US MDA’s Project Hercules: Hydra-Killer?

One of the hard problems in missile defense is how to deal with decoys. By the time most ABMs are launched, a MIRV (Multiple, Independent Re-entry Vehicle) missile will have split into its component warheads. The thing is, modern ICBMS have space for more MIRVs than they carry due to treaties et. al. It’s easier, and cheaper to put a few decoy MIRVs in the missile than it is to build a new interceptor to counter each MIRV. You could MIRV the kill vehicles, but that’s not yet an option with smaller missiles. The other way to fight this multi-headed hydra, of course, is to get really proficient at figuring out which objects are decoys.

Enter the US Missile Defense Agency’s Project Hercules, a national effort to develop related algorithms and battle management concepts. Robust detection, tracking, and discrimination algorithms useful against targets in all phases of flight; a physics-based decision architecture that applies advanced decision theory to future Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) System Command, Control; and Battle Management Communications (C2BMC) concepts are all involved. MDA says it “Focuses national expertise on discrimination for the benefit of all BMD System elements,” and the algorithms et. al., will support spiral development via insertion and upgrade of its spinouts in other systems.

Singapore’s TechX Urban Warfare Robot Challenge

Maybe he could help…?
(click for details)

A proliferation of UGV (unmanned ground vehicle) robots and waldos heads for the world’s conflict zones. Back in America, DARPA’s Grand Challenge dared inventors to produce a true robotic vehicle that could navigate a per-set course with no human assistance. Now Singapore’s Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) is offering one million Singapore dollars ($652,000) in the TechX challenge to whoever develops a robot that completes a stipulated set of tasks related to urban warfare.

$5.3M for Dredging in North Carolina

Small business qualifier Cottrell Contracting Corp. in Chesapeake, VA won a $5.4 million firm-fixed-price contract for maintenance dredging of the Atlantic Intercoastal Waterway and Morehead City Harbor and Beaufort Harbor, NC. Work is expected to be complete by April 30, 2007. There were 15 bids solicited on Nov. 8, 2006, and 2 bids were received. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Savannah, GA is the contracting activity (W912HN-07-C-0017).