2016 DOD budget for

communications, electronics,

and intelligence headed up

after two flat years

February 5, 2015

By John Keller
Editor

WASHINGTON, 5 Feb. 2015. U.S. military electronics spending

appears to be headed back up next after two years of modest funding

levels. The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) is asking Congress

for $11 billion in fiscal 2016 for procurement and research in military

communications, electronics, telecommunications, and intelligence

(CET&I) technologies.

The Pentagon's 2016 CET&I request is up 13.4 percent from the

$9.7 billion that Congress allocated for these accounts for this year.

The Pentagon released its 2016 DOD budget request this week.

The $11 billion request for communications, electronics,

telecommunications, and intelligence equipment and research is the

highest in at least two years. These accounts contained $15.1 billion as

recently as fiscal 2012.

The DOD request for CET&I procurement and research does not

include military activities with substantial electronics content, such as

aircraft avionics, vetronics, and missile guidance; when these are

added, DOD spending levels for military electronics and defense

electro-optics next year could approach $90 billion, industry

analysts believe.

Related: Military spending for electronics and communications

stable after steep decline

The DOD's CET&* budget request for fiscal 2016, which begins next

October, includes $7.9 billion for procurement, which is up nearly 18

percent from this year's congressional enacted level of %6.7 billion.

The proposed budget also requests $3.1 billion for CET&I research,

development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E), which is up 3.5 percent

from this year's enacted level of $2.97 billion.

Highlights of the Army's CET&I 2016 budget request include

$783.1 million for the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical

(WIN-T); $118.1 million for the Defense enterprise Wideband

Satellite Communications Systems; $103 million for the Installation

Information Infrastructure Modernization program; and

$314.4 million for the Distributed Common Ground System -

Army (DCGS-A).

Related: Military spending for communications and electronics

down one-fourth over two years

Highlights of the Navy's CET&I request include $103.2 million for the

AN/SQQ-89 surface anti-submarine warfare combat system;

$214.8 million for attack submarine acoustics; $146.97 for the Fixed

Surveillance System wide-area sonar; $148.2 million for shipboard

information warfare exploitation; $279 million for the Consolidated

Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services (CANES) program;

and $118.1 million for the Navy Multiband Terminal (NMT).

SPONSORED CONTENT

Open Systems Architectures for RF and Microwave Systems
Brought To You By

The Air Force CET&I request includes $140 million for strategic

command and control; $43 million for general information technology;

and $92.4 million for base communications infrastructure.

Electronic warfare transmitters

from Cobham chosen for radar

jammers aboard Navy EA-18G jets

March 13, 2015

By John Keller
Editor

PATUXENT RIVER NAS, Md., 13 March 2015. U.S. Navy electronic

warfare (EW)experts are looking to Cobham plc to provide RF

transmitters for electronic jammers aboard the Navy EA-18G jet

aircraft that are designed to spoof and blind enemy low-frequency

radar systems.

Officials of the Naval Air Systems Command at Patuxent River Naval

Air Station, Md., announced their intention Wednesday to award a

contract to the Cobham plc Advanced Electronic Solutions segment in

Lansdale, Pa., to provide low-band transmitters (LBT) for the

AN/ALQ-99 jammers on the EA-18G aircraft.

The upcoming contract involves the AN/ALQ-99 Low-Band Consolidation

(LBC) system now in production. The value of the

contract has yet to be determined.

As part of the EA-18G Growler jet's electronic warfare suite, the

LBT will provide the capability to jam hostile, low-frequency radar

and communications signals in a tactical environment, Navy officials say.

The proposed low-band transmitter contract will call for Cobham

engineers to carry out an engineering change to modify the existing

LBT system and will include the design, manufacture, integration,

and test of the LBC kit.

Related: Navy and Air Force choose DRFM jammers from Mercury

Systems to help spoof enemy radar

The effort also will ask Cobham to deliver two test articles to support

future qualification and testing of the modified transmitter, as well as

applicable technical data.

Navy officials say they plan to award the upcoming 18-month contract to

Cobham sole-source because the company is the only responsible

source able to provide the jammers, and no other supplies or services

will satisfy Navy requirements.

Cobham is the sole system designer, developer, integrator, and

manufacturer of the LBT, and the company has unique expertise in

the design, engineering, and performance details of the LBT

necessary to design the LBC kit and to integrate the kit into the

existing LBT transmitter and AN/ALQ-99 system, Navy officials say.

Low-frequency radar, for which the AN/ALQ-99 low band transmitter

is designed to counter, is especially effective against stealthy aircraft

and other targets with low radar cross sections.

Related: Exelis equips U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy tactical

aircraft with advanced radar jamming pods

This kind of radar, however, produces a relatively large amount of

clutter, so requires advanced digital signal processing that removes

unwanted signals to be effective against stealth targets.

Páginas

quinta-feira, 30 de abril de 2015

quarta-feira, 29 de abril de 2015