Electronic Warfare Technology
Through a contract with DARPA, BAE Systems has developed a new lightweight, handheld tactical sensor for soldiers.
The handheld electronic warfare technology can quickly detect and identify multiple interfering signals, such as jammers or enemy communication signals, across a wide spectrum and in changing and challenging environments.
The technology was developed under DARPA’s Computational Leverage Against Surveillance Systems program and the Cognitive radio Low-energy signal Analysis Sensor ICs program. This new handheld improves on today’s portable spectrum analyzers, which are often bulky, power hungry, and unable to handle interference or classify the signals they detect.
Using advanced signal processing algorithms, BAE Systems radically reduced the time and the computing power needed to process detected signals to such an extent that the new system uses only one low-power chip. The result is a 10-times reduction in size, weight, and power compared to conventional spectrum analyzers.
Faraday’s Manufacturing Facility Will Be Huge
On its blog Futuresight, Faraday Future released details regarding its North Las Vegas manufacturing facility, and it will be big. Really big.
The facility, where the company plans to manufacture it’s electric and autonomous vehicles, will span 3.2 million square feet, and will be one of the 10 largest building in the world. According to the company, you could fit the Chrysler building in it, twice, end to end.
About 703 acres of land is being graded during the first phase of development, and workers will move 3 million cubic yards of earth, that's enough to fill an entire NFL stadium.
The project will mean jobs for 1,500 construction employees working with a fleet of 65 pieces of heavy equipment.
Faraday design and manufacturing teams will be working with environmentally-conscious engineering firm, AECOM, to develop the architecture, design, and construction underpinning this historic project.
Musk Bent on Mars
It is no secret that SpaceX founder Elon Musk wants to one day colonize Mars. On Tuesday, at the International Astronautical Congress, he discussed how he plans to do it within the next century.
Musk wants to make humans a multiplanetary species and predicts a 1,000-ship strong caravan to the red planet.
According to Musk, SpaceX has already started working on the Mars Colonial fleet, and the company has even test-fired a powerful new rocket engine named Raptor. A system that could even take people as far as the moons of Jupiter.
It sounds exciting, and he wants as many as 1 million people living on Mars, though it will be a dangerous trip. And he didn't sugar coat the dangerous realities associated with the first trip when he said, are you prepared to die? If you’re okay with that, then you're a candidate for the trip.
This is Engineering By Design with David Mantey.
