Tag: electronic-warfare

  • US Army buys long-flying solar drones to watch over Pacific units

    US Army buys long-flying solar drones to watch over Pacific units

    [ad_1]

    The Army’s 1st Multi-Domain Task Force has used a small number of Kraus Hamdani Aerospace K1000 Ultra Long-Endurance, solar-powered unmanned aircraft system across the Pacific theater in places like the Philippines and Guam in recent years. Now the Pentagon has ordered $20 million worth of the systems for the unit as well as special operators.

    The Pentagon made the award through the Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies (APFIT) program, one of the largest awards since the fund’s 2022 creation.

    The K1000ULE is designed to “mimic nature by utilizing onboard artificial intelligence to silently glide through the air like a bird and generate clean onboard energy,” an Oct. 30 company statement reads. “The K1000ULE is the longest-endurance, fully electric, zero-emissions autonomous aircraft in its size and weight category.”

    The K1000 will provide Aerial Tier Network Extension for communications, Electronic Warfare and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance capabilities, the statement lists.

    “Over time, we have matured our technology in line with the requirements of the U.S. Army and continue to align the K1000ULE to meet the needs of the warfighter in a dynamically changing environment,” Fatema Hamdani, Kraus Hamdani Aerospace CEO and co-founder, said.

    Defense News witnessed the 1st MDTF’s Extended Range Sensing and Effects Company use the K1000 on a remote island airfield in the Philippines during an annual bilateral drill called Balikatan this spring. The aircraft spent its days flying above the South China Sea collecting data for the company.

    The Army has also been using the aircraft in a variety of other experiments over the past several years like the Edge exercise and Project Convergence.

    The lightweight K1000, which features solar panels on its wings, previously broke the endurance record for class 2 unmanned aerial systems by flying for 76 hours. That category currently applies to drones weighing between 21 and 55 lbs.

    The aircraft does not have landing gear and relies on 3D-printed skids that can be swapped out after they wear down.

    The K1000 is difficult to detect, with most sensors and radars mistaking it for a bird, according to Kraus engineers on site in the Philippines.

    The aircraft fits inside a standard case, and it takes users roughly 10 minutes to unload, assemble and launch. The drone takes off from a moving vehicle as it catches the wind. In the Philippines, it took off from the roof of a black SUV.

    The Army is retiring its Shadow UAS program, and Kraus believes the K1000 is a good candidate to fill both small and large UAS capabilities with a logistics footprint of smaller drones, the statement notes.

    Jen Judson is an award-winning journalist covering land warfare for Defense News. She has also worked for Politico and Inside Defense. She holds a Master of Science degree in journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kenyon College.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Army navigation drill to incorporate new sensors in coming years

    Army navigation drill to incorporate new sensors in coming years

    [ad_1]

    The Army’s annual exercise focused on refining its Positioning, Navigation and Timing capabilities, called PNTAX, will widen its aperture in future years, the Army’s new All-Domain Sensing Cross Functional Team lead told Defense News.

    The new All-Domain Sensing CFT is now fully established, following the announcement in March it would become Army Futures Command’s latest office to focus on modernization efforts.

    The team, created to develop capabilities that will allow the service to understand battlespace goings-on, will initially work toward creating an architecture of sensors as well as processing and disseminating the enormous amount of data collected from those sensors.

    The team grew out of the former Assured Positioning, Navigation and Timing/Space CFT and took its current staff and director, Michael Monteleone, and expanded the mission to focus on broad deep-sensing capabilities.

    “I think you’re going to see an evolution of PNTAX probably both in name and also in scope,” Monteleone told Defense News ahead of the U.S. Army’s annual conference. PNTAX stands for PNT Assessment Exercise.

    While he said he could not yet divulge details on exactly how the exercise would be evolving, Monteleone said: “It’ll be something different. As we go more and more towards the resilient architectures from space to ground, both in transport and in data, then also as we start augmenting our formations with the human-machine integrated side of it, as we bring more robots, more [unmanned aircraft systems] capability into that architecture, we have to evaluate that in that denied environment.”

    PNTAX will also likely be federated into other experiments and activities across the Army as well, Monteleone noted.

    The Army just wrapped up its sixth PNTAX at the end of last month. The experiment “continues to deliver more and more value,” Monteleone said, because it offers a realistic threat environment that is “unique.”

    There were were over 600 participants in the event, to include joint partners, combatant commands and all of the Five Eyes partners Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, Monteleone said. Over 150 technologies were assessed and over 130 organizations total were on the ground over the three-week evaluation.

    While the experimentation effort will evolve to encompass new focus areas within the All-Domain Sensing CFT, the team is not finished working on PNT capabilities even though it has seen successful fielding of a mounted and dismounted PNT system and the CFT has closed up shop.

    “There is still a lot of work to be done in PNT,” Monteleone said.

    “It’s really focused on what’s next in PNT and also focused on how to leverage exquisite PNT as a system of systems enabler to provide advantage,” he said. “Think of it from the perspective of being able to couple that with communications systems, electronic warfare systems, sensing systems and being able to outmaneuver adversaries, essentially, because I now have the ability to trust my timing source.”

    Jen Judson is an award-winning journalist covering land warfare for Defense News. She has also worked for Politico and Inside Defense. She holds a Master of Science degree in journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kenyon College.

    [ad_2]

    Source link