A mock-up of an island superstructure that will house some of the most powerful ship-borne communication systems ever seen is being constructed on the Isle of Wight. Report by Steve Moore.
The launch of HMS Queen Elizabeth - the first of two new aircraft carriers - may be six years away, but work is progressing on a vital part of it deep in the heart of the Isle of Wight. When the vessel puts to sea she will break the mould in many ways, not least in her cost efficiency.
Central to her success - and that of the second carrier HMS Prince of Wales due in service towards the end of the next decade - will be her mission system. The system, which will use 1,740km of fibre optic cable and 14,000 items of equipment, underpins her war-fighting capability. It will support voice and data services needed to effect command and control along with management of aircraft and protection of the ship through sensors and radars.
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Saturday, May 23, 2009
Ceramic Fuel Cells launches new modular generator product - BlueGen
Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited (ASX/AIM: CFU) today officially launched a new modular generator product.
The new unit – called BlueGen – is a ‘mini power station’ for homes and other buildings. It produces low emission electricity and hot water, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and saving on home energy bills. About the size of a dishwasher, the BlueGen unit converts natural gas to electricity and heat via ceramic fuel cells.
The Company plans to make the BlueGen product available in Victoria from early 2010. The Company is in discussions with potential local manufacturing partners. The Company is also in discussions with potential purchasers of the BlueGen product in other markets including Europe and North America.
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The new unit – called BlueGen – is a ‘mini power station’ for homes and other buildings. It produces low emission electricity and hot water, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and saving on home energy bills. About the size of a dishwasher, the BlueGen unit converts natural gas to electricity and heat via ceramic fuel cells.
The Company plans to make the BlueGen product available in Victoria from early 2010. The Company is in discussions with potential local manufacturing partners. The Company is also in discussions with potential purchasers of the BlueGen product in other markets including Europe and North America.
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Compact Discs Enter the Fifth Dimension
Better clear a shelf in your basement for that high-end Blu-ray DVD player you just bought. Researchers report that they can boost the amount of data stored on a disc 10,000-fold by using gold nanoparticles. If commercialized, the technology could allow a single disc to hold as many as 300 movies or 250,000 songs.
Today's CDs and DVDs store data as a string of pits burned into a narrow spiral track in plastic discs. Although less of a commercial success, holograms boost data-storage capacities by storing data in three dimensions. In an effort to kick things up a notch, researchers led by Min Gu, an optoelectronics expert at Swinburne University of Technology in Hawthorn, Australia, added two additional dimensions: the color of light used to write and read the data and the light's polarization, or the direction of its electric field.
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Today's CDs and DVDs store data as a string of pits burned into a narrow spiral track in plastic discs. Although less of a commercial success, holograms boost data-storage capacities by storing data in three dimensions. In an effort to kick things up a notch, researchers led by Min Gu, an optoelectronics expert at Swinburne University of Technology in Hawthorn, Australia, added two additional dimensions: the color of light used to write and read the data and the light's polarization, or the direction of its electric field.
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SUV nuke detector will avert covert attack, company claims
A turbo-charged engine, 21-inch wheels, Bluetooth, and 600-watt THX speakers are fine, but for the SUV owner who desires everything, how about a Mobile Nuclear Radiation Detection System?
Raytheon is offering the Sports Utility Vehicle-Based Radiation Detection System, which uses advanced spectroscopic technology to detect and identify nuclear radiation, whether sitting put or on the move.
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Raytheon is offering the Sports Utility Vehicle-Based Radiation Detection System, which uses advanced spectroscopic technology to detect and identify nuclear radiation, whether sitting put or on the move.
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Pentagon Seeks High School Hackers
High school hackers, crackers and digital deviants: Uncle Sam wants you.
As part of a government information security review released as early as Friday, White House interim cybersecurity chief Melissa Hathaway likely will mention a new military-funded program aimed at leveraging an untapped resource: the U.S.' population of geeky high school and college students.
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As part of a government information security review released as early as Friday, White House interim cybersecurity chief Melissa Hathaway likely will mention a new military-funded program aimed at leveraging an untapped resource: the U.S.' population of geeky high school and college students.
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Thursday, May 21, 2009
Network Attack Weapons Emerge
Devices to launch and control cyber, electronic and information attacks are being tested and refined by the U.S. military and industry in preparation for moving out of the laboratory and into the warfighter's backback.
It's a part of a technology race that is already well underway. The Russian attack on Georgia last year showed weaknesses in some combat areas, but not in cyberwarfare, say U.S. analysts.
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It's a part of a technology race that is already well underway. The Russian attack on Georgia last year showed weaknesses in some combat areas, but not in cyberwarfare, say U.S. analysts.
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Hydrogen Vehicles Drive from Mexico Border to Canada
National Hydrogen Association announced the beginning of the 1,700 mile 2009 Hydrogen Road Tour. For nine days starting May 26, Americans and Canadians in 28 cities between southern California and Vancouver, British Columbia will have a unique opportunity to see what the transportation future holds for with the launch of a nine-day caravan of clean, efficient hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles.
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Additional airborne satellite communications systems for USAF
Boeing has announced that it has received a $3.4 million follow-on contract to provide the U.S. Air Force with 46 additional Combat Track II airborne satellite communications systems.
Boeing has delivered nearly 500 Combat Track II kits to the Air Force since 2001 in an ongoing effort to provide airborne intelligence systems for cargo and bomber aircraft that enhance situational awareness, increase aircrew survivability and improve airframe effectiveness. The total value of the systems currently in use is approximately $38 million.
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Boeing has delivered nearly 500 Combat Track II kits to the Air Force since 2001 in an ongoing effort to provide airborne intelligence systems for cargo and bomber aircraft that enhance situational awareness, increase aircrew survivability and improve airframe effectiveness. The total value of the systems currently in use is approximately $38 million.
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Metal Storm Launches New MAUL Weapon
Metal Storm Incorporated (MSI) has announced today that it is launching its latest lightweight weapon system, the GLH1851 Multi-shot Accessory Under-barrel Launcher (MAUL(tm)), at the International Infantry and Joint Services Small Arms System Symposium in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The MAUL(tm) is an ultra-light shotgun attachment that fits under the barrel of an individual combat weapon, including the M-4 and M-16 rifles. It provides a range of less lethal, lethal and door breaching capabilities as an integrated, lightweight accessory to the user's main combat weapon.
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The MAUL(tm) is an ultra-light shotgun attachment that fits under the barrel of an individual combat weapon, including the M-4 and M-16 rifles. It provides a range of less lethal, lethal and door breaching capabilities as an integrated, lightweight accessory to the user's main combat weapon.
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DARPA awards phase II for RSN program
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded Argon ST Inc. a phase II contract for continued work on the Robust Surface Navigation program.
U.S. company Argon was awarded the contract from the DARPA Strategic Technology Office following the company's successful completion of a phase I award. Under the approximately $6.5 million deal, Argon will continue development of algorithms to support a global positioning system for the RSN program.
U.S. company Argon was awarded the contract from the DARPA Strategic Technology Office following the company's successful completion of a phase I award. Under the approximately $6.5 million deal, Argon will continue development of algorithms to support a global positioning system for the RSN program.
DARPA awards phase II for RSN program
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded Argon ST Inc. a phase II contract for continued work on the Robust Surface Navigation program.
U.S. company Argon was awarded the contract from the DARPA Strategic Technology Office following the company's successful completion of a phase I award. Under the approximately $6.5 million deal, Argon will continue development of algorithms to support a global positioning system for the RSN program.
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U.S. company Argon was awarded the contract from the DARPA Strategic Technology Office following the company's successful completion of a phase I award. Under the approximately $6.5 million deal, Argon will continue development of algorithms to support a global positioning system for the RSN program.
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The New Onboard Systems Tell-All Know-It-Alls
In September 2007, Gulfstream announced PlaneConnect, a system option for PlaneView, the Honeywell Primus Epic avionics suite configured for Gulfstream, in which a central maintenance computer (CMC) begins to record fault codes or exceedances from aircraft components from the moment of weight-off-wheels, then automatically radios the information to the ground when the airplane begins a descent to its destination. By July 2008, about nine months after the initial announcement, some 10,000 downlinks had been received from 135 large-cabin aircraft (currently G350 through G550).
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Planning Begins for F136 Flight Tests
The General Electric/Rolls-Royce team developing the F136 alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has begun flight clearance work for the start of the test program in early 2011, despite being targeted for cancellation for the third time in the latest U.S. defense budget.
The GE-RR team met formally with Lockheed Martin, the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO), the U.S. Air Force and Navy at Evendale, Ohio, for flight-clearance technical review meetings May 13-14. The meetings coincided with the resumption of tests on the F136 at GE’s Altitude Test Cell 43 in Evendale, following modifications to the bearing system.
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The GE-RR team met formally with Lockheed Martin, the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO), the U.S. Air Force and Navy at Evendale, Ohio, for flight-clearance technical review meetings May 13-14. The meetings coincided with the resumption of tests on the F136 at GE’s Altitude Test Cell 43 in Evendale, following modifications to the bearing system.
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Wednesday, May 20, 2009
GD wins second order to integrate US Army “Prophet Enhanced” system into military vehicles
A team led by General Dynamics C4 Systems has received a new, $3 million delivery order from the U.S. Army to integrate the Prophet Enhanced tactical signals intelligence system into Medium Mine Protected Vehicles (MMPV). The order is in support of a Department of Defense requirement that is providing additional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities to the U.S. military. MMPVs equipped with the Prophet Enhanced system will be delivered to the U.S. Army in October 2009.
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Hitachi Announces Super-Powered Lithium Ion Battery
New Hitachi battery offers 1.7 times more power while being smaller and lighter than previous generations.’
One of the key areas of research for alternative power sources for vehicles is in batteries. As batteries become more powerful, smaller, and lighter, the range of electric and hybrid vehicles will increase making them more viable alternatives for drivers.
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One of the key areas of research for alternative power sources for vehicles is in batteries. As batteries become more powerful, smaller, and lighter, the range of electric and hybrid vehicles will increase making them more viable alternatives for drivers.
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Cute Pocket-Sized Robot Could Change Urban Warfare
Consumer- and military-robot manufacturer iRobot has made a little "cousin" of its famous Packbot that's small enough to fit in a pocket, weighs less than a pound, clambers almost anywhere and forms ad-hoc wireless networks with its kin.
It's been made under a Pentagon contract to develop "LANdroids," small, automatically networking communications and surveillance robots.
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It's been made under a Pentagon contract to develop "LANdroids," small, automatically networking communications and surveillance robots.
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Next-Gen Ultrasound
Micromachined transducer probes for ultrasound scanners should provide prenatal images that are even sharper than those new parents now get to see. The pictures, though, may never be as crisp as the one in this fanciful photo-illustration.
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Engine Defects Threaten Su-30 Fleet
Russian engineers have determined that the April 26th crash of one of the two prototypes of the Russian Su-35 fifth generation fighters, was an "engineering defect" in one of the two AL-41 engines. The engine failed during takeoff.
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Can "Terminators" Actually be our Salvation?
We might be able to design robotic soldiers that could be more ethical than human soldiers.
Asaro concludes that the use of autonomous technologies such as robot soldiers is neither “completely morally acceptable nor completely morally unacceptable” according to the just war theory formulated by Michael Walzer.
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Asaro concludes that the use of autonomous technologies such as robot soldiers is neither “completely morally acceptable nor completely morally unacceptable” according to the just war theory formulated by Michael Walzer.
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Beaver-tailed robot mimics tree-climbing insects
Here's another offering from Boston Dynamics' zoomorphic line: the RiSE V3, a multi-legged, beaver-tailed robot that can skitter along the ground, shimmy up a pole, and then quietly cling there and stare at you.
The legs are powered by a pair of electric motors and equipped with small surgical needle micro-claws, which allow the unit to dig into and climb up textured, convex, cylindrical structures at a rate of 21 centimeters per second, or just under a half a mile an hour.
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The legs are powered by a pair of electric motors and equipped with small surgical needle micro-claws, which allow the unit to dig into and climb up textured, convex, cylindrical structures at a rate of 21 centimeters per second, or just under a half a mile an hour.
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High-Tech Response to Rocket Attacks
The NBS C-RAM is specifically designed to defeat the threat which rocket, artillery and mortar attacks pose to Bundeswehr units deployed in hazardous areas of operation. The Bundeswehr will be the world's first army to possess an effective defence against this kind of asymmetric threat, which is particularly prevalent in Afghanistan.
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EADS DS Supplies New Type of Ground Surveillance Radar
EADS Defence & Security (DS) will equip the German Armed Forces with a new kind of ground surveillance radar (BUR - Bodenuberwachungsradar) for detecting movements on the ground and at low altitudes with a precision unmatched in the world. As the company announced on Tuesday, Defence Electronics (DE), an integrated activity of DS, today handed over the first of two system demonstrators to the German Federal Office of Defence Technology and Procurement (BWB) for evaluation by the Bundeswehr's Technical Centres. The delivery of approximately 80 BUR systems is scheduled to start in 2012. They are intended to close the gap in capabilities of the German Armed Forces in the area of intelligence gathering and reconnaissance. A modified version of this radar destined for civil applications such as surveillance of border regions or industrial facilities is currently under development.
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AdvancedIO® Systems Announces expressXG(TM) Framework for Rapid High-Bandwidth Application Development
AdvancedIO® Systems, the leader in high-bandwidth connectivity solutions optimized for decision-critical applications, today announced the availability of expressXG(TM), an FPGA framework that accelerates customers' ability to tackle challenging system communication problems. The framework gives customers the tools to embed their own applications directly into AdvancedIO's 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) interfaces. The applications quickly benefit from the line-rate performance capability of FPGAs by leveraging AdvancedIO's expertise implementing Ethernet communications for demanding real-time systems.
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Searching for answers, Microsoft set to intro "Kumo" search engine
In the market for yet another way to navigate cyberspace? Just days after physicist Stephan Wolfram took his WolframAlpha "computational knowledge engine" live, word is that Microsoft next week will debut a revamped version of its flagging Live.com search engine, the No. 3 Web navigator behind Google and Yahoo.
Microsoft will take the wraps off of "Kumo"—the codename of its new, improved search engine—at the D: All Things Digital technology conference next week in Carlsbad, Calif., the Wall Street Journal reports.
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Microsoft will take the wraps off of "Kumo"—the codename of its new, improved search engine—at the D: All Things Digital technology conference next week in Carlsbad, Calif., the Wall Street Journal reports.
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Getting your V6 to act like a V8, while saving gas
The history of engine improvements in the U.S. has tended primarily in one direction: raw horsepower. Engines have gotten bigger and more powerful over time—and that's certainly what automakers have used as a key selling point. But U.S. automaker Ford has decided to take turbo-charging and direct fuel injection in another direction: fuel efficiency.
Yesterday, Ford began production of what it's calling the EcoBoost engine: a new gasoline motor that employs turbo-charging, direct fuel injection, variable timing in the valves that control fuel and exhaust flow to make a smaller, lighter six-cylinder engine perform like an eight-cylinder engine*. When these technologies are combined, "you can now significantly downsize the engine," says mechanical engineer Dan Kapp, Ford's director for power train research. "The fuel efficiency comes from a much smaller displacement engine providing equal or, in most cases, superior performance to the engine you're replacing."
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Yesterday, Ford began production of what it's calling the EcoBoost engine: a new gasoline motor that employs turbo-charging, direct fuel injection, variable timing in the valves that control fuel and exhaust flow to make a smaller, lighter six-cylinder engine perform like an eight-cylinder engine*. When these technologies are combined, "you can now significantly downsize the engine," says mechanical engineer Dan Kapp, Ford's director for power train research. "The fuel efficiency comes from a much smaller displacement engine providing equal or, in most cases, superior performance to the engine you're replacing."
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Magnets help ants lead the way
Miniscule magnets found in ant antennae could help to explain why these insects seem to always know where they are going, according to researchers who suspect the magnets are a key component of a sophisticated, nature-made GPS system.
While human global positioning systems rely upon power-consuming receivers that pick up information from clunky, orbiting 3,000-4,000-pound satellites, the probable ant system weighs next to nothing, requires little body energy to operate and is Earth-friendly to the max.
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While human global positioning systems rely upon power-consuming receivers that pick up information from clunky, orbiting 3,000-4,000-pound satellites, the probable ant system weighs next to nothing, requires little body energy to operate and is Earth-friendly to the max.
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BAH Wins up to $28M to Support Navy Crypto Systems
Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH), in San Diego, CA won a $16.9 million indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract with a cost-plus-fixed-fee pricing arrangement to provide engineering, security engineering and technical support services for Navy cryptographic systems and solutions, and key management architectures and information systems. This 5-year contract includes 4 nine-month award terms which, if earned, would bring the cumulative value of this contract to $28 million.
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Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Air-Fueled Battery Could Last Up to 10 Times Longer
Researchers have developed a new type of air-fuelled battery that could make energy storage up to ten times longer. It could pave the way for a new generation of electric cars, mobile phones and laptops.
Researchers at the University of St Andrews said the new design has the potential to improve the performance of portable electronic products and give a major boost to the renewable energy industry. The batteries will enable a constant electrical output from sources such as wind or solar, which stop generating when the weather changes or night falls.
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Researchers at the University of St Andrews said the new design has the potential to improve the performance of portable electronic products and give a major boost to the renewable energy industry. The batteries will enable a constant electrical output from sources such as wind or solar, which stop generating when the weather changes or night falls.
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What's Inside WD-40? Superlube's Secret Sauce
The recipe for this superlube has long been a closely guarded trade secret—until now. Wired sent a can to the lab and got the ingredients.
Mineral Oil Seriously. WD-40 is mostly a mix of baby oil, Vaseline, and the goop inside homemade lava lamps.
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Mineral Oil Seriously. WD-40 is mostly a mix of baby oil, Vaseline, and the goop inside homemade lava lamps.
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A Laptop Cooled with Ionic Wind
Anyone who uses a laptop will be familiar with the whir that the fan makes as it kicks in when the processor's temperature reaches around 100 °F. As laptops and other electronics have gotten smaller and thinner, researchers have begun searching for alternative cooling methods, which add less bulk and are quieter.
One novel idea is to cool a system by using ions to push air molecules across a hot microprocessor, thereby creating a cooling breeze. So-called ionic-cooling systems have been demonstrated in research labs before, but now Tessera, an international chip-packaging company based in San Jose, CA, has demonstrated an ionic-cooling system integrated into a working laptop.
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One novel idea is to cool a system by using ions to push air molecules across a hot microprocessor, thereby creating a cooling breeze. So-called ionic-cooling systems have been demonstrated in research labs before, but now Tessera, an international chip-packaging company based in San Jose, CA, has demonstrated an ionic-cooling system integrated into a working laptop.
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