DARPA to Set Sea-based Electronic Ambushes for Enemies

U.S. military researchers are moving forward with a program to hide ruggedized electronic devices at the bottom of the world's oceans that when called on will float to the surface to jam, disrupt, and spy on enemy forces.

Officials of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Virginia, this week released a formal solicitation (DARPA-BAA-14-27) for the second and third phases of the Upward Falling Payloads (UFP) project to hide sensors and other devices on the ocean floor that will last for as long as five years concealed at depths to 20,000 feet.

Last summer DARPA awarded UFP phase-one contracts to Sparton Electronics of De Leon Springs, Florida, and to Zeta Associates Inc. in Fairfax, Virginia, to develop conceptual designs of a future system with the potential to launch sensors, electronic jammers, laser dazzlers, and other devices surreptitiously and quickly in any of the world's maritime hot spots.

Sparton has notable expertise as a designer and manufacturer of the U.S. Navy's airborne sonobuoys, while Zeta designs complex communications signals collection and processing systems for the military and intelligence agencies.

Sparton and Zeta experts designed UFP concepts that not only would float sensors to the ocean's surface, but also potentially launch a wave of distracting light strobes, blinding lasers, electronic warfare jammers, or other kinds of non-lethal weapons able to pop up without warning in the middle of an adversary's naval battle group.

Sparton's phase-one UFP conceptual contract was worth $177,697, and Zeta's was worth $248,004. The program's second and third phases will be for much bigger money, and could attract larger contractors. The second phase will split about $21 million among three to six defense companies. The optional third phase involving an undisclosed number of companies, will be worth about $17 million, DARPA officials say.

The DARPA UFP program envisions a force of forward-deployed, non-lethal weapons and sensors armed with propellant that hides on the ocean floor and pops to the surface when needed. UFP payloads would have communications systems that enable their deployment at standoff ranges.

“The goal is to support the Navy with distributed technologies anywhere, anytime over large maritime areas. If we can do this rapidly, we can get close to the areas we need to affect, or become widely distributed without delay,” says Andy Coon, the DARPA UFP program manager. “To make this work, we need to address technical challenges like extended survival of nodes under extreme ocean pressure, communications to wake-up the nodes after years of sleep, and efficient launch of payloads to the surface.”

The UFP system is to have three key subsystems: the payload, which executes waterborne or airborne applications after being deployed to the surface; the UFP riser, which provides pressure-tolerant encapsulation and launch of the payload; and the UFP communications, which triggers the UFP riser to launch.


http://www.pcbdesign007.com/pages/zone.cgi?a=99718

DARPA ready to kick off program to enable unmanned aircraft to share information and work together

U.S. military researchers will brief industry in April on an upcoming project to enable surveillance and attack unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to work together on missions involving electronic jamming, degraded communications, and other difficult operating conditions.

Officials of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will reveal details about the Collaborative Operations in Denied Environment (CODE) program from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on 11 April 2014 at 675 North Randolph St. in Arlington, Va. Those who would like to attend must register no later than 4 April 2014.
The industry briefings will be in advance of the release of a formal solicitation for the CODE program to enable UAVs to work together in teams and take advantage of the relative strengths of each participating unmanned aircraft.

The CODE program is to expand the mission capabilities of existing UAVs through increased autonomy and inter-platform collaboration. Collaborative autonomy has the potential to increase capabilities and reduce costs of today's UAVs by composing heterogeneous teams of UAVs that can capitalize on the capabilities of each unmanned aircraft without the need to duplicate or integrate capabilities into one UAV, DARPA officials say.

Although today's UAVs have proven themselves in a wide range of missions, most current UAVs are not well matched to the needs of future conflicts, DARPA officials say.
Compared to today, future conflicts will be much less permissive, very dynamic, confront U.S. and allied forces with more dangerous threats, and involve contested electromagnetic spectrum and relocatable targets, researchers say.
In these future conflicts UAVs could use collaboration algorithms to help each other with tasks like geo-locating targets with long-distance sensors, as well as guiding less-capable UAVs to within their sensor ranges.

Collaboration algorithms also could help UAVs work together to provide multi-modal sensors and diverse observation angles to improve target identification, transmit important information through the network, provide navigational aide to low-tech or damaged UAVs, and protect each other by overwhelming defenses.


http://www.avionics-intelligence.com/articles/2014/03/ai-darpa-code.html

DARPA taps Boeing to build satellite-launching aircraft

Many satellites may no longer require expensive booster rockets in order to be launched into space if the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is successful in its plan to launch satellites from aircraft.

DARPA recently awarded a contract potentially worth $104 million to Boeing to build and demonstrate a low-cost airborne launching system for small satellites in support of the Airborne Launch Assist Space Access (ALASA) program. The announcement was made in a posting on the Federal Business Opportunities website.

The goal of the ALASA program is to develop a significantly cheaper alternative for the routine launching of small satellites, and is aimed at reducing the cost to a third of a conventional satellite launch. A single small satellite payload can cost upwards of $30,000 per pound to launch into space, and often takes up payload space in multi-payload launchers.

The program centers on the use of aircraft-based launches to improve performance, reduce range costs and allow more frequent missions. By using aircraft, satellite launches would no longer require wait times for launch windows, and would also be resilient to hazards associated with fixed launch sites. Additionally, satellites could be launched from any commercial, international runway, reducing preparation times and providing launch point offset – that is, launch direction limits imposed by geography at fixed-base launch facilities would no longer be an issue.

The program seeks to launch 100-pound satellites for less than $1 million total, under the assumption of a total of 36 launches. Boeing will eventually have to demonstrate 12 independent launches of 100 pound payloads into low-Earth-orbit.

http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/TTO/Programs/Airborne_Launch_Assist_Space_Access_%28ALASA%29.aspx

https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=82f80a28949a88bbbd04dd18717b4ca9&tab=core&_cview=1

Pentagon and DARPA plans to seed ocean floor with payloads waiting to be activated

By Joey Cheng:

Sensors, drones and other devices can be a great help to U.S. forces at sea, but not if forces get caught in a situation without them. That’s why the military is planning to plant them in potential trouble spots ahead of time, and have them wait on the ocean floor to be called into action.

The program is called the Upward Falling Payloads (UFP) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is preparing for Phase 2 and Phase 3, according to a pre-solicitation notice. The distributed systems would be remotely activated when needed and recalled to the surface by “falling upward.”

The project is a part of an effort to develop low-cost, unmanned and distributed systems in response to the limits imposed by costs and complexity in working in forward operating areas.

“The UFP approach averts solutions to deploy technology from legacy platforms or to grow the complexity and reach of unmanned systems,” DARPA said in its announcement. “Instead, the approach centers on pre-deploying deep-ocean nodes years in advance in forward areas which can be commanded from standoff to deliver a wide range of unmanned and distributed systems to the sub-surface, surface and air.”

http://defensesystems.com/articles/2014/03/27/upward-falling-payloads-darpa.aspx

DARPA’s Selects Four contender companies for new X-Plane Program

Aurora Flight Sciences Corporation, The Boeing Company, Karem Aircraft, Inc. and Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation selected for the new X-Plane Program.

DARPA has tasked four companies with designing new aircraft to revolutionise vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) flight capabilities. The four are Aurora Flight Sciences Corporation, The Boeing Company, Karem Aircraft, Inc. and Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation. The next major milestone for VTOL X-Plane is scheduled for late 2015, when the four performers are required to submit preliminary designs.

All four winning companies proposed designs for unmanned vehicles, but the technologies that VTOL X-Plane intends to develop could apply equally well to manned aircraft. Another common element among the designs is that they all incorporate multipurpose technologies to varying degrees. Multipurpose technologies decrease the number of systems in a vehicle and its overall mechanical complexity. Multipurpose technologies also use space and weight more efficiently to improve performance and enable new and improved capabilities.

DARPA conducts Successful EXCALIBUR Test of Compact High Energy Lasers

 Target at a distance of 7 kilometers (4.3 miles of US readers) precisely hit with Compact High Energy Lasers.

The Optical Phased Array (OPA) used in these experiments consisted of three identical clusters of seven tightly packed fiber lasers, each cluster measures only 10 centimeters across.

According to Joseph Mangano, DARPA program manager, the agency is planning to scale up the design over the next three years, ultimately transmitting up to 100 kilowatts of power – levels otherwise difficult to achieve in such a small package.The successful demonstration helps advance Excalibur’s goal of a 100-kilowatt-class laser system in a scalable, ultra-low SWaP OPA configuration compatible with existing weapon system platforms. Continued development and testing of Excalibur fiber optic laser arrays may one day lead to multi-100 kilowatt-class High-energy lasers (HEL) in a package 10 times lighter and more compact than legacy high-power laser systems.

More details about the project:
http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/MTO/Programs/EXCALIBUR.aspx

DARPA Aerial Reconfigurable Embedded System (ARES) project

ARES Aims to Provide More Front-line Units with Mission-tailored VTOL Capabilities

U.S. military experience has shown that rugged terrain and threats such as ambushes and Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) can make ground-based transportation to and from the front lines a dangerous challenge. Combat outposts require on average 100,000 pounds of material a week, and high elevation and impassable mountain roads often restrict access. Helicopters are one solution, but the supply of available helicopters can’t meet the demand for their services, which cover diverse operational needs including resupply, tactical insertion and extraction, and casualty evacuation.

To help overcome these challenges, DARPA unveiled the Transformer (TX) program in 2009. Transformer aimed to develop and demonstrate a prototype system that would provide flexible, terrain-independent transportation for logistics, personnel transport and tactical support missions for small ground units. In 2013, DARPA selected the Aerial Reconfigurable Embedded System (ARES) design concept to move forward.

“Many missions require dedicated vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) assets, but most ground units don’t have their own helicopters,” said Ashish Bagai, DARPA program manager. “ARES would make organic and versatile VTOL capability available to many more individual units. Our goal is to provide flexible, terrain-independent transportation that avoids ground-based threats, in turn supporting expedited, cost-effective operations and improving the likelihood of mission success.”

ARES would center on a VTOL flight module designed to operate as an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) capable of transporting a variety of payloads. The flight module would have its own power system, fuel, digital flight controls and remote command-and-control interfaces. Twin tilting ducted fans would provide efficient hovering and landing capabilities in a compact configuration, with rapid conversion to high-speed cruise flight similar to small aircraft. The system could use landing zones half the size typically needed by similarly sized helicopters, enabling it to land in rugged terrain and aboard ships.

It is envisioned that the flight module would travel between its home base and field operations to deliver and retrieve several different types of detachable mission modules, each designed for a specific purpose—cargo pickup and delivery, casualty extraction or airborne intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities, for instance. The flight module would have a useful load capability of up to 3,000 pounds, more than 40 percent the takeoff gross weight of the aircraft.

Units could direct the flight modules using apps on their mobile phones or ruggedized tablets. Initially, the system would be unmanned, with a future path towards semi-autonomous flight systems and user interfaces for optionally manned/controlled flight.

ARES is currently in its third and final phase. Lockheed Martin Skunk Works ® is the lead vehicle design and system integration performer for Phase 3 of the program.