The new effort between the Army Research Laboratory and the rideshare company, announced on Tuesday, aims to create silent rotor technology.

The goal is to reduce the noise caused by traditional UAV rotors.

“When UAVs are doing an [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] mission, they’re out there collecting or observing to collect intelligence or to do surveillance,” Jaret Riddick, director of ARL’s Vehicle Technology Directorate, told Army Times after the announcement.

That mission is hampered, however, when the adversary can hear the UAV coming, Riddick said.

“They know a certain noise in the distance means a certain type of operation is underway,” he said. “When you can do that with the advantage of not being detected … it changes how you execute a mission.”

Uber Elevate, under which the air taxi side of the company falls, is interested in noise-reduction technology because its vehicles would be operating in dense urban areas.

Since Uber is a technology company, ARL will build the UAVs for testing the technology.

One kind of technology Uber is looking at to solve the noise problem is the idea of having stacked rotors on a vehicle that spin in the same direction.

Traditionally, UAVs have stacked rotors that spin in opposite directions.

“When those rotors are spinning in opposite directions, they create a type of turbulence that contributes to noise in the operation,” Riddick said. “By having them spin in the same direction and adjusting their position to one another, research has shown that using this technique can offer advantages in performance while reducing the noise compared with traditional operations.”

One of these performance advantages is more lift capability, he said.

Last year, Uber announced the Dallas-Forth Worth area as its first location for flight demonstrations in 2020, and Riddick said Uber will collaborate with ARL-South researchers in Austin.

Uber and ARL-South will build the infrastructure needed for testing, Riddick said, adding that progress will be checked every six months.

“Uber is proud to be partnering with ARL on critical research on flying vehicle innovations that will help create the world’s first urban aviation rideshare network,” Eric Allison, head of Uber Elevate, said in a news release.

“Our first jointly-funded project will help us develop first of its kind rotor technology that will allow for quieter and more efficient travel. We see this initial project as the first of many and look forward to continued collaboration with the lab on innovations that will make uberAIR a reality.”

But with a new online game from the Training and Doctrine Command, soldiers can test it out in a virtual environment and offer feedback before the equipment is built.

Operation Overmatch, streamed through online gaming platform Steam, allows soldiers to complete missions with concepts the Army is thinking about implementing.

Operation Overmatch will enter its beta test phase on Oct. 10, and soldiers will focus on providing feedback on the game itself as it’s being developed and refined, said Lt. Col. Brian Vogt, the project lead on early synthetic prototyping, which leverages synthetic environments to foster design and testing.

“Ultimately, as this gets developed, it will enable soldiers to have an impact on the future force,” Vogt told Army Times.

Soldiers can visit operationovermatch.com, register with their name and email and choose between single-player or multiplayer mode. In multiplayer, soldiers are split into two groups: attacker and defender. They can use the available equipment to complete certain mission objectives.

So far, the game uses early concepts for armored vehicles, as well as UAVs, unmanned ground vehicles and robotics, he said.

For example, players can drive vehicles, fire at targets and perform reconnaissance with UAVs.

“They are very early ideas,” Vogt said. “Not named capabilities or programs yet.”

He said the Army knows robotics has the potential of having a dramatic impact on the future battlefield, and it wants to start exploring those concepts in the game environment.

More than 1,000 soldiers have tested the game so far, and TRADOC is looking for more to provide feedback on both the game and its capabilities.

On the game development side, TRADOC wants to know how to make gameplay more user-friendly and engaging.

For the concepts and capabilities in the game, TRADOC wants players to look at three areas:

• Employment: What do you use certain capabilities for and how do you use it.
• Force organization: A player might recommend, for example, that there should be a certain number of vehicles in a platoon.
  
• Capabilities: Soldiers can say how a capability should be tweaked. For example, if the quadcopter should fly higher or faster.
  

There are two ways to leave feedback:

• Explicit: Soldiers can post on a discussion board about what they liked or didn’t like.
• Game analytics: Eventually, TRADOC will do data analysis on everything that took place in the game environment. For example, what types of weapons tended to be more successful, etc.
  

“This is an opportunity for [soldiers] to engage in shaping the future of their Army,” Vogt said. “Getting user feedback early on is really important.”

First Sgt. James MacKay, with B Company, 53rd Signal Battalion (Satellite Control), 1st Space Command, said he served in a recon and support role during his team’s multiplayer mission.

“I was able to use a deployable UAV to scout the area to feed enemy positions and movements to my team to put us at an advantage,” said MacKay, who’s stationed at Fort Meade in Maryland.

He said using this was unique to the game environment because the vehicle had an integrated UAV component.

“It’s not common for a vehicle to have a drone and pilot there,” he said.

Testing this capability in a synthetic environment gives insight into whether it’s worth investing in, MacKay said.

“Instead of having to go and build an entire vehicle and test it, field it and train on it then find out there’s something we wish we could have done, we can use this [game] to see if it’s worthwhile or not,” he said.

If it’s decided that something should be tweaked, it can be done quickly and without spending unnecessary money.

“With early synthetic prototyping, we can take end-phase feedback and bring it back to the front of the design phase,” MacKay said. “You can reclaim all that time, energy and money.”

“You’re able to fail faster and learn faster,” said 2nd Lt. Daniel White, with Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 145th Aviation Regiment at Fort Rucker in Alabama.

White said the game gives soldiers the opportunity to design new vehicles and test them in a situation where it’s okay if something goes wrong.

MacKay agreed, saying players can also take tried and true weapons and combine them with new concepts to see how they work together or if they’re a mismatch.

“You don’t have to learn lessons on the battlefield in blood,” he said. “You don’t risk loss of equipment or life.”

White said younger soldiers might not always feel like they have much of an input when it comes to the future of the Army, but Operation Overmatch will give them an outlet for their ideas.

“One of the really good things about this being in a video game that will be available to younger soldiers is you’ll be reaching a much wider audience,” he said.

Lt. Gen. Timothy Kadavy, director of the Army National Guard, joined Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe and adjutant general of Virginia Maj. Gen. Timothy Williams for the activation ceremony.

“We’ve really jumped into the deep end of improving cyber capability within the Army National Guard,” Kadavy told Army Times. “So I’m excited to see how we grow within that area over the next 12 months.”

The 91st Cyber Brigade will help the training readiness of the Guard’s cyber units, he said. Soldiers will also be deployed to meet the demands of growing cyber missions throughout the United States.

The Virginia National Guard brigade was reflagged from the 91st Troop Command, and the 123rd Data Processing Unit was split into the 123rd and 124th Cyber Protection Battalions.

Approximately 950 Army National Guardsmen are in the new brigade, spread across units in 30 states. Each of the cyber protection battalions will have a cyber security company, a cyber warfare company and two cyber protection teams.

The headquarters will have about 25 personnel, with each company consisting of about 35-40 people.

They will conduct vulnerability assessments, cyber analysis and defensive cyberspace operations on military networks, among other duties.

The concept to have a designated cyber brigade within the National Guard was presented in June 2016 and approved in February.

Battelle announced the DroneDefender Version 2 at the Air Force Association’s Air, Space & Cyber conference on Monday.

The device, which disrupts the link between an unmanned aerial system and its pilot, used to require a backpack to power it.

The company received feedback from customers who didn’t want the backpack and its associated wires, according to Battelle’s Kimberly Stambler.

Stambler, business development and sales leader for the company’s mission and defense technologies division, told Air Force Times on Monday that version two of the system is fully integrated — which means no backpack or wires are required.

“Everything is self-contained,” she said.

Similar to the previous version, it weighs about 15 pounds but is a couple of inches shorter.

This version is a little more balanced and easier to move around, she said.

The company sold about 300 of the original version across the Defense Department.

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Today, if a unit’s mission changes, there are just a few options to receive a particular weapon system, extra equipment or supplies. A convoy can be sent out to deliver the suppliles, troops can walk back to get what they need, or they can submit a request to the supporting aviation unit for an air drop.

An unmanned aerial technology — such as a hoverbike — will provide supplies faster and more safely, officials said.

“Maneuver units are seeing things like quad copters and Amazon delivering via drones, and they say, ‘Hey, what about me? I want that on my battlefield,'” said Robert Forrester, technical manager for the joint tactical aerial resupply vehicle program, or JTARV, at Army Research, Development and Engineering Command.

The JTARV program is a joint effort with many of the Army’s labs, including the Army Research Laboratory and Army Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Center, and the Marine Corps.

Forrester said he works with industry partners and vendors to provide prototypes for evaluation by the user community.

The hoverbike has rotors that spin within circular metal rims, pushing air downward and allowing the vehicle to rise up.

The hoverbike, however, is just one option the team is researching.

“They’re all going to be vertical takeoff and landing-type systems,” with a capacity of roughly 200 to 800 pounds, Forrester said.

The Army’s Maneuver Center of Excellence and the Marine Corps are working to find the sweet spot between payload and capacity.

“If you have to haul this vehicle on a truck to deploy it, you may not want to have a 1,000-pound vehicle that you have to lug around,” Forrester said.

Maj. Jeremy Gottshall, a requirements developer with Army Training and Doctrine Command’s Combined Arms Support Command, is reaching out to the force to gauge their interest in something like the JTARV. 

A major concern has been troops being bogged down with heavier equipment, Gottshall said, and the JTARV can help lighten the load.

“If we have this within their unit, they will be less likely to go out of the gate overloaded,” he said. “They’ll have the confidence that if their mission changes, they can reach back immediately in their unit to fly what they need out to them in a timely manner.”

Army researchers are working on an unmanned aerial alternative to resupplying troops on the battlefield.

Photo Credit: Army

Forrester said the JTARV program could change the paradigm of who controls something like this.

“Traditionally, it’s aviation units doing aviation missions, but for this whole concept to work, what they’re looking to do is rely on technology and automation,” he said.

The plan is to have an autonomous vehicle, which means there won’t be “a soldier with a joystick” controlling it, Gottshall said. It will ideally be easy enough to maintain and operate without a licensed pilot.

The JTARV program wouldn’t replace manned resupply missions, but it would help augment current practices, officials said.

The Marine Corps is also working with the Army on demos and feedback.

Tom Heffern, with Marine Corps Combat Development Command, said Marines with Combat Logistics Regiment 25 at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, have gotten demonstrations of a smaller version of the hoverbike.

“It doesn’t necessarily take an aviator to operate these things,” Heffern said. “It’s done by Marines in the field with limited training.”

More demonstrations and testing are planned for the summer, but Heffern said Marines are looking forward to the possibility of an option like this.

“Everybody on the logistics side has been really excited so far about the abilities [something like] this will bring,” he said. “They feel empowered.”

Charlsy Panzino covers the Guard and Reserve, training, technology, operations and features for Army Times and Air Force Times. Email her at cpanzino@militarytimes.com.  

The Wireless Sensor Integrated Conformal System, or “smart patch,” is likened to a “super” FitBit.

According to Physical Optics Corporation, the patch is more accurate than commercial devices.

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The patch is placed on one of the carotid arteries in the neck, where it can remain all day.

The device monitors and collects such data as heart rate, breathing and skin and core body temperature.

“It’s a much less invasive way to collect body temperature,” said Frank Willis, vice president of advanced technology at POC.

It has built-in Bluetooth that allows a soldier to send his or her vitals to a mobile device.

Willis said the patch can be used during a training exercise so the team leader can keep an eye on his or her troops. If the leader sees that a soldier is reaching his or her physical threshold during training, then the soldier can be removed before injury occurs.

In a combat situation, a medic can use the data provided by the patch to determine which service member needs the most immediate care.

In a post-op scenario, Willis said, a medic can monitor multiple soldiers at once by receiving data from the patches.

According to POC, thresholds can be set on a handheld device to alert the medic if a patient’s health is deteriorating quickly.

But while it provides basic protection for soldiers, it’s not always easy to add new and improved technology to the helmet itself.

The mission-configurable helmet cover by Gentex aims to offer another level of protection and convenience, said retired Army Col. Patrick Stallings, director of business development at Gentex.

The cover takes a basic Army-issued helmet and lets soldiers attach different add-ons by using the rails that run along the sides of the cover.

“The ACH is a great helmet that protects the head,” Stallings said. “But it doesn’t provide help in terms of situational awareness or additional protection.”

A soldier can add face shields, side armor and communications devices to give the helmet a boost in safety and technology.

Night-vision goggles can be added to the shroud that’s sewn into the helmet cover, and sensors can be added to the Velcro top.

This helmet cover is currently being used by soldiers in the field, and there’s a new version undergoing testing.

That version removes the need for bolts by using a chin strap that is sewn directly into the helmet cover.

The helmet covers take a necessary piece of equipment and enhance it to help today’s soldiers succeed in their mission, Stallings said.