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Airborne mine detection system passed flight tests
The U.S. Navy concluded developmental flight testing of the Airborne Laser Mine Detection System; the system rapidly detects and locates surface and near-surface mines so they can be neutralized before damaging U.S. and allied military and commercial ships
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Carnegie Mellon to develop flying car for DARPA
DARPA chooses Carnegie Mellon to develop autonomous capability for flying car; the military ground vehicle would transform into flyer for scouting, resupply, and medical evacuation; the flying car would be capable of transporting four people and 1,000 pounds of payload up to 250 nautical miles, either by land or by air
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Sniffer rats saving lives in war zones -- and in the lab
Light, with an acute sense of smell and easily motivated by food rewards, giant African pouched rats have been found to be highly effective in mine detection; in the lab, the rats use their keen noses positively to identify tuberculosis sputum samples; the next frontier would be to use the “hero rats” to sniff out narcotics or to search for survivors of disasters such as earthquakes or collapsed buildings
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U.S. Army's new surveillance blimp will fly "mid-next summer"
Northrop Grumman successfully completed another test of the Long Endurance Multi-intelligence Vehicle (LEMV) — a blimp longer than a football field and taller than a seven-story building, which will remain airborne for more than three weeks at a time, carrying multiple surveillance payloads
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Increasing counter-IED role for robots
U.S. and coalition military operating in Afghanistan have experienced about 10,500 roadside bomb incidents so far this year, up from 8,994 in 2009 and 2,677 in 2007; robots continue to play ever-more important combat roles in the air and on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq, and their responsibilities will only continue to grow
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Boeing shows a plane-helicopter combo
The DARPA-funded, Boeing-developed DiscRotor combines the hovering ability and landing control of a helicopter with the high-speed, high-altitude flight capabilities of a plane, something that could be of use especially in military situations
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U.S. Army tests robot batteries-and-bandwidth war-mules
The U.S. army remains determined to kit out all its ground troops with portable, wearable networking gear which will provide them with communications as well as an accurate idea of where everyone is; trouble is, when you have to generate your own wireless coverage as you go from the same kit, this means a lot of power — and this, in turn, means a crippling load of batteries; Lockheed Martin has a solution
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Showcasing Israeli homeland security technology
Next week’s Homeland Security International Conference in Tel Aviv will showcase Israel’s homeland security technology; Israel is already the world’s third-largest exporter of defense technology; in homeland security technology, it is among the Top 10 exporting countries; Brazil, India, Mexico, and Thailand, among others, are markets opening up for Israeli homeland security products
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Pentagon: dogs better than technology at bomb detection
The most sophisticated detectors the Pentagon came up with tend to locate only 50 percent of IEDs in Afghanistan and Iraq; when soldiers are accompanied by bomb-sniffing dogs, this number goes up to 80 percent; the Pentagon now spends less money on IED detection and more money on drones to find those planting IEDs, radio jammers to disrupt the frequencies used to detonate the bombs, and lots of aerial sensors to scan bomb-heavy areas
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DARPA-funded new engine brings flying car closer
DARPA awards Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne a $1 million contract to develop its EnduroCORE engine, which the company says offers “a high power-to-weight ratio comparable to gas turbines”; the engine will bring the Transformer TX flying car closer to reality
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U.S. to sell Saudis $60 billion in arms
The United States has agreed to sell Saudi Arabia $60 billion of arms, including helicopters and jets; this is the most lucrative single arms deal in U.S. history and could support 75,000 jobs; the Saudis could buy up to 84 new F-15 fighters and upgrade 70 more older models. The F-15s, made by McDonnell Douglas, will not be outfitted with long-range weapons in deference to Israeli concerns. The Saudis would also purchase 70 Boeing-made AH-64D Apache Longbow helicopters, 72 UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters (Sikorsky), 36 AH-6i light attack helicopters (Boeing), and 12 MD-530F light training helicopters (McDonnell Douglas); Israel will not object
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Maneuverable bullet to enhance sniper accuracy
Snipers have to contend with disruptions such as changing winds, muzzle velocity dispersions, and round-to-round variations; Teledyne, with funding from DARPA, offers a solution in the form of the first-ever guided small-caliber .50 bullet
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President Clinton lost nuclear "biscuit" for a couple of months
The nuclear “football” is a heavy metal briefcase containing the communication information and nuclear release codes which allow the president to launch nuclear weapons against an adversary; the football is carried by a military aide who is never more than a few steps away from the president; before the order can be processed by the military, however, the president must be positively identified by using a special code issued on a plastic card, nicknamed the “biscuit”; the biscuit is often carried by the president himself — in his shirt or breast pocket; a new book charges that President Clinton misplaced the nuclear biscuit for a few months — and that the loss was discovered only when he was asked to produce it so it could be updated; President Carter, too, mishandled the biscuit: he left the card with the launch codes in a suit sent to the dry cleaner
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Unease grows about China's rare Earth elements monopoly
Rare Earth elements are quite abundant in the Earth’s crust, but environmental concerns and aggressive subsidies by China’s government to Chinese manufacturers have led to a Chinese near-monopoly: 90 percent of the world’s rare Earth elements are now being mined and processed in China; growing unease with this Chinese dominance has led to renewed efforts around the world to develop alternatives to rare Earth elements, and find environmentally sound ways to mine them
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DARPA seeks self-aiming, one-shot sniper rifle
Lockheed Martin awarded $6.9 million to develop a sniper rifle to operate over a range of visibilities, atmospheric turbulence, scintillation, and environmental conditions; the company’s objective is to deliver fifteen field-testable and hardened prototype systems by October 2011
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More headlines
The long view
Tantalizing Method to Study Cyberdeterrence
Tantalus is unlike most war games because it is experimental instead of experiential — the immersive game differs by overlapping scientific rigor and quantitative assessment methods with the experimental sciences, and experimental war gaming provides insightful data for real-world cyberattacks.
Testing Cutting-Edge Counter-Drone Technology
Drones have many positive applications, bad actors can use them for nefarious purposes. Two recent field demonstrations brought government, academia, and industry together to evaluate innovative counter-unmanned aircraft systems.
European Arms Imports Nearly Double, U.S. and French Exports Rise, and Russian Exports Fall Sharply
States in Europe almost doubled their imports of major arms (+94 per cent) between 2014–18 and 2019–23. The United States increased its arms exports by 17 per cent between 2014–18 and 2019–23, while Russia’s arms exports halved. Russia was for the first time the third largest arms exporter, falling just behind France.
How Climate Change Will Affect Conflict and U.S. Military Operations
“People talk about climate change as a threat multiplier,” said Karen Sudkamp, an associate director of the Infrastructure, Immigration, and Security Operations Program within the RAND Homeland Security Research Division. “But at what point do we need to start talking about the threat multiplier actually becoming a significant threat all its own?”
The Tech Apocalypse Panic is Driven by AI Boosters, Military Tacticians, and Movies
From popular films like a War Games or The Terminator to a U.S. State Department-commissioned report on the security risk of weaponized AI, there has been a tremendous amount of hand wringing and nervousness about how so-called artificial intelligence might end up destroying the world. There is one easy way to avoid a lot of this and prevent a self-inflicted doomsday: don’t give computers the capability to launch devastating weapons.