UNITED KINGDOM. The Expeditionary Robotics Center of Expertise (ERCoE) has been launched by Defense Equipment and Support (DE&S) in collaboration with the British Army. Officials claim the ERCoE will aim to bring together robotics and autonomous systems experts from across defense, government, academia, and industry and aligns with DE&S’ strategy to deliver the edge through people, technology, and innovation.

GERMANY. Saab has received an order from Panavia Aircraft GmbH to upgrade the radar warning equipment on the Tornado aircraft operated by the German Air Force. The order value is approximately $48.4 million (400 million SEK).

NEWPORT NEWS, Va.  Shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries reported that the U.S. Navy has ordered two REMUS 300 unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) for use in national-security missions.

FAIRFAX, Va. General Dynamics Mission Systems (GDMS) announced that it has delivered the 500th wideband nose radome to Lockheed Martin for installation aboard U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and international military F-35 aircraft.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa. Collins Aerospace, a unit of Raytheon Technologies Corp., announced that it has begun shipping parts following a second multi-year contract it received in November to supply Northrop Grumman with NP2000 propeller systems for 39 E-2D aircraft.

HUNGARY. The 209 new Lynx infantry fighting vehicles recently ordered by Hungary from Rheinmetall of Germany will be equipped with Rheinmetall’s StrikeShield hard-kill active protection system (APS). Hungary is the latest customer for this technology, which has formed part of the Rheinmetall portfolio since 2006.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa. Collins Aerospace, a unit of Raytheon Technologies Corp., is developing two software-defined radios (SDR) for the U.S. Air Force that will aim to connect and transmit airborne and ground radio data for the first time using a multi-node network.

FRANCE. Thales has announced that the first of the five Sea Fire active electronically scanned array (AESA) digital radars for French Navy’s future Frigates for Defense and Intervention (FDI) arrived at the Lorient shipyard April 27, 2021 for integration on the first vessel.

BOULDER, Colo. Ball Aerospace, in collaboration with Microsoft, completed a series of demonstrations intended to show the viability of using commercial cloud computing to process and securely deliver actionable information to those who need it, whether they are in a ground station, command center, or on the battlefield.

ARLINGTON, Va. BAE Systems, Inc. has received a $325.5 million contract from the Defense Logistics Agency for advanced Military Code (M-Code) Global Positioning System (GPS) modules that will aim to provide reliable and secure positioning, navigation, and timing data with anti-jamming and anti-spoofing capabilities. The modules will help warfighters conduct operations in contested electronic warfare environments.

ESTONIA. The Estonian Defense Forces Artillery Battalion used Milrem Robotics’ THeMIS unmanned ground vehicles (UGV) in a live-fire exercise to provide advanced situational awareness, conduct casualty evacuation (CASEVAC), and support unit maneuvers while providing direct fire support from various positions.

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. Shipbuilding concern Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) has debuted its Proteus unmanned surface vessel (USV) for testing and development of autonomy capabilities. 

ASHBURN, Va. Curtiss-Wright’s Defense Solutions division, supplier of rugged open-standard solutions, has introduced the VPX6-1961, an 11th Generation Intel Core single-board computer (SBC) based on the Intel Xeon W (formerly Tiger Lake-H).

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. AMETEK Abaco Systems has won a design contract worth an initial value of $211,000 -- with a lifetime potential as much as $20 million -- with the U.S. Air Force (USAF) as part of an electronics intelligence (ELINT) and signal intelligence (SIGINT) capabilities upgrade for radio-frequency data intelligence gathering over a distributed fleet of USAF aircraft. 

TAMPA, Fla. CAE announced that CAE USA has won a contract valued at more than $135 million, including options, by the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) to lead integration efforts for the Special Operations Forces (SOF) Global Situational Awareness initiative. USSOCOM has exercised the first option of the contract valued at more than $19 million.