(Credit:
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory )
Carbon nanotech has been applied to everything from boat construction to windshields and now, with a licensing agreement from Livermore Lab, a Hayward, Calif., company will apply it to water desalination and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The National Nuclear Security Administration's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has licensed a new carbon nanotube technology to its spinoff company Porifera. The company will develop permeable membranes for CO2 sequestration, water desalination, and other liquid-based separations based on discoveries made at Livermore.
The technology integrates carbon nanotubes into polymer membranes, increasing the flux of carbon dioxide capture by two orders of magnitude thanks to the material's unique "nanofluidic" properties. This technique could enable a less expensive method of capturing carbon from coal plants, according to the Livermore. Sequestering CO2, a greenhouse gas emission, is one strategy for curbing global warming, although this particular process has yet to prove out on a industrial scale.
"The technology is very exciting," said Olgica Bakajin, former Livermore scientist and now chief technology officer at Porifera. "The reason it makes sense to do it is because of the unique nanofluidic properties of carbon nanotube pores. It's at the right place to take it to the marketplace."
Nanotubes are graphitic layers wrapped into cylinders a few nanometers in diameter, (approximately 1/50,000th the width of a human hair) and up to several millimeters long. Their extraordinary strength and unique electrical and thermal conductive properties make them attractive for many applications.
Porifera is funding the carbon capture project with a $1 million-plus grant from the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency. It's pursuing the water purification angle with a $3.3 million DARPA grant to develop small, portable self-cleaning desalination systems.
(Credit:
Oto Melara)
The Italian army has ordered 81 Hitrole Light remote-controlled weapon stations for its Iveco Lince vehicles in response to increased attacks in Afghanistan employing improvised explosive devices, according to a statement last month from Italian Ministero della Difesa, or ministry of defense.
Italy has struggled to live up to its NATO commitments in the face of widespread domestic opposition to the war in Afghanistan, and it has gone to great lengths to keep casualties to an absolute minimum. One way to do that is to stay buttoned-up.
The Hitrole is an electrically powered machine gun turret, operated by a single gunner ensconced safely below. The gunner aims and fires, using a flat-panel display and a joystick; elevation and traverse functions are electric. The standard sensor package contains a color daytime TV camera, infrared night sight, and an eye-safe laser range finder (PDF).
The gun system, which is fully stabilized, features an automatic target tracker, increasing the probability of first-round hits on both stationary and fleeting targets, even while the platform is moving, according to Italian manufacturer Oto Melara, which signed a contract worth 20 million euros with the Italian defense ministry.
A subsidiary of Finmeccanica, Oto Melara was once called Vickers Terni, of rugged World War 1 Vickers machine gun fame.
The unit can be fitted with a variety of weapons up to a .50 caliber machine gun or an automatic grenade launcher. Reloading is also preformed from below, with belt ammunition being fed through a flexible duct.
There have been at least 1,500 coalition deaths in Afghanistan since the war began, according to a recent tally--22 of whom were Italian.
In war and possibly in peace, China will wage cyberwar to control the information flow and dominate the battle space, according to a new report compiled for a congressional commission.
Chinese military strategists see information dominance as the key to overall success in future conflicts and will continue to expand the country's computer network exploitation capabilities, according to the report, titled "Capability of the People's Republic of China to Conduct Cyber Warfare and Computer Network Exploitation." The report was prepared for the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission under contract by Northrop Grumman's Information Systems Sector.
In a conflict, China will likely target the U.S. government and private industry with long-term, sophisticated computer network exploitation and intelligence collection campaigns, the report concludes. U.S. security agencies can expect to face disciplined, standardized operations; sophisticated techniques; high-end software; and a deep knowledge of the U.S. networks, according to the report (PDF).
The strategy employed by the People's Liberation Army--China's military organization--is to consolidate computer network attacks with electronic warfare and kinetic strikes, creating "blind spots" in enemy systems to be exploited later as the tactical situation warrants, according to the report. The strategy, which has been adopted by the world's other technologically inclined armies, is referred to by the PLA as "Integrated Network Electronic Warfare," the report stated.
The emphasis on information warfare has forced the PLA to recruit from a wide swath of the civilian sector, according to the report. As is the case with the U.S. military and its new Cyber Command, the PLA looks to commercial industry and academia for people possessing the requisite specialized skills and pasty pallor to man the keyboards. And although it hints broadly at it, the report offers no evidence of ties between the PLA and China's hacker community.
The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission reports and provides recommendations to Congress on the national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship between the United States and the People's Republic of China.
(Credit:
RAND)
A new RAND Corporation report suggests the U.S. may be better off playing defense and pursuing diplomatic, economic, and prosecutorial efforts against cyberattackers, instead of making strategic cyberwarfare an investment priority.
The study comes as the U.S. military fires up its new unified Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) program this month. The new outfit will be responsible for network-related operations, defense, and attacks and will operate under the U.S. Strategic Command.
Cyberwarfare is better at bothering an adversary than defeating it--given that permanent effects are illusive, author Martin C. Libicki wrote in the report, titled "Cyberdeterrence and Cyberwar."
On offense, cyberwar might be better relegated to support roles, and then only "sparingly and precisely," according to the report. A one-shot strike to silence a surface-to-air missile system, allowing aircraft to penetrate defenses to destroy a nuclear facility, is the example given.
"Attempting a cyberattack in the hopes that success will facilitate a combat operation may be prudent; betting the operation's success on a particular set of results may not be," Libicki wrote. One question planners should ask is whether strategic cyberwar would induce political compliance comparable to what could be produced by, say, strategic air power.
Even retaliatory attacks could risk sending the wrong message, since treating cyberattacks as acts of war could be construed as indemnifying owners of private infrastructure from third-party liability. Why spend money on cybersecurity if your losses are covered a la FEMA, for example?
Libicki doesn't downplay the threat. Damage from recent cyberattacks is estimated to cost the U.S. up to hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
However, the threat of punishment has never done much to prevent cyberattacks on either civilian or military networks, another reason to concentrate on prevention, according to the study. After all, cyberattackers can only get through doors that are left open.
"Deterrence and warfighting tenets established in other media do not necessarily translate reliably into cyberspace," wrote Libicki.
Meanwhile, the military has hinted that it's ready to skip the games and deal with cyberattackers in the real world--provided they can find them.
"The Law of Armed Conflict will apply to this domain," Air Force General Kevin P. Chilton told Stars and Stripes. "You don't take any response options off the table from an attack on the United States of America. Why would we constrain ourselves on how we would respond?"
Ever been out on patrol and had a sudden urge for chapli kabobs with a side of bendai?
That's the sort of mix-and-match experience that could be addressed through a new deal between DARPA and Geosemble Technologies, which makes a product called GeoXray that aims to quickly answer the question "What's around here?" for both government agencies and civilian users. In a nutshell, it works this way: you can peruse dining options or identify enemy assembly areas simply by clicking on aerial images of your area of operations.
GeoXray uses artificial intelligence to assign textual keywords to geospatial datasets, which in turn allows the customer to view information associated with a specific location. The data is summarized and displayed chronologically on what the company calls an "intuitive, user-friendly interface."
In its new DARPA program, Geosemble will expand its range of information sources beyond text to include video and audio sources.
"An integrated interface makes it simple for anyone to view a satellite image of any place in the world, then click on a location or object to automatically extract relevant information," DARPA program manager Todd Hughes said in a statement. "The application uses automatic techniques to accurately display geographically relevant news articles, business intelligence, events and databases onto satellite and aerial imagery."
The El Segundo, Calif.-based company is already pitching GeoXray as a quick and efficient way for shoppers to scout out retail opportunities without having to walk or drive around. It's easy to imagine this program linked to a Zillow-like real estate site.
"The seamless integration of news and data with imagery and maps brings an important new capability to government users, and has game-changing implications for online publishing and real estate," said Andre Doumitt, Geosemble CEO. "There is a lot of imagery available out there - high resolution, 3D, ground level, etc. This DARPA program enhances our position as the 'data inside' provider for those who need accurate and timely intelligence about their imagery, with accuracy down to the building level."
(Credit:
TORC Technologies)
FORT HOOD, Texas--Click briefly through the parade of cautionary fireballs that make-up the Iraq/Convoy category on any video-sharing Web site and the message is clear; in war, people get killed making deliveries.
The military wants to do something about that--namely, get soldiers out of the driver's seat. To help move things in the right direction, a Robotics Rodeo at the sprawling Army installation here in the heart of Texas gave some companies a chance to show what they have to offer. The rodeo, which ended Thursday, was sponsored by the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) and by III Corps.
Autonomous Solutions demonstrated its GuideLine system, wherein a lead truck transmits angle and length data to a vehicle automation system, which in turn drives the "followers." The vehicles are tethered together with a thin Kevlar line, which controls the distance between them. A sensor is mounted on the front bumper of the follower, but no modifications are required to the lead vehicle, according to the company. The all-weather system works night or day and is not RF- or GPS-dependent, nor is there a computer-based control station, according to the Utah based company. In this demonstration video, Autonomous Solutions used a remote-controlled lead vehicle supplied by Boeing.
Kairos Autonomi brought a rough-and-ready, one-size-retrofits-all solution to the Robotics Rodeo. The Pronto4 Strap-on Autonomy System can convert any vehicle with a steering wheel into a tele-operated or semi-autonomous unmanned system in about four hours, according to the company.
The Kairos do-it-yourself kit includes a "single enclosure system" with transmission, brake, and throttle controls, a built-in CPU, 900MHz radio subsystem, axis linkage, steering set-up, cables, preloaded software, and a user's manual. This system is also used on target vehicles, allowing them to scoot around at up to 90 mph, according to the company.
TORC Technologies offers another take--put the unmanned vehicle in front of a convoy, where it can absorb roadside bombs. (See TORC's video) The system, called Autonomous Remote Control HMMWVs (ARCH), takes a modular approach, integrating a number of TORC's plug-in products including PowerHub, ByWire, (PDF), and--most important for an autonomous, 5,200-pound Humvee--the SafeStop wireless emergency stop system.
The "lead" vehicle carries an autonomous navigation system, while the manned "chase" vehicle carries the control unit. The operator steers the lead in tele-operated, semi-autonomous or autonomous mode--the ultimate back seat driver.
TARDEC had its own system on display. Lockheed Martin demonstrated the Convoy Active Safety Technology (CAST) system along with its AutoMate sensor and actuator kit on two TARDEC 2.5-ton trucks. The big advantage CAST has is price, according to the Lockheed Martin crew. They reckon the whole system can be installed for $25,000. CAST is basically an auto-pilot kit. It can switch from manual to automatic with a push of a button. The system maintains a preset distance between convoy vehicles, adjusts speed, and can shift gears and maneuver corners. Another important feature is obstacle detection and avoidance-- accidentally hitting a child while driving in a war zone is a major cause of post-traumatic stress among soldiers, according to TARDEC. The system has been tested on five truck convoys, according to Lockheed Martin.
Among the other companies at the Robotics Rodeo were Oshkosh, SwRI (PDF), and General Dynamics.
No one at the Rodeo expects unattended robo-conveys to be speeding from Karachi to Kandahar anytime soon. But elements of these systems could help soldiers recover from a momentary distraction, a nod-off, or worse, and that's a huge gain.
(Credit:
Mark Rutherford)
FORT HOOD, Texas--Soldiers and civilian contractors braved the heat here this week for the first Robotics Rodeo to view and interact with a long lineup of robot systems and to give feedback on which ones could potentially find a place in the U.S. Army's robo stable.
Despite the hundreds of military robots that show up in concept or as prototypes on company Web sites and corporate reports, humans still do the fighting on the ground and it's likely to stay that way for a while. However, there's a growing niche for "the dirty, the dull, and the dangerous" jobs where robots could take over. In fact, it's the law. The 2001 Senate defense authorization bill mandates that "one third of the operational ground combat vehicles of the armed forces will be unmanned by 2015."
The Army wants robotic researchers, developers, and manufactures, many of whom have collected millions in government seed money and grants over the years, to get off the dime and start delivering (PDF).
"If you're not fielding, you're failing," said Lt. Gen. Rick Lynch, Fort Hood commander and co-host of the Robotics Rodeo.
Lynch cites the rapid advancements made in fielding unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
"Most folks are familiar and comfortable with (UAVs), and we've shown over eight years of combat just how critical those systems are to the warfighting effort when properly used and integrated," Lynch said. "There are hundreds of other robotic concepts that could also be useful to our Army and this Robotics Rodeo will showcase some of those--it's a great educational opportunity."
The U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) and Fort Hood III Corps invited more than 40 vendors to attend the rodeo and show off their wares.
In terms of priorities, clearance of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) tops the general's wish list. Other needs include programmable unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) to patrol and make deliveries on planned routes or conduct "persistent stare," i.e. long-term surveillance missions.
"The enemy often places IEDs in the same locations that he has used in the past. A robotic system that can observe these locations for a prolonged period of time and alert us of a significant change would be of great value," Lynch said. One of true tests would be a UGV that acts as a robotic wingman or can assume a role as a member of a squad.
However, most UGVs in service today are limited to detecting and defusing IEDs. Concepts to broaden their uses are many, but it's unclear how practical and feasible they are. In any case, much of the technology on display at the "rodeo" is commercial off-the-shelf--some of it already in use in private industry.
So what's keeping the stuff on display from becoming standard issue? Three letters--ONS--according to vendors.
If there's an urgent need for equipment, a general officer may step forward and submit an ONS, or Operational Needs Statement, to get the ball rolling. No one is willing to do so, vendors complain. For example, the Qinetiq rep says his modular advanced armed robotic system (MAARS) could be ambushing IED-planting bad guys right now, but for the paperwork (PDF).
The true test: be the first to sign off on a M240B machine-gun-mounted UGV.
Qinetiq's Modular Advanced Armed Robotic System (MAARS).
(Credit: Mark Rutherford)
Management consultant Valdis Krebs used newspaper clippings to build a visual and mathematical picture of the September 11 terrorists' social network.
(Credit: Orgnet.com)Unnamed intelligence agencies and certain academics have yet to give up on data mining to identify terrorists and predict attacks, despite a 352-page tome published last year pronouncing the practice a waste of time.
The U.S. is spending "hundreds of millions of dollars" to develop techniques to mine the mountains of information gleaned from e-mails, telephone calls, interviews with suspects, and now social networks to build-up Facebook-style databanks on international terrorists, according to a recent piece in the British newspaper, The Independent.
The result has been the arrest and interrogation of "many thousands of innocent people" in Iraq and Afghanistan in the hope of extracting any tidbits of intelligence that could be fed into computers programmed with social-network algorithms, The Independent's Steve Connor wrote, quoting unnamed critics.
Once compiled, analysts can sift through the data banks at their leisure using complex computer programs in hopes of identifying terror honchos and predict their moves. But this approach leads to false positives and the flagging of "ordinary, law-abiding citizens and businesses" as suspects, according to the National Research Council report titled "Protecting Individual Privacy in the Struggle Against Terrorists." Data mining is "neither feasible as an objective nor desirable as a goal of technology development efforts," the report concluded.
Despite this, "military intelligence chiefs" hope data mining will prove a new front in their war on terror, Connor wrote. And they'll do this "By analyzing the social networks that exist between known terrorists, suspects and even innocent bystanders arrested for being in the wrong place at the wrong time."
But while critics condemn the practice as being everything from wasteful and counterproductive to a gross violation of human rights, there is evidence that data mining social networks could payoff.
For instance, hackers who perpetrated many of the cyberattacks on Georgian government Web sites during the five-day Russian-Georgian war in 2008 were recruited by Russian language social networking sites, according to a recent study reported on here.
"Social network analysis is analysing information about who knows who or who talks to whom," professor Kathleen Carley of Carnegie Mellon told Connor. "What social network analysis is about is giving me the whole of the 'Facebook-style' data and saying that I'm going to analyze it mathematically to tell you who the critical people are."
In another case, a U.S. Army major at West Point Military Academy used social network analysis to tease out relationships between hundreds of videos of American deaths filmed in Iraq.
"The rationale for how they were related is classified so I can't give away methods (but) the interpretation was that the cluster of videos were likely to have been done by the same group," the officer told Connor. "It allowed us to look at the structure between terrorist groups and actual attacks."
DARPA is spending millions of dollars to identify trash cans, which may have raised a few eyebrows, except these and other common urban objects could in the course of today's combat missions prove to be tactically significant.
BAE Systems received a $7.1 million contract to work on Phase II of the Urban Reasoning and Geospatial Exploitation Technology (URGENT) program, which is designed to improve the quality and timeliness of geospatial intelligence U.S. troops receive when facing enemy threats in urban environments.
This phase of the program's goal will be to "develop a 3D reasoning engine to query over object shapes, locations, and classifications for rapid urban mission planning, mission rehearsal, and situation analysis," according to DARPA.
DARPA's contention is that since target recognition in urban environments is so far removed from what soldiers have historically focused on, i.e. military objects such as tanks and armored personnel carriers, that the need to preemptively identify urban objects has become an important requirement.
That's going to be news to veterans of Chechnya, Hue, and Sarajevo.
Still, the reasoning is that tanks and cannons have unique signatures and were usually positioned in relatively isolated areas away from civilians and that's not so with today's asymmetric threats, where troops are forced to engage enemy combatants in cities with large civilian populations.
"Even the most common urban objects can have tactical significance: trash cans can contain improvised explosive devices, doors can conceal snipers, jersey barriers can block troop ingress, roof tops can become landing zones, and so on," hence the need for an all-knowing system.
BAE contribution will be to fuse Light Detection, and Ranging and Geographic Information Systems' data to automatically detect and classify an urban object's attributes, function and geospatial features, company officials said.
The BAE team has already developed "a system that combines a suite of complementary feature extraction and matching algorithms with higher-level inference and contextual reasoning to detect, segment, and classify urban entities of interest in a fully automated fashion."
Next up could be the market to identify domestic urban threats-like errant shopping carts and guys with squeegees.
China holds a medical support drill in remote northwestern Helan Mountains, simulating a strong earthquake and secondary disasters.
(Credit: PLA)"We feel your pain" is one of the first messages on the newly inaugurated Chinese Defense Ministry's Web site aimed at assuaging international concern over a spurt in that country's military buildup.
"The aim of the Defense Ministry's Web site is to let the outside world know about China's defense policies...and show off the good image of the military's powerful, cultured and peaceful forces," explains an introductory message.
China's military, the world's largest, has recently increased its spending by almost 18 percent, far outpacing that of its neighbors, according to experts.
The official Web site, which kicked off this week, offers both Chinese and English versions. The purpose is to improve the outside world's perception of "China's national defense policy, help enhance foreign exchanges and cooperation, display before the world the fine image of the PLA as a mighty, civilized and peaceful force, and better promote the national defense and army modernization drive," according to the site.
The Web site presents a kinder, gentler face. One of the lead stories covers General Secretary of the Communist Central Committee Hu Jintao's meeting with a delegation of ethnic minorities from Taiwan, a country recently hit by its worst hurricane in half a century. The mainland shared "the same feeling" with the people of Taiwan people, Hu said. "Especially the ethnic minorities, who suffered serious life and property loss in the recent disaster."
Still, it's the Middle Kingdom. Troops from the Shenyang Military Area Command "created numerous miracles" during a recent joint exercise, reads another story.
The Web site will offer columns and special reports, including a collection of national defense videos, a military photo gallery, plus special reports on "domestic and international hot spots inside and outside the military circle."
The English version will accommodate the reading habits of "overseas netizens" by adjusting to the rules of "foreign publicity". All readers are invited to enjoy and "be impressed by its succinct and graceful webpage featuring novel and attractive design with distinctive military characteristics."
China wrote the book on propaganda, and although the new website can sound somewhat hokey at times, it's still a pleasure to watch the masters at work.
