeed in selling this data to NASA.”

The company’s first expedition will revisit the Apollo 11 landing site, a mission that will connect the Internet to the Moon, deliver HD video in 3D, carry payloads and transmit the story to the world. The mission would mark the realization of a longtime dream for Dr. William “Red” Whittaker, Astrobotic founder and director of CMU’s Field Robotics Center.

“The sensing devices and software needed for an automated lunar landing are evolving from our technologies for driving autonomous cars,” says Whittaker. “Much of the technology for winning DARPA’s Urban Challenge car race applies directly to lunar landing.”

“Today it is all about the network,” says Joe Miller, director of Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) Ground Domain for General Dynamics C4 Systems in Scottsdale, Ariz. “Current operations demand better communications and warfighters need more bandwidth across secure seamless pipes. Networks must self form and auto route communications all without the benefit of fixed infrastructure — no cell towers. Real-time communications and situational awareness are critical, and current operations in rugged remote regions of the world require new networking technologies.

“However, the network is just an enabler,” Miller continues. “The value lies in applications that run on the network. Applications provide information and intelligence that improves safety, increases effectiveness, and multiplies lethality.”

The funding trends out of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) also are pushing toward a more efficient network, says Steve Marschilok, president of Department of Defense Business at Harris RF Communications in Rochester, N.Y. “The market and funding trends for military radios in the DOD are transitioning to wideband requirements as there is a pent-up demand for more and more data at the lowest echelons on the battlefield. Much like the commercial world, data intensive applications like biometrics, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), video, logistics are driving an increasing need for bandwidth.”

Falcon III AN/PRC-117G
Harris is meeting this demand with their Falcon III AN/PRC-117G, which is “the first wideband tactical radio that is both compliant with the JTRS Software Communications Architecture and NSA Type-1 certified,” Marschilok says. This radio has been deployed by the U.S. Army and other services to mission areas.

“The current challenge is to develop effective human interfaces at the soldier level to disseminate this intelligence without adding significant size and weight,” Miller says.

“From a product perspective, our military customers have placed emphasis on size, weight, power, and cost (SWAP-C) for new products,” says Earl Johnson, vice president of business development at ITT Communications Systems in Fort Wayne, Ind. “Radios of the future will be required to have an open systems architecture and run various waveforms as dictated by the operational environment. Tactical ground forces are seeking satellite communications on the move (SOTM) and beyond line of sight (BLOS) capabilities for company and below units.”

ITT’s Soldier Radio Waveform (SRW) meets this demand and brings “the network to battalion and below units,” Johnson continues. “We are developing smaller handheld radio capabilities that will exceed requirements for the JTRS Rifleman Radio. Our NexGen Iridium products such as the RO Tactical Radio are providing BLOS capabilities to deployed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“In addition, we have tested and demonstrated a SOTM with our GNOMAD system that brings on the move capability using a low profile SATCOM antenna, Johnson adds.

Smartphone on the battlefield
“The Army has also expressed strong interest in bringing smartphone capabilities to the battlefield based on the commercial model of smart phones using various applications,” Johnson says. “This is a low cost, open system solution leveraging commercial technology.”

However, as “new radios become cheaper and the military move to commercial type smart phones, the ruggedization required maybe relaxed in the future,” Johnson says.

“Military standards for ruggedization really have not changed, nor have techniques to achieve ruggedization,” Miller says. “That said, what is new is miniaturization. The Joint Tactical Radio Systems (JTRS) Handheld, Manpack, Small Form Fit (HMS) leverages technologies from the commercial cellular industry to achieve increased capabilities in packages significantly smaller than current radios.

“The smallest HMS radio, used on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and sensors, weighs approximately 8 ounces, he continues.

“Ruggedization does become a challenge as density of electronics increases and size decreases,” Miller says. “Special techniques are required to manage thermal dissipation and unique power savings modes are necessary as well. Within the HMS radio, individual circuits can be shut down for fractions of a second all to conserve battery life and reduce thermal loading.”

Immediately prior to joining IBC, Mr. White was a Division Manager with the Integrated Optical Systems Division of L-3 Communications Corporation (“L-3″), the sixth largest defense company in the United States. L-3 Communications is a prime contractor in strategic government services, aircraft modernization and maintenance and has a broad base of electronic systems. L-3 is also a major provider of homeland defense products and services for a variety of markets. At L-3 Mr. White was primarily responsible for the management of L-3′s Integrated Optical Systems Ceramics Division providing silicon carbide optical systems for both land- and space-based systems.

IBC’s Beralcast(R) division produces the Beralcast(R) family of metal matrices that can be used in commercial and military applications requiring complex, lightweight, or high-stiffness parts. Beralcast(R) is a higher performance or lower cost replacement for cast aluminum, magnesium, titanium, metal matrix composites, non-metallic composites, and pure beryllium or powder metallurgy beryllium-aluminum. High performance Beralcast(R) matrices are more than three times stiffer than aluminum with 22% less weight and can be precision-cast to simple and complex configurations. This material is very lightweight with a high modulus of elasticity and can be precision cast for three-dimensional stability. IBC owns the intellectual property relating to this technology, which no one, to the best of IBC’s knowledge and inquiry, has been able to duplicate commercially.

“I am very pleased that IBC has acquired the rights to produce Beralcast(R) and has allocated funds to invest in this product and its manufacturing facilities. Having worked to develop the original Beralcast(R) technology I am committed to helping unlock the huge promise of this product,” informed Ray White. “With an increasing emphasis on saving weight in mission-critical components and an industry-wide focus on materials performance,” continued White, “I believe there is significant unrealized potential in the defence and commercial sectors for castable beryllium-aluminum matrices.”

“We are delighted that Ray White will be joining IBC to manage our Beralcast(R) operations,” informed Anthony Dutton, President and CEO of IBC. “Ray’s deep knowledge of the product and his long experience in advanced materials for the defence sector will be important assets as IBC expands its markets and product lines.”

About IBC Advanced Alloys Corp.

IBC is an integrated manufacturer and distributor of rare metals (beryllium) based alloys and related products serving a variety of industries including nuclear energy, defence, automotive, telecommunications and a range of industrial applications. IBC has 80 employees and is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada with production facilities in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Massachusetts and Missouri. Additionally, IBC owns prospective beryllium properties in the Western US and Brazil covering approximately 9,500 hectares. IBC is creating a dynamic global beryllium and advanced alloys company. IBC’s common shares are traded on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol “IB”.

This news release was prepared by management of IBC, which takes full responsibility for its contents.

Legal Notice Regarding Forward Looking Statements

This disclosure contains certain forward-looking statements that involve substantial known and unknown risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond the Company’s control including: the impact of general economic conditions in the areas in which the Company operates, industry conditions, changes in laws and regulations including the adoption of new environmental laws and regulations and changes in how they are interpreted and enforced, increased competition, the lack of availability of qualified personnel or management, fluctuations in commodity prices, foreign exchange or interest rates, stock market volatility and obtaining required approvals of regulatory authorities. In addition there are risks and uncertainties associated with manufacturing operations and mineral exploration, therefore the Company’s future results, performance or achievements could differ materially from those expressed in these forward-looking statements will transpire. All statements included in this press release that address activities, events or developments that the Company expects, believes or anticipates will or may occur in the future are forward-looking statements. These statements are based on assumptions made by the Company based on its experience, perception of historical trends, current conditions, expected future developments and other factors it believes are appropriate in the circumstances.

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