KONGSBERG releases White Paper on Military and Civilian Port Security

Kongsberg Mesotech Ltd., is pleased to release a white paper outlining the most recent technological advances in sonar technologies and how these can protect military and civilian ports and visiting ships from attack by enemy divers. The white paper is entitled "New Advances in Sonar Diver Detection Systems: The Hidden Threat Facing Military and Civilian Ports."

This new Kongsberg white paper outlines the hidden threat presented by underwater diver incursion, as evidenced by groups such as the Tamil "Sea" Tigers having been able to mount successful underwater attacks in ports. It also reviews the latest technological improvements in underwater acoustical diver detection systems in these key areas: hardware, tracking software and data fusion/systems integration.

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Protonex to Extend Capabilities of UAV Propulsion Systems

Protonex Technology Corporation, a leading provider of advanced fuel cell power systems for portable, remote and mobile applications, today announced that it has received a $265,000 contract from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) for advanced development of high performance fuel cell systems for small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). This award expands upon a series of efforts by Protonex to miniaturize fuel cells for use in smaller UAVs.

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Honeywell Provides Satellite Precision Landing System for Bremen Airport

Honeywell announced today that installation is complete for its SmartPath(tm) Precision Landing System at Bremen Airport in Germany. Honeywell's technology is a ground-based augmentation system that supports precision approach and landings using Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite data and transmits digital guidance signals to aircraft systems.

"The flexibility of Honeywell's SmartPath system allows for multiple approach paths, enabling airports to increase capacity without expensive runway expansions," said TK Kallenbach, Honeywell Aerospace Vice President, Marketing and Program Management. "The precise approach path can allow airports to reduce noise in surrounding communities while operators save fuel and lower emissions."

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DARPA working on inertial-nav 'Smart Boot' tech

Elite Pentagon deathnerds have just awarded a contract for development of a highly accurate inertial navigation module which will fit in the heel of a shoe.

Massachusetts sensors'n'tracking company Intersense were chuffed to announce the deal this week, in which the firm will work with Case Western university to deliver tiny yet highly accurate inertial-nav units under a programme called Micro Inertial Navigation Technology (MINT).

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Growing Markets for Active Electronically-scanned Arrays

Airborne applications represent the main markets with 379 “free world” shipments in 2009 rising to 1,638 in 2015. These markets are typically two orders of magnitude above those applying to either the land-based or shipboard segments. Total “free world” market values are just over US$6 B in 2009 which more than doubles to exceed US$13 B for 2015. Throughout the report the geographic segmentations are: Europe, North America and the Rest of the “Free World” (RoW).

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AMD Breaks 1GHz GPU Barrier With Radeon HD 4890

Beginning now, however, users with a lust for raw horsepower can sink their teeth into a factory overclocked, air-cooled HD 4890 that hits the magical 1GHz barrier. There's been no formal announcement made about what partners will be selling the 1GHz variant, but AMD does note that Asus, Club 3D, Diamond Multimedia, Force3D, GECUBE, Gigabyte, HIS (Hightech Information Systems), ITC, Jetway, MSI, Palit Multimedia, PowerColor, SAPPHIRE Technology and XFX are all estatic about the news.

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GPS Accuracy Could Start Dropping in 2010

At the end of April 2009, the U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report expressing concern about the Air Force's modernization and maintenance of the GPS system. Constant replacement and upgrading of satellites is necessary, especially with hardware that's been operating in space for almost two decades.

The GAO's report draws attention to problems that the Air Force has had in working with contractors to build and launch GPS satellites within cost and schedule goals. Some of the problems stem from government acquisition methods that didn't provide for enough oversight, and added requirements that resulted in cost and schedule overruns.

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Reliable Acoustic Path Vertical Line Array

DESCRIPTION: In recent years the U.S. Navy has researched the utility of deep water (i.e., 6 km depth, 3 deg C temperature) acoustic sensing technologies that exploit the reliable acoustic path (RAP) [1] using vertical line arrays (VLAs) of vector sensors [2,3]. The first RAP VLA array was large and deployed over the side of a research vessel [3]. The sensing nodes consisted of a pressure hydrophone, a triaxial pressure-gradient hydrophone, and an electronics housing all contained within a free-flooding plastic frame having a diameter and length of 13-in x 41-in. The measured acoustic signals were routed to a central node that served as a data recorder. Future arrays will be smaller and deployed from tactical naval platforms using existing packaging modalities

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