DefenseNews

The US Marine Corps is looking for a few good robots to build airfields

For Marines who have toiled over assembling airfields in austere environments, relief may be on the way. The Marine Corps wants to develop robots that can do the grunt work of laying down the matting used to quickly construct Expeditionary Airfields, or EAF, in amphibious beachheads and other remote locations. “Currently, assembling EAF matting is a manual process carried out by Marines — a…
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DefenseNews

Pentagon turns to AI targeting to help troops shoot drones

The Department of Defense is looking for AI-enhanced target recognition to help troops, vehicles and ships destroy drones. The C-UAS Close-In Kinetic Defeat Enhancement project focuses on aided target recognition, or AiTR. This uses concepts such as AI, machine learning and computer vision to create a system that can detect threats — and distinguish them from non-threats such as birds —…
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DefenseNews

Here’s what’s behind the US Army’s $2.1B R&D funding increase

Within the U.S. Army’s $253 billion budget request is a proposal to boost research and development spending by 12.9%. While officials say that extra $2.1 billion will allow the Army to “keep a technological advantage,” congressional leaders have expressed concern that it could come at the expense of accountability. During the Army’s congressional budget hearing, Rep. Betty McCollum…
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DefenseNews

German defense minister laments long-range strike ‘gap’ caused by planned US drawdown

VIENNA — Germany’s ambitions to close a long-range strike capability gap are facing a fresh setback after the Trump administration moved to withdraw thousands of U.S. troops from German soil and effectively shelved a Biden-era plan to temporarily deploy Tomahawk cruise missiles and SM-6 missiles there. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, speaking Monday in Munster, Germany, after a major…
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