U.S. NAVY NAVAL SURFACE WARFARE CENTER CRANE DIVISION, CRANE, Ind. The U.S. Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division, has partnered with VOS Systems to promulgate U.S. Navy use of VOS Systems' product AlertTrace, a COVID-19 contact-tracing solution with user-friendly software, encrypted and secured anonymous data for maximum privacy protection, and no tracking or GPS capabilities.

PARIS, France. Thales, Naval Group, and KERSHIP shipyard announced that the navies of Belgium and the Netherlands will be equipped with 12 next generation Mine Counter Measures Vessels with NS50 radars for Air & Surface Surveillance with Fire Control capabilities.

HAIFA, Israel. Elbit Systems UK, the UK subsidiary of Elbit Systems, has won a contract worth approximately $137 million (approximately 100 million pounds) with Britain's Defense Ministry to provide the British armed forces with the future target-acquisition solution for Joint Terminal Attack Controllers and Fire Support Teams under the Dismounted Joint Fires Integrators (D-JFI) program. 

UNITED KINGDOM. The Combined Influence Minesweeping (SWEEP) system designed by Atlas Elektronik U.K., will be the Royal Navy’s first uncrewed minesweeper, according to officials. It will be designed to allow personnel to neutralize mines from a remote and safe distance at sea while on operations worldwide.

RESTON, Va. General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT), a business unit of General Dynamics, announced it has won the U.S. Army Europe (USAREUR) Enterprise Mission Information Technology Services (EMITS) task order by the General Services Administration (GSA). 

NEW YORK, N.Y. Intelligent Artifacts has won a Phase I SBIR contract award by the U.S. Air Force to conduct R&D on a sensor fusion solution to help the AF meet critical Command and Control, Battle Management, and Communications (C2BMC) mission requirements across multiple domains.

WASHINGTON. DARPA’s Robotic Autonomy in Complex Environments with Resiliency - Simulation (RACER-Sim) project is seeking innovations in technologies that bridge the gap from simulation to the real world andreduce the cost of off-road autonomy development. According to the company, DARPA is inviting proposals for solutions that support these goals.

POWAY, Calif. General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) is working with Leonardo to integrate the Leonardo Seaspray 7500E V2 radar into the centerline radar pod of its MQ-9B SeaGuardian remotely-piloted aircraft system (RPAS).

AUSTIN, Texas. SparkCognition, industrial artificial intelligence (AI) company, and SkyGrid, a Boeing, SparkCognition Company, announced a new collaboration to deploy AI-powered cybersecurity directly on drones with the intent to protect them from zero-day attacks during flight.

UNITED KINGDOM. Dstl, the science inside U.K. defense and security, has developed a prototype robot so that humans and machines can now team up to detect and report dangerous chemicals over large areas.

ARLINGTON, Va. A U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) unmanned surface vessel (USV) -- part of the Ghost Fleet Overlord autonomous-vessel partnership between the DoD's Strategic Capabilities Office and the U.S. Navy -- recently traveled a distance of more than 4,700 nautical miles (5,409 miles), almost entirely autonomously. After this transit the ship participated in an exercise called "Dawn Blitz," where it again spent nearly all of its time operating autonomously. 

POWAY, Calif. General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) announced that in a recent flight test it has integrated a Lockheed Martin Legion Pod onto an Avenger Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) demonstrating enhanced autonomous sensing capabilities for an unmanned aircraft.

SCOTTDALE, Arizona. A new requirement for adherence to function safety or security standards can be a rude awakening for the uninitiated. There can be no half measures when applications are critical.  Requirements traceability, static analysis, dynamic coverage analysis, and unit/integration testing are deemed essential, not just at the end of development but throughout the development lifecycle. Such activities can come at a considerable overhead.  Off the shelf and open source software promise to offset that, and are in abundant supply for common system components such as RTOS and UI. However, integrating them within the application domain in a safety- or security-critical context can be a logistical nightmare for the unwary.  This webcast of industry experts will help you to pick your way through the demands of the functional safety and cybersecurity standards to minimize the pain of compliance while maximising the benefit of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software component use.

WOKING, U.K. TT Electronics, a global provider of engineered electronics for performance-critical applications, announced a collaboration agreement with defense and aerospace company Thales aimed at boosting cybersecurity now as well as future development of operational technology (OT)-based cybersecurity initiatives and research. 

SIMI VALLEY, Calif. AeroVironment, Inc., a privately-held provider of Group 2 and 3 unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and services, announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which AeroVironment will acquire Arcturus UAV for a total purchase price of $405 million, including $355 million in cash and $50 million in AeroVironment stock.