Elbit Systems subsidiary to supply shot-spotting sensors in Africa

A subsidiary of Elbit Systems of America will supply the U.S. Army shot-spotting sensors that can be mounted to watch towers, surveillance aerostats, unmanned vehicles and more.

Logos Technologies announced a $19.4 million deal for its Serenity hostile fire detectors late last month. The five-year arrangement also accounts for maintenance and operation costs across U.S. Africa Command .

Serenity combines electro-optical and acoustic sensors to pinpoint the origin of weapons fire and explosions as far as 6 miles away. It can be paired with a wide-area motion imagery, or WAMI, device to document swaths of land over extended periods of time.

“Serenity can cue the WAMI system to a particular area of interest — say, the location of an enemy mortar team — and then the WAMI system can track their movement across the battlefield, as well as ‘go back in time’ and discover their initial staging area,” Doug Rombough, vice president of business development at Logos, said in a statement.

Serenity systems are already used by U.S. troops, Rombough added, and a quickly deployable version for international forces is under consideration. The Army Research Laboratory is also looking into a smaller version of Serenity that can be mounted on a gyrocopter, according to the company.

Counterterrorism missions across the African continent involve multiple countries and their forces. The region has been plagued by violent organizations affiliated with al-Qaida and the Islamic State group. In addition, coups in Mali in 2020, Burkina Faso in 2022 and Niger in 2023 have complicated U.S. Defense Department operations and assistance programs there.

Elbit Systems of America is itself a part of Israeli business Elbit Systems, the 21st largest defense contractor in the world when ranked by defense-related revenue. Elbit Systems earned nearly $5 billion in defense revenue in 2022 and about $4.8 billion in 2021, according to Defense News Top 100 analysis.

Colin Demarest was a reporter at C4ISRNET, where he covered military networks, cyber and IT. Colin had previously covered the Department of Energy and its National Nuclear Security Administration — namely Cold War cleanup and nuclear weapons development — for a daily newspaper in South Carolina. Colin is also an award-winning photographer.

美国埃尔比特系统公司的一家子公司将向美国陆军提供可安装在瞭望塔、监视气球、无人车辆等上的射击定位传感器。

Logos Technologies公司上月底宣布，已与美国非洲司令部达成一项价值1940万美元的协议，为其Serenity敌对火灾探测器提供五年期产品。该协议还包括美国非洲司令部的维护和运营费用。

Serenity 结合了光电和声学传感器，能够精确定位远至 6 英里外的武器射击和爆炸源。它还可以与广域动态成像 (WAMI) 设备配合使用，长时间记录大片区域的状况。

Logos公司业务发展副总裁道格·罗姆博在一份声明中表示：“Serenity可以引导WAMI系统关注特定的感兴趣区域——例如敌方迫击炮小组的位置——然后WAMI系统可以跟踪他们在战场上的移动，还可以‘回溯过去’，发现他们最初的集结区域。”

罗姆博格补充说，美军已经在使用“宁静”系统，目前正在考虑开发一种可供国际部队快速部署的版本。据该公司称，陆军研究实验室也在研究一种可以安装在旋翼机上的小型“宁静”系统。

非洲大陆的反恐行动涉及多个国家及其军队。该地区长期饱受与基地组织和伊斯兰国有关联的暴力组织的困扰。此外，2020年马里、2022年布基纳法索和2023年尼日尔发生的政变也使美国国防部在这些地区的行动和援助项目变得更加复杂。

美国埃尔比特系统公司是以色列埃尔比特系统公司的子公司，后者按国防相关收入排名，是全球第21大国防承包商。据《防务新闻》百强企业分析显示，埃尔比特系统公司2022年的国防收入接近50亿美元，2021年约为48亿美元。

科林·德马雷斯特曾是C4ISRNET的记者，负责报道军事网络、网络安全和信息技术方面的新闻。此前，他曾为南卡罗来纳州的一家日报报道美国能源部及其下属的国家核安全管理局，主要关注冷战后的清理工作和核武器研发。科林还是一位屡获殊荣的摄影师。