‘Any Time, Anywhere’ Data Access Coming Soon, Official Says

By Claudette Roulo
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, April 30, 2013 – In the not-too-distant future, Defense Department personnel will be able to securely access data any time and anywhere, the department’s deputy chief information officer for command, control, communications and computers and information infrastructure said here today.

The current mobility strategy calls for Wi-Fi to be the primary means for DOD personnel to access routine data by 2017, Air Force Maj. Gen. Robert E. Wheeler said at the Mobile Work Exchange Spring 2013 Town Hall Meeting.

The department is conducting more than 70 pilot programs in its effort to make this vision a reality, he said.
One of these programs, the electronic flight bag, paid for itself within about a month of implementation, he said. In the past, airplane pilots had to carry with them numerous paper manuals and maps every time they flew, and each had to be regularly updated. The publications could weigh up to 80 pounds, depending on the aircraft, Wheeler said.

“You carry all that on a tablet, … you think of the fuel savings. You think of the ability to update on a commercial site. … It was a big money savings for us,” he said.

The modernization of Defense Department mobile communications hasn’t been mistake-free, the general acknowledged, citing as an example the secure mobile environment portable electronic device, or SME PED. The devices, intended to enable users to send and receive both classified and unclassified data, cost more than $8,000 per unit and are too slow for today’s data-driven communications, Wheeler said. The mobility strategy calls for the device to be phased out from fiscal year 2015 to fiscal 2017.

The department will continue to look for faster, more secure and cheaper ways to use technology and transmit information, he said, adding that the ultimate goal is to speed up productivity to maintain information dominance.

“Our challenge is to bring it to the warfighter every place they need it -- whether it's in Washington, D.C., to the edge of the battlefield, [or] onto the battlefield,” Wheeler said.

Location isn’t the only challenge, he said. The department divides data into one of three domains, Wheeler said: commercial, unclassified and classified. Classified data requires special consideration, and mobile device access to this domain is being implemented more slowly than it is to the unclassified domain.
The Defense Information Systems Agency is rolling out mobile device access to DOD users in multiple phases, Wheeler said. By fiscal 2014, more than 100,000 mobile devices will be approved for access to unclassified Defense Department networks, he added.

“Right now, our process is 9 to 12 months to approve a phone,” he said. That’s too long if the department wants to keep pace with technology, Wheeler said.

The department is working with the National Institute of Standards and Technology to refine requirements for these devices, he said. DOD’s goal is for new hardware, new applications and new mobile operating systems to be approved or denied for use on defense networks within 30 days of submission, Wheeler said, ensuring that the right devices are in the hands of warfighters as quickly as possible.

In the future, mobile devices could, in some cases, entirely replace desktop computers or desk phones, Wheeler said. But even before that happens, he said, by cutting down on costs and ending the “fragmented methodologies” of the old mobility strategy, the mobility program pays for itself in about 15 months.

That includes all the front-end investment, all the networking and all the mobile device management, Wheeler added.

"So, from a taxpayer perspective, it's a very good approach,” he said, adding that it will also allow the department to increase productivity. “We really don't even know how far we could go yet,” Wheeler said, “and I think that's the exciting part of it.”

Au Optronics Corporation Executive Sentenced for Role in LCD Price-Fixing Conspiracy

An executive of AU Optronics Corp., a Taiwan-based liquid crystal display (LCD) producer, was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in San Francisco for his participation in a worldwide thin-film transistor-liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) price-fixing conspiracy. Shiu Lung Leung, AU Optronics Corp.’s former senior manager in its Desktop Display Business Group, was sentenced to serve 24 months in prison and to pay a $50,000 criminal fine, the Department of Justice announced.

AU Optronics Corp., based in Hsinchu, Taiwan, and its American subsidiary, AU Optronics Corp. America, headquartered in Milpitas, Calif., were found guilty in March 2012, for their participation in the price-fixing conspiracy, following an eight-week trial. Former AU Optronics Corp. president Hsuan Bin Chen and former AU Optronics Corp. executive vice president Hui Hsiung were also found guilty at that time. A mistrial was declared against Leung after that trial. Today’s sentencing took place before Judge Susan Illston and follows a three-week retrial that started in November 2012 and resulted in Leung’s conviction.

“These international price-fixers caused consumers to pay inflated prices for their computer monitors, notebook computers and televisions,” said Assistant Attorney General Bill Baer in charge of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division.  “Prison sentences for culpable executives, combined with substantial fines against corporate wrongdoers, are the most effective deterrents for protecting consumers from this kind of illegal cartel behavior.”

The indictment charged that AU Optronics Corp. participated in the worldwide price-fixing conspiracy from Sept. 14, 2001, to Dec. 1, 2006, and that its subsidiary joined the conspiracy as early as spring 2003. The indictment further charged that Leung participated in that conspiracy from May 15, 2002 to Dec. 1, 2006. LCD panels affected by the conspiracy were a major component in flat-panel computer monitors, notebook computers, and flat-screen televisions sold in the United States. The conspirators fixed the prices of LCD panels during monthly meetings with their competitors, which were secretly held in hotel conference rooms, karaoke bars and tea rooms around Taiwan. 

Eight companies have been convicted of charges arising out of the department’s ongoing investigation and have been sentenced to pay criminal fines totaling $1.39 billion. All together, 22 executives have been charged.  Including today’s sentence, 13 executives have been convicted and have been sentenced to serve prison terms ranging from six to 36 months.

DOD Officials Detail $1 Billion in Space Program Savings

By Army Sgt. 1st Class Tyrone C. Marshall Jr.
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, April 26, 2013 – Senior Defense Department officials testified yesterday before Congress highlighting the activities the department has undertaken to save an estimated $1 billion and provide a balanced national security space program.

Gil I. Klinger, deputy assistant secretary of defense for space and intelligence, and Douglas L. Loverro, deputy assistant secretary of defense for space policy, appeared before the House Armed Services Committee's subcommittee on strategic forces to review the department’s fiscal year 2014 budget request for national security space activities.

Klinger said the Defense Department is introducing competition as early as possible with a more efficient contracting strategy for acquiring space launch services and associated launch capabilities, resulting in significant savings.

“These actions resulted in an estimated savings of over $1 billion in the Future Year Defense Program, below the fiscal year 2013 President's budget, without excessive and unacceptable risk,” he said.

Klinger said the department continues to consider potential alternative acquisition and procurement strategies across the national security space portfolio and remains committed to a disciplined cost approach.
“The undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, and the service acquisition executives have established affordability targets for the majority of our large, critical space programs,” Klinger said.

The department also is assessing how to take better advantage of commercial opportunities, he said, and will continue to pursue more production-oriented processes and quantities as part of each overall mission architecture.

Klinger noted this approach may result in greater affordability and reduced time to fielding in the future.
“Your authorization in fiscal year 2012 to incrementally fund up to six years to procure two advanced extremely high frequency satellites and your fiscal year 2013 authorization to fund two space-based infrared system satellites are reflected in the fiscal year 2014 president's budget,” he said.

DOD is committed to balancing the modernization of mission capability with the associated risks, Klinger told Congress, both in acquisition and operations.

“It is paramount that we deliver the capabilities the warfighter will need in the future, given the evolving threats,” he said. “The 2014 budget proposal increased investments over last year in the Space Modernization Initiative for missile warning to inform future acquisition decisions and anticipate evolving threats.”

And the Defense Department is implementing various Better Buying Power initiatives, Klinger said, to make GPS more affordable and to ensure it can sustain this “critical” global utility.

“In fiscal year 2014, the department's budget proposal requests funding for an assessment to determine if we can accelerate the military GPS user equipment program,” he added.

Klinger said it would fund the development of the next-generation operational control system. “Both are required to enable a new military signal to further improve our GPS anti-jamming capability,” he said.
Klinger also noted he was “pleased” to report the completion of studies to help the department frame potential decision points for follow-on capabilities.

“In fiscal year 2012, we completed the architecture studies for resilient-based satellite communications, space control, and overhead persistent infrared capabilities,” he said.

Loverro emphasized the “basic reality” that space defense remains vital to national security during his testimony before the HASC subcommittee.

“[This] evolving strategic environment increasingly challenges U.S. space advantages, advantages that both our warfighters and our adversaries have come to appreciate,” he said. “As space becomes more congested, competitive, and contested, the department must formulate programs and policies that will secure those advantages in the years to come.”

This reality, Loverro said, is juxtaposed with the fact that as a nation, the U.S. provides these capabilities in an environment that is increasingly cost-constrained. And, growing budgeting challenges coupled to increasing external threats compel the department to think and act differently, he said.

“While these two realities present a clear challenge, I do not by any means view them with a sense of ‘doom and gloom,’” Loverro noted. “New entrepreneurial suppliers alongside our legacy suppliers are creating an ever-burgeoning commercial space market that can provide a significant advantage to the DOD if we formulate the policies and strategies to encourage their growth and use.”

Similarly, he said, there's been growth worldwide in allied space investments in capability, which provide the Defense Department with “significant” opportunities to help build resilience into itsspace capabilities.

These policies and strategies will begin to address challenges and opportunities, but they are just the initial steps in an area that will continue to demand attention and action, Loverro said.

Lasers Bring New Urgency to Electric Power Research

By David Smalley, Office of Naval Research

ARLINGTON, Va. (NNS) -- In the wake of the recent announcement that laser weapons will be put on U.S. Navy ships, the need for reliable, high-voltage shipboard power has become a matter of national security, officials said at this week's Electric Ship Technologies Symposium outside Washington, D.C.

The Office of Naval Research (ONR)-sponsored event featured some of the world's top scientists and engineers in power systems, who agree that a new era in electric power is within sight.

"The work being done in this area is vital," said Dr. Thomas Killion, who heads ONR's Office of Transition. "As the upcoming deployment of a shipboard laser weapon reminds us, we need power generation and power management systems with greater-than-ever capabilities, but from devices that are smaller than ever."

Earlier this month, Chief of Naval Operations Jonathan Greenert announced that for the first time a laser weapon system (LaWS) will be placed onboard a deployed ship, USS Ponce, for testing in the Persian Gulf in 2014. The announcement underscored the need for accessible high-power electric generation, capable of meeting the substantial demands that will be needed to power laser systems and other high-power weapon systems.

As the technology advances, and faced with rising and unpredictable fossil fuel costs, the Navy's next-generation surface combatant ship will leverage electric ship technologies in its design.
While electric ships already exist, design characteristics of a combatant ship are more complex with regard to weight, speed, maneuverability-and now, directed energy weapons.

ONR-supported scientists are focused on cutting-edge technologies that include silicon carbide (SiC)-based transistors, transformers and power converters.
"SiC is important because it improves power quality and reduces size and weight of components by as much as 90 percent," said Sharon Beerman-Curtin, ONR's power and energy science and technology lead. "This is a critical technology enabler for future Navy combatant ships that require massive amounts of highly controlled electricity to power advanced sensors, propulsion and weapons such as lasers and the electromagnetic railgun."

Killion said that a lighter, smaller footprint on ships will contribute to the substantial increase in energy efficiency that is predicted from breakthroughs in electric power research.

"The enhanced capabilities and potential cost savings of increased power at reduced size cannot be overemphasized," he said. "This is the future."

Improved power systems could have enormous impact in both military and civilian sectors. Concerns by engineers over an aging power grid in the United States and elsewhere, for instance, have grown in recent years.

The Navy's power and engineering efforts that will further naval power hold similar promise for civilian benefit. ONR sponsors the Electric Ship Research and Development Consortium (ESRDC), composed of eight leading universities. The ESRDC is focused on afloat power systems, and leads efforts to address a national shortage of electric power engineers, and ensure U.S. superiority in electric systems.

Some of the critical technologies ONR is working on include power-dense electronics; new power conversion capabilities; energy storage; and sensors, weapons and protection. Killion said all of these areas deserve support because they are of naval and national importance.

"A key challenge in designing an all-electric future naval combatant ship is enabling technologies that can provide power agility with minimal energy storage needs," said Beermann-Curtin. "We are making truly noteworthy progress toward those goals."

At the symposium, Killion also announced the pending Fiscal Year 2013 Small Business Innovation Research solicitation opportunities in the power and energy area, including continued development of automated methods for design of cooling systems; alternative power supplies; ship energy use monitoring and analysis methods; compact connectors; and compact power for radio frequency sources.

DARPA Reaches Beyond Technological Frontiers for Warfighters

By Claudette Roulo
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, April 25, 2013 – In 1957, the entire world was surprised by the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite.

In response, President Dwight D. Eisenhower founded the Advanced Research Projects Agency -- now called the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency -- the following year, and he directed it to prevent further technological surprises by reaching beyond the frontiers of technology and science and immediate military requirements.

In the 55 years since DARPA was founded, it has succeeded in preventing technological surprise -- and has created surprise of its own, DARPA Director Arati Prabhakar told reporters at the Pentagon yesterday.

“Today, if you look at how we fight, you will find in our military capabilities really critical systems and capabilities like precision guidance and navigation, like stealth technologies, like [unmanned aerial vehicles], communications and networking, night-vision systems,” she said, all developed, in part, due to pivotal early investments by DARPA.

“And our warfighters have taken this suite of capabilities and turned it into a way to change the face of war,” Prabhakar said.

In making those investments, DARPA paved the way for leaps forward in capability, she said. “That's really our role,” she added. “That's what our function is. That's what we've done for many generations and that's what we're going to be doing again for the next generation.”

DARPA is a small agency, Prabhakar said. About half of its roughly 200 employees are experts from throughout the technical and military communities who serve as program managers for short terms of about three to five years. The rotational nature of the program manager positions allows the agency to tap into a broad technical community, she said, a tactic that gives DARPA influence that far outweighs its size.

“The job for the rest of us [at DARPA] is to recruit these stellar individuals, to construct a balanced portfolio of programs from the ideas that they generate, and ultimately … enable these program managers to take the kind of risk that is inherent in reaching for high payoff,” she said. “And all of that is really what keeps the DARPA engine humming,” Prabhakar added.

Incoming program managers listen to what is happening in the technical community to learn where the breakthrough opportunities are, Prabhakar said, and learn from the military community what they see as their future needs.

“From all of those inputs, our program managers create DARPA programs that they think really have the potential to change the world,” she said. “When they start building these programs, of course, they build these new technology capabilities [and] … technical communities that really can move our abilities forward in a really powerful way.”

While DARPA’s mission hasn’t changed in 55 years, the same can’t be said of the world in which it operates, Prabhakar said. Now is a good time for DARPA to step back and assess its view of future missions, she added, particularly in the context of today’s realities.

The agency identified three major trends that it views as critical in shaping DARPA’s effort to build “radical new solutions,” Prabhakar said.

“The first major factor that we see is we believe we're going to be in an extended period during which our national security will face a wide range of different types of threats from a wide range of different actors,” she told reporters. Not just nation-states, but also terrorist and criminal organizations and even individuals, she said.

These actors now have access to a wide range of tools that can create effects once limited only to nations, she said -- weapons of mass destruction or mass terror and cyberattacks, for example. “So the No. 1 major factor that we really pay attention to is this complex, fluid, shifting national security environment that we think we will be facing for an extended period of time.”

The second factor, she said, is the rapid advances in military technology made by other nations. This, combined with other factors, has led to a prevalence of obsolete and publicly available technology in U.S. military systems. “That's a trend that we expect will continue,” Prabhakar said. “I think that's going to be a fact of life in the world that we're living in.”

Fiscal constraints are the third trend shaping DARPA’s future, she said. “We believe we may be at the beginning of a fundamental shift in how our society allocates resources to the business of national security,” she added.
Prabhakar said she’s not referring only to the immediate issues around sequestration spending cuts. “What I'm really talking about here are the fiscal pressures that could shape a different future over the coming years and decades,” she explained, “and, if it turns out to be the case that we don't allocate this continuing level of support for national security as a society, it actually won't change the fact that our job will still be to keep the country as safe and secure as is humanly possible.
“So these three factors create a very challenging environment that we're going to be facing for an extended period of time,” she continued. “I think these are factors that create an environment that calls for a DARPA and for the DARPA approaches to thinking outside the box more than ever before.”
DARPA will continue to invest in “game-changers,” Prabhakar said. “[Investing] in radical new systems concepts, in radical new technologies that can enable new capabilities, that's something that DARPA has done for 55 years, and we're going to do it today, and we'll hope we'll do it for the next 55 years at least.”
The agency is also taking new approaches, she said. “We're thinking about how we can make the systems of the future more readily adaptable,” she added, “so that they can be configured for whatever actual threat emerges in time, or can be reconfigured in real time in an engagement so that we can adapt more quickly than adversaries might in a battle environment.”
The organization also seeks ideas that can “invert the cost equation,” Prabhakar said. These types of approaches not only would reduce program costs, but also would force adversaries to spend more money to counter the technology than the technology cost to develop and implement, she explained.
“And then, finally, we're also thinking about the fact that DARPA's in the ‘silver bullet’ business, but in fact, even our most powerful capability will not single-handedly change the face of war for the next generation,” she said.
One way to realize such a far-reaching change is by combining technologies, she said. “That's how I think we've created the last big shift in military capability,” she added, “and we see how that could be possible looking forward.”
DARPA's objective is a new generation of technology for national security, Prabhakar said.
“If we're successful, as I think we really must be in this DARPA endeavor, what that will mean for the future is that our future leaders and commanders will have real options, powerful options for all the range of threats that we face in the years and decades ahead,” she said. “That's really how we will enable our nation to achieve its strategic objectives in a decisive fashion.”

U.S.-Australia Agreement Promotes Space Situational Awareness

By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service

OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE, Neb., April 24, 2013 – A new agreement made between the United States and Australia represents the first in what U.S. Strategic Command’s commander hopes will be many that promote transparency in the space domain.

Air Force Gen. C. Robert Kehler signed the agreement on behalf of the United States, short-cutting the process for the Australian government to request data through Stratcom’s Space Situational Awareness Sharing Agreement Program.

The agreement represents another step in the November 2010 pact between the two countries to cooperate on space situational awareness activities.

It streamlines the process for the Australians to make specific requests about space data gathered by Stratcom’s Joint Operations Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. This information, which includes locations of some 23,000 man-made objects in space, is critical in planning launches into the increasingly crowded space domain.

“Many nations share the space domain, and it is in our best interest to create an environment where the sharing of [space situational awareness] data facilitates transparency and improves flight safety,” Kehler said.
The new U.S.-Australian agreement paves the way for similar ones between the United States and its closest allies and partners, and is modeled on commercial agreements Stratcom has forged with commercial companies over the past three years.

Space situational awareness exchanges will assist partners with activities such as launch support, maneuver planning, support for on-orbit anomaly resolution, electromagnetic interference reporting and investigation, support for launch anomalies and de-commissioning activities, and on-orbit conjunction assessments, officials noted.

President Barack Obama’s National Space Policy and the National Security Space Strategy promoted this concept in 2010 and 2011, respectively, noted Air Force Col. Lina Cashin, Stratcom’s division chief for space, cyber and deterrence policy and security cooperation.

Science, Technology Investments to Focus on Innovation, Industry

By Amaani Lyle
American Forces Press Service

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md., April 24, 2013 – To meet the Defense Department’s 21st century security objectives, its science and technology funding will focus on innovation and industry, the acting assistant secretary of defense for research and engineering said here today.

In remarks at the National Defense Industrial Association’s 14th annual science and engineering technology conference, Alan Shaffer said mitigation, affordability and surprise technology lay the foundation for the DOD’s science and technology commitments.

Shaffer noted a rise in the commons known as technology enablers that include space, cyberspace and the oceans. “These are the places that no one owns and yet enable all our operational systems,” he said.
In electronic warfare, Shaffer explained, the United States has enjoyed pre-eminent electronic detection systems with its allies, but now must maintain balance in the electromagnetic spectrum for its systems to operate.

“Increasingly, a space communications layer is vulnerable to being jammed,” he said. “Space is contested. Space is no longer assured -- nobody owns cyber, but it certainly will [affect] how we’re thinking about the world.”

In cyberspace, research and resilience of data are key, Shaffer said. “We need robustness and … the ability to operate through any type of cyberattack,” he added.

And considering cyberspace as a science is critical, he said.

“I can go out and measure warheads,” Shaffer said. “How do you measure cyber as to whether or not you’re improving?” DOD also must continue countering weapons of mass destruction through sensors, network analytics, data integration and predictive tools, he told the audience.

Developing new tools and more prototyping within DOD and throughout industry are important to affordability, Shaffer said.

“Right now, it [takes] roughly 20 years to field a new weapon system,” he noted. “The requirement cycle cannot envision where you’re going to be in that period of time.” The services are using a program called Engineered Resilient Systems, which develops predictive tools to execute an open system design and perform thousands of system trades with larger, more complex systems within a computer, Shaffer said.

Typically, he explained, technology investment involves money and a lot of time in early basic research before encountering a concept, then learning about a capability that grows rapidly before flattening out.

“I don’t want to continue to have to invest in older, mature technologies where we flattened out some,” Shaffer said. “I want to create surprise for other folks. That means the DOD must continue to invest in a lot of concepts in basic research, look for the maturation, and then put some big bets behind things to hit the high part of the growth curve.”

DOD science and technology also will encompass human systems, he said, from realistic and immersive training to better man-machine interface.

Analysts will further research how humans can better interface with platforms, and how DOD can reduce time for a human to better operate a system, he added.