July 10, 2020 | International, Aerospace, C4ISR

Air Force Expands AI-Based Predictive Maintenance

By THERESA HITCHENSon July 09, 2020 at 4:23 PM

WASHINGTON: The Air Force plans to expand its “predictive maintenance” using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to another 12 weapon systems, says Lt. Gen. Warren Berry, deputy chief of staff for logistics, engineering and force protection.

“I continue to believe that predictive maintenance is a real game changer for us as an Air Force,” he told the Mitchell Institute today. “There's a lot of power in moving unscheduled maintenance into scheduled maintenance, and we're firmly convinced that it will improve our readiness and improve our combat capabilities by doing so.”

“We have long been a fly-to-fail force,” he explained, simply waiting for aircraft to quit working and then trying to fix them by moving parts to wherever the planes were grounded. But today's unpredictable and relatively slow approach to getting fighters and bombers back in the air simply won't be possible in future conflicts, as Russian and China seek to degrade US communications including via cyber attacks and attacks on US bases.

The service has made “logistics under attack” one of its key priorities as it shifts focus to deal with globalized peer conflict, asking for $3 billion in 2021 to fund various efforts.

Berry noted that the Air Force is “talking to” the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) about best practices and lessons learned as it pushes ahead with its two key predictive maintenance initiatives: “condition-based maintenance plus (CBM+) and “enhanced reliability centered maintenance (ERCM).

The service has been using CBM+, which involves monitoring platforms on three aircraft: the C-5, the KC-135 and the B-1. “They've been doing it for about 18 to 24 months now, and we're starting to get some real return on what it is that the CBM+ is offering us,” he said.

ERCM, he explained, “is really laying that artificial intelligence and machine learning on top of the information systems that we have, the maintenance information system data, that we have today, and understanding failure rates and understanding mission characteristics of the aircraft and how they fail,” he said. While he said he didn't have the list at his fingertips, Berry said the dozen weapon systems being integrated would come under the ERCM effort by the end of the year.

Berry said that there are a number of other changes to how the Air Force does logistics that will require future focus, especially the question of how best to preposition supplies in the European and Pacific theaters. He noted that the Pacific region presents particular problems because of the wide geographic dispersement of allies there.

“I think we need to fundamentally change how we think about prepositioning our assets,” he said. “And that really does require partners and allies, in not just prepositioning the material and equipment, but prepositioning capacity and capability — whether that's through operational contracting support or whether that's through things that are actually on the installation that we can take advantage of.”

“We're not going to be able to bring what we could bring in the past,” he added, “and so much of what we are going to use is probably going to have to be there.”

This is going to require new ways to partner with allies and friendly nations in those regions, he said, noting that the European Deterrence Initiative and the Pacific Deterrence Initiative might help. “But, we're gonna have to make those a little bit more foundational moving forward,” he said.

Finally, Berry stressed that improved command and control is going to be the base of all of the Air Force's efforts to establish “adaptive operations and agile combat employment” — concepts for operating in a distributed manner from a large number of small operating locations in a peer conflicts. As a 2019 study on “distributed operations” by RAND explains, “this type of distributed air operations in a contested environment represents a significant shift in the way the Air Force has operated since the end of the Cold War.”

Berry said that “Log C2” is related to Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2), another top Air Force priority as Breaking D readers are well aware.

“JADC2 is about having the decision advantage in multi- domain operations, and so in the log enterprise sustainment we want to have that same decision advantage in order to support multi-domain operations because sustainment and logistics follows operators,” he said. “And so we've got to be able to have the sense orient and respond posture ... to be able to support multi-domain operations in the way that the operators plan to employ.”

This involves moving to replace old IT systems with modern capabilities, including cloud storage and data fusion from multiple sensors — whether those be onboard an aircraft such as the F-35 or from a machine doing specific maintenance.

“That data really is the key to our awareness of what's happening in the environment, and what's happening in the broader enterprise, to include at home and the depots and the broader supply system,” he said.

https://breakingdefense.com/2020/07/air-force-expands-ai-based-predictive-maintenance/

On the same subject

September 12, 2019 | International, Aerospace

DSEI :Raytheon anticipates international boom in counterdrone sales
By: Jen Judson LONDON — Raytheon is expecting a boom in international sales of its counter-UAS system already battle-tested with the U.S. Army. The Howler system — which includes a Ku-band Radio Frequency Sensor, a command-and-control system, and a Coyote unmanned aircraft system designed to take out enemy drones — could soon see an abundance of buyers. The system could also include a high-energy laser defeat solution and a high-powered microwave capability to provide a non-kinetic approach to knocking drone threats out of commission, according to company officials. “We have experienced quite a bit of interest from our international friends, partners and allies,” James McGovern, Raytheon vice president of mission systems and sensors in its Integrated Defense Systems business, told Defense News during an interview at DSEI, a defense exposition in London. “It's exploded: Counter-unmanned aircraft systems is the in-vogue discussion on weapon space and solution set at every trade show we've been to. It's a nonstop revolving door of interested customers in our solutions,” he added. Over the past five years, drone threats — cheap, commercial off-the-shelf ones — have proliferated in use, posing a threat on the battlefield as well as to airports, sports stadiums, government buildings and urban areas. Raytheon is preparing to reach initial operational capability with the U.S. Army of its Block II version of the Coyote, which is a variant that makes the Block more missile-like in appearance. The IOC goal is for the first quarter of 2020, according to Pete Mangelsdorf, director of the Coyote and rapid development programs within the land warfare systems portfolio at Raytheon. In the meantime, the company is soon expecting congressional notification for a sale to its first foreign country, Mangelsdorf said. Raytheon expects to see roughly 15 more countries issue letters of request for the Howler system to include Block II Coyote rapidly following the first congressional notification, he added. The company has license to separately sell sensors abroad, but generally customers are not just interested in what the sense-and-detect capability sensors would bring but rather want full-up systems that include all of Howler's elements. Raytheon's Howler system is flexible and can integrate into other systems and platforms, according to McGovern. Currently, Howler is used on a U.S. Army truck, but it could be integrated onto a pallet at a fixed site or mounted on a different truck depending on customer needs, McGovern said. The U.S. Army system was developed in response to a joint urgent operational need statement to find something that could counter drones as well as rockets, artillery and mortars, according to Mangelsdorf. The Block I version of the Coyote, which looks more like a plane or loitering munition than a missile, was the interim capability in response to the joint urgent operational need statement. The system is scalable in size. McGovern said Raytheon has used its gallium nitride technology to scale down the radar array while maintaining range and detection sensitivity, and while fitting it onto a smaller vehicle in the event a customer has a need for increased mobility, like in the case of special operations forces. The radar has the ability to see singular drones and identify drone swarms with high fidelity. Other radars might just pick up a drone swarm as one big blob, McGovern noted. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/dsei/2019/09/11/raytheon-anticipates-international-boom-in-counter-drone-sales
January 26, 2022 | International, Naval

Electric Boat readies to deliver attack sub Oregon, almost two years after last delivery
Electric Boat is weeks from delivering attack submarine Oregon, about 16 months after Oregon was originally due and nearly two years after the shipyard delivered its last submarine.
December 22, 2020 | International, Naval

Huntington Ingalls names new COO, CFO
by Marc Selinger Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) has promoted chief financial officer (CFO) Christopher Kastner to the new position of chief operating officer (COO), giving him oversight of the company's three operating divisions, the US shipbuilder announced on 18 December. HII said that Kastner will work closely with the presidents of the three divisions – Newport News Shipbuilding, Ingalls Shipbuilding, and Technical Solutions – to “drive execution” on HII's backlog, which recently set a record high. “We are establishing this position to signal our continued and strong commitment to performance and execution, to better reflect the business dynamics associated with our historic USD45 billion backlog, and in recognition of the importance of the [US] Navy's new long-range shipbuilding plan,” HII spokeswoman Beci Brenton said. The shipbuilding plan calls for a larger fleet. Thomas Stiehle, CFO of Ingalls, will replace Kastner as HII's CFO. Kastner and Stiehle will begin their new jobs on 12 February and will report to Mike Petters, HII's president and CEO. Asked whether Kastner's appointment means he is being groomed to succeed Petters someday, Brenton said, “there is no change to Mike's role, and he will continue to be the president and chief executive officer of HII for the foreseeable future”. https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/huntington-ingalls-names-new-coo-cfo

All news

Air Force Expands AI-Based Predictive Maintenance

On the same subject

Electric Boat readies to deliver attack sub Oregon, almost two years after last delivery Electric Boat is weeks from delivering attack submarine Oregon, about 16 months after Oregon was originally due and nearly two years after the shipyard delivered its last submarine.

Electric Boat readies to deliver attack sub Oregon, almost two years after last delivery
Electric Boat is weeks from delivering attack submarine Oregon, about 16 months after Oregon was originally due and nearly two years after the shipyard delivered its last submarine.