Australia looks towards space with force restructure, investment and training
Australia is looking to improve its presence in space with a focus on communications and creating a dedicated segment of its defence forces committed to the domain.
General Dynamics announced the launch of its URC-300 software-defined radio (SDR) on 29 October, describing it as ‘a versatile platform that supports multiple waveforms’ to support ground-to-air, LoS and other mission-critical applications.
URC-300 provides interference-free communications in highly congested environments and improves immunity to outside interference such as other airfield channels, Wi-Fi transmitters, and commercial FM broadcast towers.
General Dynamics will deliver URC-300 transceiver backpack systems in February 2021 to the USAF at Kadena Air Base in Japan to improve ground-to-air communications.
The SDR is specifically designed to enable future features and functions to be added in the field via quick and simple software upgrades. It is based on a flexible, core architecture ‘comparable to a commercial smartphone’, said Bill Ross, vice-president of General Dynamics Mission Systems. This removes the need for additional hardware retrofits.
Users can operate multiple URC-300s as close as 2m apart without interference, which General Dynamics argued is ‘an unprecedented capability compared to currently available tactical man-pack radios that require 50 to as much as 115 feet of separation’.
This close proximity capability enables rapid grab-and-go, multi-channel operations during emergency situations.
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Australia is looking to improve its presence in space with a focus on communications and creating a dedicated segment of its defence forces committed to the domain.
The Portuguese company’s naval communications system is in service across more than a dozen countries. It has turned to its home nation for support in developing a new vehicle based C2 system.
The Vision4ce Deep Embedded Feature Tracking (DEFT) technology software is designed to process video and images by blending traditional computer vision with artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to present actionable information from complex environments.
Persistent Systems has been cleared by National Security Agency (NSA) to transmit sensitive data on commercial networks. The devices are added to the NSA’s Commercial Solutions for Classified (CSfC) component list which also includes other companies’ products providing the same security.
The release of the UK’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR) has been long promised as mid-year. It is possible it could be as early as 2 June although the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) continues to play its cards close to its chest.
Intelsat outlines how its multi-orbit SATCOM architecture is enhancing connectivity and resilience for special operations forces operating in degraded and contested environments.