Defense Systems

New UAV sensors could leave enemy no place to hide

The Air Force’s Gorgon Stare full-motion video sensor for drones will enhance battlefield surveillance by offering views from a dozen camera angles.

Defense Systems

Fail-safe field communications nearly ready

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is completing a technology program designed to ensure that battlefield network communications never fail regardless of the operating environment.

Defense Systems

Director view: Gregory Garcia, Director, 754th Electronic Systems Group, USAF

Gregory Garcia, director of the 754th Electronic Systems Group, which oversees the Air Force’s Network Centric Solutions contract, talks about the strategy behind NetCents-2 and his expectations for the new contract.

Defense Systems

DOD memo sets tone for Army’s future after FCS

A memorandum issued June 23 confirms the recommendations made earlier this year by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to replace the single, giant program with a number of smaller modernization efforts.

Defense Systems

GAO finds silver lining in FCS failure

A GAO official told a Senate subcommittee that though the Army's Future Combat Systems failed to live up to expectations, successive programs will benefit from its trial and error.

Defense Systems

RFID thrives in competitive setting

Although RFID is a mature technology, a recent contract award shows that the technology is still being refined and improved.

Defense Systems

Soldiers gain combat edge with smart helmets

A number of developments under way to shooter location systems used by U.S. ground forces to track the source of enemy fire would produce even more sophisticated systems.

Defense Systems

GAO: Weapons programs still beset by cost overruns

A recent Government Accountability Office report reveals continuing high development costs and delays in many of the DOD’s major programs.

Defense Systems

TSAT hits new turbulence

The Transformational Satellite Communications System program hits key technology targets, but costs and alternative capabilities could keep the $20 billion program from getting into orbit.

Defense Systems

Rules of engagement

As the Defense Department builds a cyber force, forming a doctrine for cyber warfare is its opening challenge.

Defense Systems

Air Force names six bases as potential cyber headquarters

The 24th Air Force, slated to take the role originally assigned to the provisional Air Force Cyber Command, will have its official home designated by June.

Defense Systems

TRANSCOM begins transition to SOA

Transportation Command has begun the rollout of a five-year program that will transform it from an organization dependent on old and slow stovepiped systems and applications to one that uses single-click, Web-based enterprise services to get things done.

Defense Systems

DOD falling short on RFID, IUID and logistics plans, says GAO

The Defense Department is not doing as well as it should with its new Logistics Roadmap, and is having difficulty implementing item unique identification and radio frequency identification, two key logistics technologies, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Defense Systems

DARPA sets first phase contracts for National Cyber Range

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announced Jan. 8 a total of some $30 million of first contract awards for its National Cyber Range program.

Defense Systems

Air Force restructures TSAT program

Officials are reworking the controversial Transformational Satellite Communications program contract, which will delay the launch of satellites until 2019.

Defense Systems

Army makes major knowledge management, IT regs revision

The Army has issued a new regulation that governs knowledge management and IT practices and establishes the basis for the future network-centric force.

Defense Systems

Quantum3D creates worldwide geospatial database for aircraft simulators

Visual computing vendor Quantum3D has developed a commercial off-the-shelf, worldwide geo-specific database for both fixed-wing and rotary aircraft flight simulations.

Defense Systems

Israel developing UAV early warning sensor

Faced with a burgeoning nuclear threat from Iran, Israel is looking to develop long range, high resolution unmanned vehicles to help in identifying incoming nuclear warheads.

Defense Systems

DARPA seeks to mimic in silicon the mammalian brain

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has awarded contracts for the first phase of a program that could revolutionize computer technology and produce systems that work similar to mammalian brains.