Feb 26

Raytheon scores $886 million contract to improve GPS capabilities

Posted in: gps, Today's Chili
Don’t count on your navigation unit seeing a sudden improvement anytime soon, but Raytheon has announced that it’s landed an massive $886 million contract from the U.S. Air Force to develop a new element of GPS called the advanced control segment (or OCX, somehow). Once complete, that promises to not only provide a range of enhancements for military GPS use (including anti-jam capabilities and improved security), but improved accuracy and reliability for civil GPS users as well. Details are otherwise a bit light, and this contract only represents the first of two development blocks, but it looks like GLONASS and Galileo may have to step up their game a bit further if they want to stay competitive in the great sat-nav race.

Raytheon scores $886 million contract to improve GPS capabilities originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 21

DoD eases ban on thumb drive use for US military, our enemies rejoice

Posted in: flash drive, FlashDrive, Google, government, military, security, Today's Chili, usa, usb, usb drive, UsbDrive

Betcha didn’t know that USB flash drives weren’t allowed in the US military. Or maybe you did — you know, considering that one with Japan-US troop deployment maps went missing in mid-2008. Oops. At any rate, the Department of Defense has reportedly lifted said ban, but as with anything related to The Man, gobs of red tape will be involved. For starters, they won’t be reintroduced “wholesale,” instead being reserved for “mission essential applications.” We’re also told that the drives themselves must contain specific security features, and administrators will be able to track the use of ’em from the outset. For those unaware, the ban was originally put into place just over a year ago after virus-laden USB keys disrupted military networks, presumably flashing Blingee’d faces of Kim Jong-il onto CIA surveillance screens. Or not, but that’d be pretty hilarious.

DoD eases ban on thumb drive use for US military, our enemies rejoice originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Fark  |  sourceDefenseNews  | Email this | Comments

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Feb 12

Boeing 747 destroys ballistic missile with laser (update: photos!)

Posted in: breaking news, BreakingNews, laser, military, Today's Chili, us

No, this isn’t a call to arms (yet), the US is simply evaluating its airborne laser weapon again. Now listen in because this latest test was a doozy. Last night at 8:44pm Cali time, the Airborne Laser Testbed (ALTB) successfully “destroyed” a liquid-fueled ballistic missile from an airborne platform, according to the Missile Defense Agency. A first for the directed energy weapon that we’ve been following since 2006. The dirty work was achieve by a modified Boeing 747-400F airframe fitted with a Northrop Grumman higher-energy laser and Lockheed Martin beam and fire control system. After an at-sea launch, the ALTB used a low-energy laser to track the target. A second, low-energy laser was used to measure and compensate for atmospheric disturbances before the megawatt-class laser was fired, “heating the boosting ballistic missile to critical structural failure.” The entire episode was over just two minutes after missile launch. Good work generals, but let’s see you fit that laser to a shark if you really want to impress us.

Update: Infrared images of the ALTB destroying the short-range ballistic missile after the break.

Continue reading Boeing 747 destroys ballistic missile with laser (update: photos!)

Boeing 747 destroys ballistic missile with laser (update: photos!) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Feb 2010 06:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Reuters  |  sourceMissile Defense Agency  | Email this | Comments

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Jan 22

Protonex fuel-cell batteries to power HULC exoskeleton for three solid days

Posted in: security, Today's Chili, us, usa

We’re selfishly daydreaming of how we could use something like this at the next CES, but chances are that Lockheed Martin is really only fixated on boosting its bottom line by assisting the US military. The company’s HULC exoskeleton, which was originally introduced by Berkeley Bionics in 2008, is seeing a significant upgrade this week courtesy of a fuel-cell power pack from Protonex. The goal? To strap a new, more potent battery onto the Human Universal Load Carrier that will support 72+ hour extended missions. Soldiers tend to carry around a lot more gadgetry now, all of which requires more and more power; with this pack, the men and women in the field could carry fewer conventional batteries while seeing an overall boost in available juice. There’s no mention of when exactly this stuff will be rolled out en masse, but that’s a detail you’ll probably never know, anyway.

Protonex fuel-cell batteries to power HULC exoskeleton for three solid days originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jan 2010 09:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink The Register  |  sourceLockheed Martin  | Email this | Comments

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Jan 20

Eureka’s EMP cannon destined for the Marines? (video)

Posted in: military, Today's Chili, wargadget
Marines serving overseas have a low-tech, time-tested way of stopping cars that ignore checkpoints — namely, a .50-caliber slug to the engine block. Still, that hasn’t prevented companies like Boeing and Eureka Aerospace from pouring tons of money into EMP research. The cannon (whether mounted on aircraft or a squad car) is nowhere near ready for prime time — but when has that stopped the Pentagon from sinking tons of money into something? And the USAF isn’t the only organization getting involved: according to Flightglobal, the Marine Corps is getting its own demo of the 55lb device (which can disable cars up to 200 meters away) next month at Dahlgren naval warfare center. Vintage autos (really anything manufactured before the mid-1970s) won’t be harmed by the weapon, meaning that there still may be a place for lead slugs in modern peacekeeping missions after all. Video after the break.

Continue reading Eureka’s EMP cannon destined for the Marines? (video)

Eureka’s EMP cannon destined for the Marines? (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Jan 2010 13:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink The Register  |  sourceEureka Aerospace  | Email this | Comments

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Dec 17

Cyber Technology’s UAV perches, stares, makes us a little uncomfortable (Update: now with video!)

Posted in: military, Today's Chili, wargadget
We’ve seen UAVs that hover in the past, but if you’re looking for something that eschews rotors for nearly silent ducted fans, you’ll need to get your hands on the cyberQuad by Cyber Technology. The fans don’t produce sparks (which is why this thing was recently tested with much success in an extended survey of an offshore drilling platform / oil rig damaged by fire), and its “perch and stare” capabilities mean that it can find a stable spot and sit unattended — not only saving battery time that would otherwise be lost by hovering in place, but taking it all in with whatever video equipment / sensors the operator might have placed on-board. Just the thing for sniffing out enemy combatants and relaying the info to your One Force Tracker-equipped iPhone, perhaps? Get a closer look after the break. [Warning: PDF source link]

Update: Thanks to Randers for hooking us up with some video of the thing in action. It still makes us a little uncomfortable, all that staring…

Continue reading Cyber Technology’s UAV perches, stares, makes us a little uncomfortable (Update: now with video!)

Cyber Technology’s UAV perches, stares, makes us a little uncomfortable (Update: now with video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Wired  |  sourceCyber Technology  | Email this | Comments

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Dec 16

Raytheon’s iPhone app will track enemy combatants in real time

Posted in: app, Apple, iPhone, military, Today's Chili
Raytheon, known more often than not in these parts for its ability to zap people at a distance with microwaves, has just announced a little something called One Force Tracker. Essentially an iPhone app, it leverages recent developments in location awareness and social networking to keep tabs on both friends and enemies in the field, displaying positions on maps in real time — all the while enabling secure communications between soldiers. “If there is a building with known terrorist activities, it could automatically be pushed to the phone when the soldiers get near that area,” said Raytheon CTO J. Smart. Of course, there is still quite a bit of work to be done to make this work: iPhones do not have removable batteries, nor do they support multi-tasking, meaning that some sort of ruggedized, battery-powered external case would be necessary to get this battle-ready — as well some jailbreaking. There’s no word on a possible release date yet — which means, sadly, that it looks like the U.S. Army is stuck with its Celio REDFLYs for the time being.

Raytheon’s iPhone app will track enemy combatants in real time originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Dec 2009 21:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceNew York Times  | Email this | Comments

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Nov 18

Army, Lockheed Martin team up for DisOPS ‘battlefield PDAs’

Posted in: military, Today's Chili
Remember the Land Warrior program, which only took 15 years and half a billion dollars outfit our troops with high-tech battlefield uniforms? With DisOPS (“distributed operations”) Lockheed Martin is taking a different tack. Deployed to Special Forces in Afghanistan, the system is comprised of the Connect software which runs on ruggedized laptop computers, allowing squad leaders to plan missions on a map, and View PDAs that receive info over tactical radio, cellphone, or even WiFi networks. The PDAs provide “friendly force tracking of other team and squad leaders, land navigation tools, photo capture and transmission, and the ability to annotate and share maps in real time with other leaders.” In addition to all that, the handhelds include a sniper detection system for locating the origin of enemy fire and distributing it to other units in the area. Reportedly the system is working quite well — which means that, barring any further obstacles, DisOPS might see widespread use before 2030.

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Army, Lockheed Martin team up for DisOPS ‘battlefield PDAs’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nov 18

Video: Bomb-Proof Kevlar Wallpaper Stronger Than Wall Itself

Posted in: security, Today's Chili

You have a few rolls of supposedly bomb-proof wallpaper, so how do you test it out without getting a visit from Homeland Security? You paste it up and break out a wrecking-ball, of course. That’s what the folks at Popular Science did to test out X-FLEX, a reinforced wall-covering made from a Kevlar-like material.

X-FLEX is a a Kevlar-like composite sandwiched between polymer sheets. You peel off the back, stick it to the wall and, if you are extra sensible, you let it run over to the floor and ceiling where it should be further secured by nailing it down. When a bomb-blast (or giant metal ball) smashes into the brickwork, the wallpaper holds it in place, keeping the wall intact and preventing it from becoming shrapnel. It’s kind of like taping your windows to stop them from shattering, only a whole lot beefier.

Oddly enough, the video on the X-FLEX site of the wallpaper absorbing an actual bomb-blast is not nearly as spectacular or as entertaining as the Pop-Sci video (it is also non-embeddable, which is why you don’t see it here). The material is clearly made with military uses in mind, but we’re thinking of putting some of this up outside the Wired.com video-gaming room — things can get pretty nasty in there, especially when we (inevitably) thrash the guys from Wired mag.

Product page [X-FLEX via Oh Gizmo!]

X-Flex Blast Protection System [Pop-Sci]


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Nov 06

U.S. Army and EnerDel team up for electric-hybrid Humvee

Posted in: green, hybrid, Today's Chili, Transportation
EnerDel, who we last saw soaking up some of that Joe Biden stimulus money, is teaming up with the U.S. Army to develop a battery solution for a hybrid Humvee. Of course, your High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle is by its nature very large and very heavy — great for dropping out of airplanes, perhaps, but not so great a candidate for electric power. Two of the company’s battery chemistries will tested in the program, including lithium-manganese spinel (for extending electric vehicle range and electronic systems runtime) and lithium-titanate system (for the hard acceleration and braking required). In addition to “extreme performance simulations” that re-create battlefield conditions, a hybrid vehicle can also sport a “stealth” mode, which kills the diesel generator altogether, allowing the vehicle to run silently with a low thermal signature. And if that weren’t enough, the vehicle is also being designed to perform as a highly portable, temporary power plant for field hospitals or command posts. The program is expected to last eighteen months. PR after the break.

[Via CNET]

Continue reading U.S. Army and EnerDel team up for electric-hybrid Humvee

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U.S. Army and EnerDel team up for electric-hybrid Humvee originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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