Lifeboat Foundation

WASHINGTON, 9 June 2016. U.S. intelligence experts are asking industry for ideas on developing networks of unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV) for covert surveillance of international ship traffic in important harbors, waterways, and choke points.

Officials of the U.S. Intelligence Advanced Projects Agency (IARPA) in Washington issued a sources-sought notice Tuesday (IARPA-BAA-16–09) for the UnderWatch project.

The IARPA UnderWatch project seeks to use UUV networks to monitor ships and maneuver to inspect contacts of interest. IARPA is the research arm of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence.

Continue reading “Intelligence experts approach industry for UUV networks for covert surveillance of shipping” »

The latest surveillance tech from Israel “will open a new era in data interception,” says the CEO of profitable but troubled snoop supplier Ability. It’s sitting on the “golden key of surveillance” with a $20M product.

I love contract season with the US Government because you get to see all of the cool projects being awarded.

CAMBRIDGE, MA — The U.S. military’s unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) depend on stealth as they conduct surveillance and reconnaissance and other missions in the deep oceans. With Global Positioning System (GPS) signals unable to penetrate the ocean’s surface, these UUVs can rely on inertial sensors to provide acceptable positioning information during short missions. On longer missions, however, inertial sensors accumulate error, forcing the vehicles to risk exposing themselves to enemies as they periodically surface to obtain a GPS fix.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is addressing this issue by funding the development of a small number of acoustic transmitters that can be anchored to fixed locations around ocean basins to serve as an undersea navigation constellation, according to a May 10 release by the Cambridge-based nonprofit company Draper.

Continue reading “Draper Gets DARPA Contract to Improve Stealth Capabilities for Undersea Vehicles” »

Nice; let’s hope they hit the right target.

“I need a stealth bomber that’s going to get close, and then it’s going to drop a whole bunch of smalls – some are decoys, some are jammers, some are [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] looking for where the SAMs are. Some of them are kamikaze airplanes that are going to kamikaze into those SAMs, and they’re cheap. You have maybe 100 or 1,000 surface-to-air missiles, but we’re going to hit you with 10,000 smalls, not 10,000 MQ-9s. That’s why we want smalls.”

SAMs stands for “Surface-to-Air Missile,” and they’re one of the reasons that the Air Force has invested so much in stealth technology over the years: if a missile can’t see a plane, it can’t hit it. The problem is that the economics don’t quite work that way: it’s easier to make a new, better missile than it is to make an existing airplane even stealthier, and modern Air Force fighters serve for around 30 years each—longer if they’re bombers. Missiles are generally cheaper than airplanes, so anyone who wants to protect against aerial attack just needs to invest in a lot of missiles.

Continue reading “Air Force wants swarms of small ‘kamikaze’ drones to defeat missiles” »

The sky above Osaka Bay is saturated in light pollution teeming from the neon-soaked metropolis below. Military bi-copters circle in patterns between the antenna towers of Niihama City’s looming skyscrapers as they survey the scene of an ongoing domestic security operation. Kneeling from atop the edge of one of these towers is a figure; a mauve-haired saboteur of the state clad in a leotard, side holster, and leather jacket. Combat boots and leggings hiked just past her knees with her upper thighs left exposed. An external HD cable juts from a small input jack indented at the base of her neck.

Her pupils dilate, sifting through the visual noise of an embedded surveillance feed while combing the room below for suspicious movements. She detaches the cable at her subordinate’s signal, stands upright and removes her clothing. She leans over the edge of the building, a smirk streaking across her otherwise stoic expression. A rappel line heaves sharply, suspending her body directly adjacent to that of her target, who is now only a trigger pull from annihilation.

Interesting

The software can be used by pilots to superimpose information onto pilots’ screens as they circle above areas, which include one San Bernardino mosque after the shooting last year.

Continue reading “US spy planes use AR software above major US cities and ‘target Muslim areas’” »

http://spacenews.com/planned-u-s-investment-in-space-awarene…PqrOS.dpuf

http://aviationweek.com/defense/drone-angst-extends-beyond-backyard-spying

Hosted by the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society, the International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium 2015 (IGARSS 2015) will be held from Sunday July 26th through Friday July 31th, 2015 at the Convention Center in Milan, Italy. This is the same town of the EXPO 2015 exhibition, whose topic is “Feeding the planet: energy for life”.

Read more