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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The Future Sneaks Up On You

The U.S. Army is caught in the middle of a debate over its future. Many politicians want to turn the army into a force specializing in irregular warfare (as seen in Iraq and Afghanistan). Many generals, and some politicians, warn that the army is still needed for conventional warfare, against a foe with lots of armor, aircraft and trained troops. While the army still contains many armored unit (about half the 45 brigades are equipped with tanks and other armored vehicles), many of the tank crews have gone to Iraq and served as infantry. In the last five years, very little mechanized warfare training has been done. The troops train for Iraq and Afghanistan, which means infantry fighting.

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Illusion Cloak Makes One Object Look like Another

Just when you thought invisibility cloaks couldn't get any weirder, researchers come up with this: a way to make one object look like any other.

Invisibility cloaks work by steering light around a region of space, making any object inside that region invisible. In effect, an invisibility cloak creates the illusion of free space. This is possible because of a new generation of artificial materials called metamaterials that can, in principle at least, steer light in any way imaginable. Indeed, various teams have built real invisibility cloaks that hide objects from view in both the microwave and optical bands.

Now Che Chan and pals from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology say that metamaterials could be used for an even more exotic effect: for cloaks that create the illusion that a different object is present.

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ThinGap Announces: Exhaust-Based Generator System for Mass-Produced Automobiles Set to Improve Fuel Economy

Designed to fit into engine compartment of passenger cars, SUVs, and pick-up trucks, Turbo Generator generates electrical energy from vehicle exhaust gases before being emitted into atmosphere. System supplies electric power to vehicle's electrical system and drives engine accessories that are currently crankshaft-driven. In addition, generator can directly drive flywheel motor of semi-hybrid vehicles and supplement energy supply to battery system of full hybrid vehicles.

ThinGap Automotive, a majority-owned subsidiary of ThinGap LLC, today announced the Turbo Generator, a subsystem for increasing fuel economy of mass-produced vehicles by generating electrical energy from vehicle exhaust gases before being emitted into the atmosphere. The company expects significant fuel savings in the US and European fuel economy test cycles and all other vehicle operating modes as well.

"Up to 40 percent of fuel energy for internal combustion engines is lost through exhaust gas, a large portion of which the Turbo Generator converts to electricity, which can help Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM's) meet the new Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) regulation that requires a 40 percent increase in fuel economy," said Rean Pretorius, CEO of ThinGap Automotive.

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Better Place unveils robot battery swap station

Many have wondered what Better Place's vaunted automated battery changing stations might look like. So the company, a would-be pioneer in electric cars and their attendant infrastructure, has released a slick video showing how it’s done at a demonstration site in Yokohama, Japan.

Swapping out the discharged battery from an electric Nissan SUV for a fully charged one took slightly more than a minute, according to the video, or less time than it might take you to gas up your car. And you wouldn't even have to get out (talk about full service).

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New nanocrystal doesn't blink

Scientists at the University of Rochester (Rochester, NY) have created a nanocrystal that doesn't blink--in other words, after absorbing a photon, it will always radiate the energy away as another photon, rather than sometimes converting it to heat.

For more than a decade, scientists have been frustrated in their attempts to create continuously emitting light sources from individual molecules because of an optical quirk called "blinking," but now scientists at the University of Rochester have uncovered the basic physics behind the phenomenon, and along with researchers at the Eastman Kodak Company, created a nanocrystal that constantly emits light.

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Engineers Evolve Transistors for Next-Gen Chips

Concepts gleaned from the study of evolution could help overcome manufacturing problems in future computer chips. That’s the hope, at least, of researchers in the Intelligent Systems Group at the University of York, in England, who will present their findings next week at the IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation, in Trondheim, Norway.

As key components of transistors shrink from 45 to 22 nanometers, tiny natural variations in manufacturing—which make no difference in larger devices—start to affect performance. For instance, there’s no way to control the exact arrangement of atoms of doping elements within a lattice of silicon, and different levels of dopant will alter electrical effects. At these tiny sizes, line edges and surfaces that define components also have a natural roughness that can’t be avoided and can trip up a transistor’s function.

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DARPA to Seek Underground Targets with Laser, Gravity Sensors

Raytheon is developing a new laser-assisted sensor system to demonstrate the detection and location buried land mines and tunnels. The system developed under a $19 million contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), will utilize a laser radar vibration sensor, (also known as LADAR vibrometer) to detect underground targets by measuring the reverberation of the ground-surface in response to artificial stimulus (vibration), measuring the anomalies created by underground objects or activity.

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ABL Boosters Look to Kills for Survival

Boeing plans to bolster support for the hard-pressed 747-based Airborne Laser missile defense program by quickly following an upcoming first full-scale missile shoot-down demonstration with laser interceptions of everything from short-range tactical weapons to intercontinental ballistic missiles.

“The intent is to go out and shoot another missile very quickly and demonstrate it’s not a one-shot wonder,” says Boeing ABL program director Michael Rinn. A follow-on contract to the current flight tests will include test shots against a wide range of targets, he asserts. “I’d like to shoot down short-range, intermediate-range, and intercontinental ballistic-range missiles,” Rinn says.

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New Tissue Scaffold Regrows Cartilage And Bone

MIT engineers and colleagues have built a new tissue scaffold that can stimulate bone and cartilage growth when transplanted into the knees and other joints.

The scaffold could offer a potential new treatment for sports injuries and other cartilage damage, such as arthritis, says Lorna Gibson, the Matoula S. Salapatas Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and co-leader of the research team with Professor William Bonfield of Cambridge University.

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USAF Developing New 3DELRR Long-Range Radar

The U.S. Air Force awarded firm-fixed-price contracts to 2 companies for radar engineering and design support during the technology development phase of the Three-Dimensional Expeditionary Long Range Radar (3DELRR) Program. Lockheed Martin Corp. received a $24.9 million contract (FA8722-09-C-0003), and Sensis Corp. received a $21.9 million contract (FA8722-09-C-0001). The Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom Air Force Base, MA, is managing the contracts.

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GD-RAFAEL’s Reactive Armor Equips US Military

he USA’s M2/M3 Bradley Fighting Vehicles have played a central role in armed operations in Iraq. Many of them are now doing it with special reactive applique armor tiles that significantly improve their protection against anti-tank rockets. General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products Inc. in Burlington, VT is the main supplier, in conjunction with Israel’s RAFAEL who pioneered the design.

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Phantom flights

Boeing has announced plans to develop and demonstrate an unmanned flying test bed for advanced air system technologies.

The programme, known as Phantom Ray, will make use of a prototype vehicle that Boeing originally intended for the Joint-Unmanned Combat Air System (J-UCAS) programme.
The vehicle will conduct 10 flights over a period of around six months and is scheduled to make its first flight at the end of 2010. Potential supporting missions could include intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, electronic attack and autonomous aerial refuelling.

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Personal purifier

A UK technology group hopes to unveil a personal air purification device that could be worn on a belt as part of the fight against viruses such as H1N1 swine flu.

London-based Tri-Air is developing a decontamination system that simulates the natural purification properties of fresh air. It creates airborne cascades of hydroxyl radicals, which naturally occur outdoors, to destroy microbes that could include viruses such as H1N1 or bacteria such as MRSA in the air and on surfaces.

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The risks of North Korea's nuclear restart

On April 13, the U.N. Security Council condemned North Korea's rocket launch earlier in the month. Within nine hours, North Korea denounced and rejected the Security Council statement; expelled international inspectors and the U.S. technical team from its Yongbyon nuclear facilities; walked away from the Six-Party Talks and all previous agreements; threatened to strengthen its "self-defensive nuclear deterrent"; and said that it would restore its nuclear plant to normal operation and reprocess spent fuel rods. Two weeks later, the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs threatened to take measures that "will include nuclear tests and test-firings of intercontinental ballistic missiles" and "will make a decision to build a light water reactor power plant and start the technological development for ensuring self-production of nuclear fuel as its first process without delay" unless the Security Council promptly apologizes for its infringement on North Korea's sovereignty.

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Physicist’s Fool-Proof War Formula

The military has been trying for years to turn the chaos of war into a simple math problem. So far, those efforts have been trumped by a confluence of shaky variables: free will, tribal factions and chance being a few examples. But one physicist says he’s cracked the code. How’d he do it? He turned on the TV.

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EADS Defence & Security launches a further revolutionary cryptographic solution to the Ectocryp Family

Launch of ECTOCRYP Steel, a single point fill cryptographic solution developed by EADS Defence & Security (DS) and was selected for the Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft.

The benefits of single point fill technology are now available to the wider cryptographic market through ECTOCRYP Steel.

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Russia to start flight tests of 5th-generation fighter by year end

A Russian deputy prime minister said Monday that flight tests of a fifth-generation fighter will start in Russia by the end of 2009.

"By the end of this year, the plane will rise into the air and flight tests will begin," Sergei Ivanov told journalists after a shipbuilding meeting in the Far East, adding that serial production will start in 2010.

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New Pattern Found in Prime Numbers

In a recent study, Bartolo Luque and Lucas Lacasa of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid in Spain have discovered a new pattern in primes that has surprisingly gone unnoticed until now. They found that the distribution of the leading digit in the prime number sequence can be described by a generalization of Benford’s law. In addition, this same pattern also appears in another number sequence, that of the leading digits of nontrivial Riemann zeta zeros, which is known to be related to the distribution of primes. Besides providing insight into the nature of primes, the finding could also have applications in areas such as fraud detection and stock market analysis.

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Wi-Fi to Go, No Cafe Needed

Imagine if you could get online anywhere you liked — in a taxi, on the beach, in a hotel with disgustingly overpriced Wi-Fi — without messing around with cellular modems. What if you had a personal Wi-Fi bubble, a private hot spot, that followed you everywhere you go?

Incredibly, there is such a thing. It’s the Novatel MiFi 2200, available from Verizon starting in mid-May ($100 with two-year contract, after rebate). It’s a little wisp of a thing, like a triple-thick credit card. It has one power button, one status light and a swappable battery that looks like the one in a cellphone. When you turn on your MiFi and wait 30 seconds, it provides a personal, portable, powerful, password-protected wireless hot spot.

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Active RFID Tag integrates temperature sensing capability.

GAO Tek's Active RFID tag with temperature sensor (GAO127003) is specifically designed to collect and transmit temperature data in real time in addition to identification and location of items. It is commonly deployed in applications such as cold logistics or medicine transportation.

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Bell's HTR: Tiltwing + Rotors

Thanks to sharp-eyed Steve Trimble at the Quad-A show, and his The Dew Line blog, we now know about Bell Helicopter's Hybrid Tandem Rotor (HTR) concept.

According to Steve's interview with Bell's exec VP for government programs Robert Kennedy, the HTR could achieve a forward speed of 225kt, compared with around 170kt for a conventional helicopter and more than 300kt for the V-22 tiltrotor.

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LockMart Tests Systems On Desert Hawk III Unmanned Aircraft System

Lockheed Martin has successfully completed flight testing of a new signals intelligence (SIGINT) payload and a next generation wing design that will provide enhanced capabilities for the company's small Desert Hawk III (DHIII) Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS).

Lockheed Martin's current DHIII is an open architecture system that consists of three key components: a light-weight, hand-launched, rugged air vehicle with a number of snap-on payloads (Plug and PlayloadsTM); a portable ground station; and a remote video terminal.

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Captive Flight Test Moves NLOS-LS Closer To US Navy Live Fire Testing

NetFires has conducted the second captive flight test of the Non Line-of-Sight-Launch System Precision Attack Missile (PAM).

NLOS-LS provides the warfighter with immediate, precise and responsive fires on high-payoff targets with real-time target acquisition and battle effects. It is also one of the key Littoral Combat Ship mission modules.

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Americanized/Modernized Polish wz. 88 Tantal AK-74 5.45×39mm Tactical Rifle/Carbine

If you’d like a more traditional platform for the 5.45×39mm Russian cartridge, than the Smith & Wesson (S&W) M&P15R semi-auto AR-15 tactical carbine, the April 2009 issue of Special Weapons for Military & Police (SWMP) (Gun Buyer’s Annual #74) also has an article by Charlie Cutshaw on a Interarms Polish wz. 88 Tantal AK-74S semi-auto Kalashnikov AK-74-type 5.45mm tactical rifle/carbine that’s been upgraded with some distinctly American tactical rifle/carbine accessories to create an bring it “into the 21st century” and create an Americanized AK-74, if you will.

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RQ-4 Euro Hawk UAV Cleared for Takeoff

The Euro Hawk project aims to produce an RQ-4 with additional capabilities in signals intelligence collection (SIGINT), as well as its native ground surveillance capabilities. An MoU was signed in May 2006, followed by a firm system development contract in February 2007.

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Windows 7 Eases PC-To-PC File Transfers

Computer users who buy a new Windows 7 PC will have an easier time transferring files from their old machines thanks to improved file transfer tools included in Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)'s next operating system.

An enhanced version of Windows Easy Transfer, native to Windows 7, lets users port files, user accounts, and application settings from a Windows XP or Windows Vista system to a Windows 7-based PC in just a few steps, according to Microsoft officials.

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Amazon Kindle DX announced

ust as with the Kindle 2, Amazon posted the Kindle DX product page while the launch event was underway. Specs-wise, there's not much here we didn't know: the big changes are a larger 9.7-inch screen that rotates to landscape display, a PDF reader, and more storage space at 3.3GB. The big news is actually the flat $489 price tag, which seems on the high-side of realistic to us -- although the subsidy-pricing rumors weren't totally inaccurate, as the New York Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe will offer subsidized on-contract Kindles to customers who can't get at-home delivery when the DX ships this summer.

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New Radios are Pushing Broadband to the Edge of the Battlefield

General Dynamics is developing the 'Handheld, Manpack and Small Form Fit' (HMS) radio under the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) to provide high bandwidth communications even at the lowest level of command, establishing wideband communication among tactical vehicles and with dismounted units on-the-move. The radio supports JTRS Wideband Networking Waveform and standard based 802.16 wireless networking technologies, facilitating the transfer of large amounts of information and for on-line collaboration between moving vehicles.

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