The Department of Homeland Security‘s Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation program team looks to implement mobile device monitoring approaches in an effort to help federal agencies identify and address security incidents, GCN reported Thursday.

CDM Program Manager Kevin Cox told audience at an Advanced Technology Academic Research Center summit held Thursday that DHS wants to align and transfer agencies’ mobile management systems into a data repository.

“We want to report on the information, get it summarized at the federal level and help agencies understand their gaps in the mobile space,” Cox added, according to the report.

Fairfax, Va-based information technology contractor CGI Federal will support governmentwide mobile cybersecurity efforts as part of a $530M contract the department awarded in July under CDM’s Dynamic and Evolving Federal Enterprise Network Defense-Group C.

Col. Glenn Dean, program manager for the U.S. Army’s Stryker combat vehicle, has said the service intends to integrate new vehicle protection technologies to its combat fleet by 2020, Defense News reported Thursday.

Dean said in an Aug. 24 interview that selected and new tech, such as laser warning, will be fielded on the Bradley, Stryker and Abrams fleets, as well as on the future Mobile Protected Fire Power car and Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle.

He noted that the Army is set to assess other technologies that can counter tank-fired, long-rod kinetic energy penetrators.

The service will additionally launch a series of vehicle protection systems programs, the first of which will look into mechanisms that can address visual, infrared, radar, sound and electromagnetic signatures from combat vehicles.

“Frankly, we could deploy [the signature management capability program] next year if we were funded right now. [It is] not in the 2019 budget, so we are looking for opportunities,” Dean said.

The Army official added that the vehicle protection system efforts will be implemented before the Modular Active Protection System architecture is prepared for delivery.

Navy Adm. Ron Boxall, surface warfare director OPNAV N96, has said the service’s first Future Surface Combatant ship would have the space, weight, power and cooling capacity to integrate laser guns, radars, an electromagnetic railgun and other weapon systems, USNI News reported Wednesday.

The service branch plans to procure its large surface combatant in 2023 and Boxall said the Navy would not speed up development work on new weapons in order to keep pace with the construction of the new ship.

“So I’m inclined to say, as long as we build it modularly, we’re going to make those assessments in stride,” Boxall said of potential integration of new weapons.

“But I don’t want to get too crazy about trying to accelerate new technology in the first of the class as we change hulls, which will hopefully be a hull that will be with us for a very long time,” he added.
 

The Army Research Laboratory and Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory have evaluated a “self-righting” mechanism designed to help a robotic military platform recover from a fall.

ARL said Aug. 24 it partnered with APL to test the capacity of an Advanced Explosive Ordnance Disposal Robotic System to self-right using software developed by Army researcher Chad Kessens.

Northrop Grumman‘s Remotec subsidiary built AEODRS in collaboration with the U.S. Navy and APL.

APL researcher Galen Mullins helped the team extend the use of software from Kessens to robotic technology with higher degrees of freedom through adaptive sampling methods.

“We originally developed the software for underwater vehicles, but when Chad explained his approach to the self-righting problem, I immediately saw how these technologies could work together,” Mullins said.

The team found that AEODRS could allow a military robot to right itself on level ground regardless of the system’s original state.

“Our next step is to determine what a robot is capable of on uneven terrain,” Kessens added.

The Air Force Research Laboratory’s Materials and Manufacturing Directorate has developed, tested and verified a cold spray coating process designed to extend the service life of aircraft hydraulic lines.

The process accelerates metal particles via high pressure to allow for bonding onto surfaces without the need for high temperatures, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base said Wednesday.

AFRL is considering using this process to address chafing damage on the B-1 aircraft’s titanium hydraulic lines. The coating mechanism would apply an external layer of titanium on damage-prone tubing areas for increased protection against chafing.

AFRL, in cooperation with the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, identified technological deficits, developed process controls, established test plans, analyzed materials and introduced inspection methods in a move to certify the coating process.

“We had to make sure the use of this system met our acceptable risk levels and did not cause any unintended problems,” said Jeff Calcaterra, structural materials evaluation team lead.

The process is certified for application on most B-1 aircraft hydraulic systems, as well as on the hydraulic systems of a number of other aircraft.