AVs Switchblade 600 selected for Tranche 1 of the U.S Department of Defenses replicator initiative

On the same subject

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  September 7, 2018 | International, C4ISR

  Fully autonomous ‘mobile intelligent entities’ coming to the battlefields of the future

  By: Kelsey Atherton WASHINGTON — A killer robot by any other name is far more palatable to the general public. That may be part of the logic behind the Army Research Laboratory Chief Scientist Alexander Kott's decision to refer to thinking and moving machines on the battlefield as “mobile intelligent entities.” Kott pitched the term, along with the new ARL concept of fully autonomous maneuver, at the 2nd Annual Defense News Conference yesterday, in an panel on artificial intelligence that kept circling back to underlying questions of great power competition. “Fully autonomous maneuver is an ambitious, heretical terminology,” Kott said. “Fully autonomous is more than just mobility, it's about decision making.” If there is a canon against which this autonomy seems heretical, it is likely the international community's recent conference and negotiations over how, exactly, to permit or restrict lethal autonomous weapon systems. The most recent meeting of the Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems took place last week in Geneva, Switzerland and concluded with a draft of recommendations on Aug. 31st. This diplomatic process, and the potential verdict of international law, could check or halt the development of AI-enabled weapons, especially ones where machines select and attack targets without human interventions. That's the principle objection raised by humanitarian groups like the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, as well as the nations that called for a preemptive ban on such autonomous weapons. Kott understands the ethical concern, drawing an analogy to the moral concerns and tradeoffs in developing self driving cars. “All know about self driving cars, all the angst, the issue of mobility... take all this concern and multiply it by orders of magnitude and now you have the issues of mobility on the battlefield,” said Kott. “Mobile intelligent entities on the battlefield have to deal with a much more unstructured, much less orderly environment than what self-driving cars have to do. This is a dramatically different world of urban rubble and broken vehicles, and all kind of dangers, in which we are putting a lot of effort.” Full article: https://www.defensenews.com/smr/defense-news-conference/2018/09/06/fully-autonomous-maneuver-coming-to-the-battlefields-of-the-future

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  March 31, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  Pentagon seeks to classify future year defense spending plans

  By: Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has asked Congress to allow it to classify its Future Year Defense Program spending projections, new documents have revealed. The FYDP numbers, which project five years into the future, are considered essential information for the public to see where the Department of Defense expects to invest in the future, and to hold the department accountable when those spending plans change. Information on the request was published Monday by Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists. Aftergood wrote that the proposal would “make it even harder for Congress and the public to refocus and reconstruct the defense budget.” In its request to Congress, the Pentagon wrote that an unclassified FYDP “might inadvertently reveal sensitive information,” despite the fact the numbers have been unclassified since 1989. “With the ready availability of data mining tools and techniques, and the large volume of data on the Department's operations and resources already available in the public domain, additional unclassified FYDP data, if it were released, potentially allows adversaries to derive sensitive information by compilation about the Department's weapons development, force structure, and strategic plans,” the DoD wrote. It added that there is a commercial concern with the FYDP providing too much information to industry. “The Department is also concerned about the potential harm to its interactions with commercial interests by release of FYDP information prior to the budget year. Exposing resources allocated to future acquisition plans may encourage bids and other development activities not beneficial to the Government,” the proposal read. Seamus Daniels, a budget analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in a tweet that “DoD's proposal to eliminate the unclassified FYDP severely limits the public's ability to track how strategy aligns with budgets and how program plans change over time. Serious step backwards in transparency from the department.” Earlier this year, the No. 2 uniformed officer in the Pentagon railed against the department's tendency toward overclassification, calling it “unbelievably ridiculous.” The Pentagon has requested a number of legislative changes this year, in addition to the FYDP classification attempt. Among the notable requests are one that would remove the requirement for the defense secretary to “notify the Senate and House Armed Services Committees whenever the Secretary establishes or modifies an end-of-quarter strength level;” a request for the ability to add an additional 15 general officer billets in the combatant commands and three general officer billets on the Joint Staff, to be filled exclusively by reserve component officers; and a request to rename the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict as the assistant secretary of defense for “Special Operations and Irregular Warfare.” https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2020/03/30/pentagon-seeks-to-classify-future-year-defense-spending-plans/

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  May 22, 2019 | International, Aerospace, C4ISR

  Eutelsat, Maxar Selected for NASA Study

  By Annamarie Nyirady Maxar Technologies and Eutelsat were selected to participate in NASA's Space Relay Partnership and Services Study. This studies future systems that could revolutionize NASA's space-based communications architecture through innovative technologies and commercial partnerships. The future architecture would be used for scientific and human exploration missions in Earth orbit, at the Moon, and throughout the solar system beginning in the mid-2020s. NASA's Space Communications and Navigation Program currently offers space-based radio frequency communications services for all of the agency's space communications activities via its Space Network. The Space Network consists of a constellation of geosynchronous satellites called TDRS and ground systems that operate as a relay system between satellites. Leveraging current and planned commercial communication and navigation infrastructure, Maxar will study concepts to augment the Space Network with more advanced optical communications capabilities and enhanced radio frequency services. Maxar will also study a framework that allows for a transition from government-owned and managed space services to commercially developed and operated services. This future architecture could unlock the promise of human exploration, new and greater scientific discovery, and reduce development and operations costs for future missions through improved communication and navigation services. More specifically, Eutelsat was selected for NASA's Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships-2 (NextSTEP-2) as part of the NASA Space Relay Partnership and Services Study. The NextSTEP-2 program seeks to establish partnerships with U.S. companies to evaluate the incorporation of commercial elements into the future space relay services that will be provided by the agency's Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) Networks. https://www.satellitetoday.com/government-military/2019/05/16/eutelsat-maxar-selected-for-nasa-study/