The Navy is currently interested in equipment technology development programs:
1) Rear Admiral Vice Commander of Naval Air Systems Command, Charlie Johnston, said: "We are equipping a variety of equipment. Johnston said: We are equipping a variety of electronic equipment, network systems and artillery missiles, and constantly improve, improve them; and network-centered warfare is to make today's weapons systems become effective tools on the battlefield of the future.
The focus on network-centric warfare appears to be less on the Department of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Congress than on the Navy. The Navy believes that even a Boeing 747 can be converted into a fighter jet if the systems integration of electronic equipment, network systems, and artillery missiles is effectively realized, and that this is the effect of the technological development of network-centric equipment.
As the core of the strategy, the Navy put forward the "21st Century Maritime Hegemony (Sea Power 21)" concept, which is: armed forces network (ForceNet) as the basis for the formation of the "Sea Shield", "Sea-based", "sea attack" strategic system.
Sea Shield - the ability to control the sea and ensure that U.S. forces, allied forces, and required equipment can reach and pass through enemy littoral zones; Sea-Based - the ability to launch an attack from the sea without a landing site; Sea Strike --Ability to conduct long-range, sustained attacks ashore.
Rear Admiral Fitzgerald of the Naval Air Warfare Division said: "Taking into account the funding plan through fiscal year 2005, the Navy has shortlisted key research projects from across the program after a comprehensive analysis of the system capabilities of network-centric warfare and its synergistic development with other Navy equipment.
The goal was to avoid underfunding due to overly detailed system development requirements and too much development. Fitzgerald believes that by 2006 the program will have achieved substantial results.
Now, the key issue to be addressed is the ability of the shooter to have access to the firing data as early as possible in the attack timeframe. The current practice is to transmit target data to the shooter, who fires ammunition and missiles based on the firing parameters. We want to make it so that the shooter has instant access to the necessary firing parameters.
2) Fitzgerald said: In our development plan also includes 14 research and development projects related to the "future naval combat capability", involving unmanned aircraft, all-electric ships, anti-submarine warfare, missile defense and so on. Of course, there is a balance of investment and technology development risk in these development programs.
He said: In so many projects to ensure the efficiency of investment is one of the key issues, it is necessary to avoid too many scattered projects will be the investment into zero, but should be used to solve the core technology development funds first, so that the whole equipment program is in a healthy state of development. By ensuring that development efforts are focused on addressing key developmental needs of the Navy's strategy, the defense budget will not be overwhelmed by the sheer size of the program.
As a result, the Program Management Division, a seven-office division responsible for the application of new technologies, is tasked with coordinating and facilitating the interaction between Navy needs and technology development. Anderson, the department's director, said, "For promising research projects, we try to create the conditions for them as much as possible, and when it has the conditions for investment (for example: the development of a manageable price, the key technology has matured), then the corresponding budget plan."
3) One of the key technologies the Navy will soon be equipped with is HART (Hornet Autonomous Real Time Targeting) - Hornet Autonomous Real Time Target Tracking. It is a set of technologies to GPS-guided bombs to locate attacks, or "Jointly Guided Attack Munition (JDAM)." Instead of targeting data from satellites, HART is used to replace targeting data, and pilots flying the F/A-18 use an onboard camera to capture target images and transmit them to the JDAM's guidance unit for improved The accuracy of the attack is higher than that of GPS data, and there is no fear of GPS interference.
The HART consists of pre-programmed attack programs and real-time updates, target pinpointing, precision guided munitions (JDAM), and precision guidance systems.
Electronic and optical data used for target pinpointing are loaded into the JDAM as files prior to an attack, and this data enables the JDAM to automatically capture targets and increase strike accuracy to minimize damage to non-military targets. Because JDAM is a joint Navy and Air Force weapons program, HART-equipped weapon systems are no longer referred to as JDAMs, but rather as "HART Precision Guided Weapons". Boeing in St. Louis, Mo. is the main contractor for the project, the technology development work has been completed, only to be system integration, in the JDAM will be configured with infrared homing device, which is not in the previous equipment on the JDAM.
As of this writing, Boeing and Anderson's program management had not received formal approval for the program's Phase 2 plan, which is aimed at system integration and prototype testing, and a Navy spokesperson declined to provide information on the program's budget.
The HART program will be managed by the Naval Air Systems Command's PMA-201 office.
Now, pilots wait for it, OPNAV needs it, and OPNAV even has procurement funding ready, just waiting for the approval to come through to execute the program, Anderson said.
4) In addition to HART, a program that has the full support of Congress is Tomahawk Missile Precision Terrain Aided Navigation (TTAN), for which Congress has increased the budget for next year. This technology allows pilots to fly in areas where GPS is jammed, and can also accurately guide missiles without the use of GPS.
Anderson is conducting research on technologies related to helping missile guidance systems screen targets from background clutter. One of the things that has already been done is a pilot study of the SLAM EP (Standoff Land Attack Missile-Expanded Response Enhanced Echo Message to Reduce Terrain Interference Missile) program, known as "Smart," and the next phase is to enable it to track moving targets. capable of tracking moving targets.
5) Another project being studied is called "attack battery (Strike Cell)", that is: all the elements of the strike (energy) can be concentrated together to destroy the target. This is often referred to as "directed energy weapons".
Once the development of directed energy weapons, will greatly improve the military combat capability. At present, the technical problem is how to make the energy level to reach a high enough level, solve this problem, the research will enter a substantive stage.
Now the military action is a single target, the significance of using directed energy weapons is to make "an attack to hit a target" into "an attack to hit multiple targets (can be as many as 8, 9)".
Among the technologies related to directed-energy weapons, controlling high-energy microwaves is a challenge because of their non-directionality. Although the use of antennas can enhance its directionality, but there is still a large part of the energy is not in accordance with the specified direction of radiation, in order to make the "directional" to reach the level of weapons-grade, but also to solve a lot of technical and engineering problems.
Anderson said: It is expected that by 2015, the directional energy-related laser, high-energy microwave technology research will bear fruit.