Lifeboat Foundation

Today, the Department of Defense announced $600 million in awards for 5G experimentation and testing at five U.S. military test sites, representing the largest full-scale 5G tests for dual-use applications in the world. Each installation will partner military Services, industry leaders, and academic experts to advance the Department’s 5G capabilities. Projects will include piloting 5G-enabled augmented/virtual reality for mission planning and training, testing 5G-enabled Smart Warehouses, and evaluating 5G technologies to enhance distributed command and control.

“The Department of Defense is at the forefront of cutting edge 5G testing and experimentation, which will strengthen our Nation’s warfighting capabilities as well as U.S. economic competitiveness in this critical field. Through these test sites, the Department is leveraging its unique authorities to pursue bold innovation at a scale and scope unmatched anywhere else in the world. Importantly, today’s announcement demonstrates the Department’s commitment to exploring the vast potential applications and dual-use opportunities that can be built upon next-generation networks,” said Michael Kratsios, Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering.

The test sites include: Hill Air Force Base, Utah; Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington; Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany, Georgia; Naval Base San Diego, California; and Nellis Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Nevada.

By the end of 2020, F-35s coming off Lockheed Martin’s production line will be equipped with a modified version of its lightning protection system that will allow the jet to fly in thunderstorms again.

Changing face of our military.

A company-sized evaluation is happening in October at Fort Pickett, Virginia.

Textron Systems has a new batch of Next Generation Squad Weapon prototypes, featuring improvements from soldier tests.

In August, the US Air Force Research Laboratory 711th Human Performance Wing launched its iNeuraLS project, an effort to speed up pilot training through brain stimulation.

Some will feel a slight tingling sensation. Others will feel nothing at all.

The electrode placed inside the ear canal isn’t designed to shock. Rather, the US Air Force Research Laboratory (ARFL) believes the earbud-like device, when placed next to the brain’s vagas nerve, will have more of an intellectually stimulating effect. It ought to create moments of super learning, controllable periods of focus that allow pilots to soak up their flight training faster than humanly possible.

Continue reading “US Air Force aims to train pilots faster using brain electrode” »

“I was focused on those 10 people up front that were simulating a tactical operation and a little less so on the screens,” McCarthy told reporters the day after the exercise. “The only screens that I really cared about were the lower ones that showed how they were moving the pieces from the battlefield.”

In other words, Project Convergence was not about the boom. It was not about hitting the targets.

Which is good. Because not all of them did.

China has deployed tens of thousands of soldiers on India’s Northern border, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said, in further signs that a deadly military standoff between the world’s two most populous countries is far from cooling down.

The US Army is testing augmented reality goggles on its service dogs in hopes to allow troops to give orders remotely.

Pooches are commonly deployed to sniff out explosives, hazardous materials or to assist in rescues. The tech would retrofit special safety goggles military dogs already wear with live cameras and visual indicators so handlers can issue specific directions – allowing the dogs to work without putting soldiers in danger.

“Augmented reality works differently for dogs than for humans,” said Dr. Stephen Lee, an Army Research Office senior scientist in a statement. “AR will be used to provide dogs with commands and cues; it’s not for the dog to interact with it like a human does. This new technology offers us a critical tool to better communicate with military working dogs.”

The United States military has teamed up with Elon Musk and the company he heads, SpaceX. The goal of the tie-up is to build a rocket capable of delivering weapons anywhere on the globe in an hour. The benefits of quickly delivering weapons and other cargo anywhere on the planet very quickly are readily apparent.

The rocket would travel at 7500 miles per hour and would be able to carry 80 metric tons of cargo into orbit. The rocket could then land anywhere on the planet. The contract will see SpaceX begin by assessing costs and technical challenges for the project. Gen. Stephen Lyons, the head of US Transportation Command, said on Wednesday that initial tests are expected to begin in 2021.

What the military and SpaceX are trying to do is incredible. Using rockets to deliver massive payloads would allow the 7652 mile trip from Florida to Afghanistan could be completed within an hour. To compare, a C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft has a maximum speed of 590 mph and would require 15 hours to make the same journey.