Industry News

A report from IHS Markit forecasts that sales of unmanned ground, sea and aerial vehicles will increase through 2025 as military organizations increasingly use such platforms to conduct missions. IHS Jane’s predicts 63,000 new unmanned aerial vehicles will be sold from 2016 to 2025 and surpass $82 billion in global sales during the 10-year forececast period, IHS Markit said Monday. […] More

A new Deloitte report says 73 percent of surveyed chief financial officers at multiple North America-based public and private companies anticipate less congressional gridlock under the incoming U.S. administration. Deloitte said Thursday it polled 137 CFOs from Nov. 9 to 23 for the professional services firm’s “CFO Signals” report for the fourth quarter of 2016. The survey found 86 percent of respondents expect […] More

The U.S. Army has issued a request for information on potential sources of light detection and ranging technology that can integrate with manned and unmanned airborne platforms. A FedBizOpps notice posted Dec. 21 stated the service branch seeks a LIDAR system that is designed to support mission planning, concealed target detection and mapping missions. The Army is also interested in LIDAR technology components and […] More

Northrop Grumman has pushed back the test flight of its RQ-4 Global Hawk  unmanned surveillance aircraft equipped with a United Technologies Corp.-built multispectral imaging sensor technology to late January, Inside Defense reported Wednesday. Rachel Karas writes testing of the MS-177 sensor-equipped Global Hawk was originally scheduled to occur in late December. The report said Northrop postponed all the company’s test […] More

NASA has selected Lockheed Martin to build, design and operate spacecraft that would support research into the bulk physical properties, geology and surface composition of  six Jupiter Trojan asteroids orbiting the sun. Lockheed said Thursday the Lucy spacecraft will be built through one of NASA’s two new Discovery Program missions and that the agency established a $450 million cap for vehicle development. […] More

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has completed the initial phase of a program to develop concepts and technologies designed to restore connectivity for U.S. troops when conventional tactical networks are offline or unavailable. DARPA said Thursday its Tactical Undersea Network Architecture program has moved into the second and final phase to demonstrate a prototype of the system at sea. LGS Innovations helped the agency design […] More

DJI and Seagate have partnered to develop technologies for unmanned aerial vehicle operators to store, download, manage and share large amounts of data from UAV missions. Both companies aim to help address the data requirements of UAV users as drone camera systems gain resolution and flight times increase, Seagate said Wednesday. Michael Perry, director of strategic partnerships at DJI, said the […] More

The General Services Administration has kicked off its search for industry sources of software-as-a-service offerings for administrative functions in a request for information issued by the agency. GSA said Wednesday its unified shared services management office seeks information about modular and interoperable ways to deliver common technology services and about the Federal Integrated Business Framework‘s viability as a […] More

Hewlett Packard Enterprise has developed a demonstration chip designed to speed up optical computation processes as part of a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency program that aims to develop communication, sensing, and computation technologies using mesoscale characteristics, IEEE reported Monday. Rachel Courtland writes the company’s Hewlett Packard Labs business developed the chip, which was created via the Mesodynamic […] More

Iron Bow Technologies has opened a new facility in Tampa, Florida, in effort to support the growth of the company’s Service Select offering and provide client services. The company said Wednesday the 24,000-square-foot office is located at Woodland Corporate Center and features office spaces, training facilities and new technology infrastructure. Iron Bow has employed 130 locals for […] More

Thermwood and the U.S. Navy’s Fleet Readiness Center East have entered into a two-year cooperative research-and-development agreement to mature the company’s large-scale additive manufacturing technology. The company said Dec. 20 its three-dimensional printing machines are designed to  produce 3D-printed parts that are larger than needed and then trim the components to a final size through a near-net shape approach. “We are […] More

The Department of Veterans Affairs has awarded Noresco an energy savings performance contract to implement $22 million in infrastructure upgrades at the Raymond G. Murphy VA Medical Center in New Mexico and El Paso VA Health Care System in Texas. Noresco said Wednesday it aims to help VA increase energy security, cut heating energy costs by up to 70 percent and meet El Paso VA […] More