Defense Systems
All solutions go
After three years of wrangling, Defense Department and civilian agencies are finally digging into the Army’s Information Technology Enterprise Solutions-2 Services contract.
Defense Systems
The digitized battlefield
If survivability is the major goal of any system designed to be carried by soldiers into combat, the Army’s Land Warrior system has demonstrated its qualifications.
Defense Systems
Land Warrior Systems
15-month deployment of 240 units ended spring 2008. Next-generation deployment of 1,000 units due for early 2009.
Defense Systems
Interview with Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson
Army CIO Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson spoke with Defense Systems contributing editor Barry Rosenberg about some of the challenges he’s tackling.
Defense Systems
ICS Is the heart of the future
The core of the Army’s Future Combat Systems, the networked hub of Land Warrior, and the rest of the digitally enhanced warfighter systems are elements of computer systems built largely with commercial components.
Defense Systems
Army studies biofuel cells for sensors
The Army is investigating whether a new type of fuel cell that uses biologically active enzymes as a catalyst could provide a longer-lasting power source for unattended ground sensors.
Defense Systems
Letters from the editor: Transformation
Defense Systems magazine has a renewed focus and a new design. In the past few months, we’ve been working toward a relaunch of this magazine to align it with what’s become the permanent evolution of networkcentric warfare and the reality that blurs the lines between the logistics chain, the back office and the front lines.
Defense Systems
Coast Guard stretches with Deepwater
After decades of using aging communications equipment and ships, the Coast Guard is attempting to create a comprehensive command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) system.
Defense Systems
GAO eyes global strike ISR
If the Defense Department wants to hit targets across the world with rapidly deployable weapons, it must better synchronize weapons development with the pace of advancements in ISR technologies.
Defense Systems
The future is slow to arrive
The Army's Future Combat Systems project is changing to meet criticisms and shifting priorities, but critics doubt the changes are coming soon enough to matter.
Defense Systems
The Army's future combat systems in a nutshell
Army future combat, command and control vehicles
Defense Systems
Wireless supply line
The Army is upgrading a wireless system designed to connect theater logisticians directly to their electronic ordering systems, which has been a Defense Department goal since Operation Desert Storm.
Defense Systems
Switches with wings: UAVs as comm relays
Giant blimps are not the only vehicles capable of stratospheric flight. Fixed-wing aircraft such as the Lockheed U-2 have done it for decades.
Defense Systems
GAO says FCS threatened by software bloat
The centerpiece program of Army transformation, Future Combat Systems, could collapse under the weight of poor software design.
Defense Systems
A helping hand with legs
It’s a bit of a mouthful: Sustainable Technologies, Accelerated Research-Transportable Infrastructures for Development and Emergency Support, or STAR-TIDES. But what is termed a research event for studying disaster mitigation is generating a lot of buzz in the United States and abroad.
Defense Systems
Common sub radio room buzzes on the horizon
The Navy’s Common Submarine Radio Room (CSRR) appears to be moving full speed ahead. With interoperability tests completed for two classes of the fleet’s submarines and a third under way, the automated communications system has been designated as operationally ready for the submarine fleet.
Defense Systems
Key elements of global defense
Current plans for a U.S. missile defense system include airborne lasers and other systems but will rely primarily on three systems that are either brand new or still in development.
Defense Systems
JTRS breach is a technicality
Reports of recent and sudden cost overruns by the military’s Joint Tactical Radio Program are inaccurate, officials from the JTRS joint program executive office said.
Defense Systems