The U.S. Navy is looking to replace its legacy small and medium unmanned underwater vehicles for mine countermeasure missions as early as 2023, Defense News reported Thursday.

Capt. Dan Malatesta, a program manager in the Navy’s Program Executive Office for Unmanned and Small Combatants, said at a Navy League conference that an Expeditionary Mine Countermeasure Company finished a user operational evaluation activity in the small UUV program, dubbed Lionfish.

The branch is eyeing the Iver4 platforn from L3Harris Technologies and the Remus 300 system from Hydroid, a marine robot developer that Huntington Ingalls Industries acquired in March 2020, as potential replacements for the 150-pound Mk 18 Mod 1 Swordfish.

For the medium UUV program, the Navy started its process of identifying potential sources to replace the 600-pound Mk 18 Mod 2 Kingfish.

Malatesta said the branch will merge its Remus 600-based Kingfish and Razorback platforms into one replacement effort, called Viperfish, according to the report.

The Federal Risk and Management Program (FedRAMP) has issued Open Security Controls Assessment Language (OSCAL) validation rules to help automate reviews of security packages and speed up authorizations.

The OSCAL validation rules will enable cloud service providers and third-party assessment organizations to perform self-testing to see whether all the required data is included in their security packages prior to submission to FedRAMP, the program said in a blog post-Thursday.

FedRAMP said its review teams will also use the automated validation rules to assess initial packages from CSPs.

“When both FedRAMP and industry utilize automated validation rules, FedRAMP reviewers will spend less time on packages that do not pass initial criteria, and therefore, are not ready for review,” the post reads.

The FedRAMP program management office worked with the General Services Administration’s 10x program on the automated validation rules.

Sonny Bhagowalia, chief information officer of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), said the agency has transitioned 45 percent of its information technology applications to a cloud environment and that the remaining migration work will support non-commercial mission systems, Federal News Network reported Thursday.

He said at an FCW-hosted virtual forum that CBP also produced 110 bots through its center of excellence for robotic process automation and will establish an innovation hub for artificial intelligence as part of digital transformation efforts, according to Bhagowalia.

An innovation team under the CBP commissioner office will lead efforts at the agency's AI center to help personnel process huge amounts of mission-critical data, according to Bhagowalia.

Bhagowalia, who also serves as assistant commissioner in the CBP Office of Information and Technology, added that the agency will create a marketplace for the procurement of IT products such as desktop and laptop computers.

The U.S. Army produced and tested its first combat-capable directed energy prototype after two years of development, creating what can potentially deter enemy rockets, artillery, mortars and drones.

The Army said Tuesday its Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office (RCCTO) sent a laser-armed Stryker vehicle to Fort Sill in Oklahoma this summer for the Combat Shoot-Off exercise, which ended in late July.

“This is the first combat application of lasers for a maneuver element in the Army,” said Lt. Gen. L. Neil Thurgood, the Army’s director for hypersonics, directed energy, space and rapid acquisition.

The Army subjected the vehicle to scenarios that simulated short-range air and missile defense (SHORAD). These scenarios were specifically designed to trial the SHORAD performance of directed energy weapons.

Thurgood said the tests aimed to demonstrate the technology’s safety and targeting performance.

“It’s time to give our Soldiers this first-ever operational capability,” he said after stating that the technology’s research and development phase has concluded.

The Department of Defense, Israel Ministry of Defense and Merage Institute will be hosting an indoor autonomous maneuver technologies challenge intended to advance never-before-seen innovations that will benefit the military and law enforcement tactical operators.

The Mobile Standoff Autonomous Indoor Capabilities (MoSAIC) challenge follows a memorandum of agreement between the Irregular Warfare Technical Support Directorate (IWTSD) under the Assistant Secretary of Defense and Low-Intensity Conflict organization and the Directorate of Defense Research and Engineering of IMOD, the DOD said Wednesday. 

MoSAIC will consist of five minichallenges, three of which are virtual while the other two will be physical activities such as indoor navigation, room mapping and through-wall imaging. 

Adam Tarsi, IWTSD international program manager, said he is looking forward to witnessing technologies that leverage artificial intelligence, small multirotor drones and tactical ground vehicles capable of navigating through complicated environments. 

"The MoSAIC challenge is a rare opportunity for entrepreneurs, researchers and companies to present the technology they develop to the U.S. and Israeli governments, to create international collaborations,” said Paul Merage, founder and CEO of the Merage Institute.

Winners and runners-up are set to receive cash and other prizes with a combined amount of $600,000. The DOD noted that the physical testbed for the challenge is slated to happen in the spring of 2022 in Yeruham, Israel.