Lifeboat Foundation

Sounds like a sci-fi movie right? But it’s not. Naval Surface Warfare Center, Philadelphia Division is testing laser-based sensors on robot dogs or drones as a way to perform battle damage assessment, repair, installation, and modernization – all remotely.

NSWCPD’s Advanced Data Acquisition Prototyping Technology Virtual Environments (ADAPT.VE) engineers and scientists are testing new applications for light detection and ranging (LiDAR) to build 3D ship models aboard the ‘mothballed’ fleet of decommissioned ships at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.

It will be reconfigured to meet testing needs.

The giant drone, RQ-4 RangeHawk, will soon be used to support the development of hypersonic missiles in the U.S., its manufacturer, Northrop Grumman, said in a press release.

Hypersonic missiles are the newest frontier in the weapons race, with countries like Russia and North Korea laying claims to have successfully demonstrated this technology. The U.S. hypersonic missile program has faced a few hiccups with repetitive test failures. Last month, the U.S. Air Force confirmed that its Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) had been successfully tested, almost after a year after similar claims from Russia.

Continue reading “Northrop Grumman’s RQ-4 RangeHawks Embark on New Mission” »

Vietnam is the world’s second-largest rice exporter, and XAG says its agricultural drones have become the “new favorite” of farmers that grow the crop.

Lê Thành Nguyên, at 62 years old, is one of the early adopters of agricultural drones in Vietnam. This year, he used drones on his seven-hectare rice farm for crop spraying, fertilization, and direct seeding by ordering the service from a local pilot team.

The CHIPS Act of 2022 was signed into law on Aug. 9. It provides tens of billions of dollars in public support for revitalization of domestic semiconductor manufacturing, workforce training, and “leap ahead” wireless technology. Because we outsource most of our device fabrication — including the chips that go into the Navy’s submarines and ships, the Army’s jeeps and tanks, military drones and satellites — our industrial base has become weak and shallow. The first order of business for the CHIPS Act is to address a serious deficit in our domestic production capacity.

Notoriously absent from the language of the bill is any mention of chip security. Consequently, the U.S. is about to make the same mistake with microelectronics that we made with digital networks and software applications: Unless and until the government demands in-device security, our competitors will have an easy time of manipulating how chips function and behave. Nowhere is this more dangerous than our national security infrastructure.

This is just one of many military advancements the nation has made against its arch-rival.

Back in July, South Korea undertook a 33-minute flight of its homegrown KF-21 fighter jet for the first time flaunting its military might and perhaps sending a message to North Korea.

South Korea is pursuing stealth drones that could take out North Korean air defenses as part of a “manned-unmanned teaming system.”

Continue reading “South Korea is building stealth drones that could take out North Korea’s air defenses” »

While the OPD has been thrown open to the people, work is going on war footing as PM Modi is expected to inaugurate the hospital early next month. The hospital already has 25 transport ventilators from the PM CARES fund.

Any person coming for treatment will only have to pay Rs 10 in registration charges for a lifetime and there are nominal charges for treatment.

AIIMS Bilaspur is set up with the objectives of correcting regional imbalances in the availability of affordable/reliable tertiary healthcare services and also to augment facilities for quality medical education in the country.

Warship with lasers.

USS Preble is the first Navy ship with HELIOS, which can damage and destroy targets like small boats and drones, and blind optics.

Continue reading “Here’s Our First Look At A HELIOS Laser-Armed Navy Destroyer” »