Bell Awarded Funding for Phase 1B of DARPA Speed and Runway Independent Technologies (SPRINT) X-Plane Program

On the same subject

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  November 19, 2021 | International, C4ISR, Security

  DoD SBIR/STTR Component BAA Pre-Release: Army SBIR BAA 21.4, Topics A214-045 through A214-51

  The DoD Small Business and Technology Partnerships Office announces the pre-release of the following Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) topics: Army SBIR 21.4 SBIR Topic A214-045: “Graph Neural Networks (GNN) for UxS Collaborative Agent Control,” published at https://sam.gov/opp/178e0311b4d04df2bf25025d5c99473d/view SBIR Topic A214-046: “Synthetic RF Training Data Generation,” published at https://sam.gov/opp/fa78f3dd832249ec925b092246c8ed0f/view SBIR Topic A214-047: “Height of Burst scoring through Machine Learning,” published at https://sam.gov/opp/e94aafd959174ec2882511ace4c3e939/view SBIR Topic A214-048: “Machine Learning (ML) for Breach Routing,” published at https://sam.gov/opp/f8c317353e0547f5b139fb87016075af/view SBIR Topic A214-049: “Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) for Radio Frequency (RF) Modulation Recognition,” published at https://sam.gov/opp/84a904f180234f85bc861a604844c8d8/view SBIR Topic A214-050: “Natural Language Processing+,” published at https://sam.gov/opp/a27caede2da442ce86ec6f52c2aa13f1/view SBIR Topic A214-051: “Asynchronous Neuromorphic Digital Readout Circuit for Infrared Cameras for Autonomous Target Acquisition and Autonomous Vehicles,” published at https://sam.gov/opp/b8c670091b7947ca99658c48f62e0621/view IMPORTANT DATES: November 16, 2021: Topics pre-release November 16, 2021: Topic Q&A opens to questions November 30, 2021: Topics open, begin submitted proposals in DSIP December 21, 2021: Topic Q&A closes to new questions at 12:00 pm ET January 4, 2022: Topics close, full proposals must be submitted in DSIP no later than 12:00 p.m. ET Full topics and instructions are available at the links provided above.

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  December 31, 2018 | International, C4ISR

  US Spies Want to Know How to Spot Compromised AI

  BY DAVE GERSHGORN What if you were training an AI, and an adversary slipped a few altered images into its study set? The US government's research arm for intelligence organizations, IARPA, is looking for ideas on how to detect “Trojan” attacks on artificial intelligence, according to government procurement documents. Here's the problem the agency wants to solve: At a simple level, modern image-recognition AI learns from analyzing many images of an object. If you want to train an algorithm to detect pictures of a road signs, you have to supply it with pictures of different signs from all different angles. The algorithm learns the relationships between the pixels of the images, and how the structures and patterns of stop signs differ from those of speed-limit signs. But suppose that, during the AI-training phase, an adversary slipped a few extra images (Trojan horses) into your speed-limit-sign detector, ones showing stop signs with sticky notes on them. Now, if the adversary wants to trick your AI in the real world into thinking a stop sign is a speed-limit sign, it just has to put a sticky note on it. Imagine this in the world of autonomous cars; it could be a nightmare scenario. The kinds of tools that IARPA (Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity) wants would be able to detect issues or anomalies after the algorithm has been trained to recognize different objects in images. This isn't the only kind of attack on AI that's possible. Security researchers have also warned about inherent flaws in the way artificial intelligence perceives the world, making it possible to alter physical objects like stop signs to make AI algorithms miscategorize them without ever messing with how it was trained, called “adversarial examples.” While neither Trojan attacks nor the adversarial examples are known to have been used by malicious parties in the real world, researchers have said they're increasingly possible. IARPA is looking at a short timeline as well, expecting the program to conclude after a maximum of two years. https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2018/12/us-spies-want-know-how-spot-compromised-ai/153826

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  October 29, 2018 | International, Aerospace

  Could the Air Force restart the C-17 production line?

  By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — As part of the Air Force's push to boost its number of operational squadrons to 386 total, and the service may need additional C-17s, the head of Air Mobility Command said Friday. The service's expansion plan, which was named “The Air Force We Need” and unveiled this September, called for one airlift squadron and 14 tanker squadrons to be added by 2030. At the time, service leaders from Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson to AMC Commander Gen. Maryanne Miller, said more work would need to be done in order to determine the mix of aircraft needed to get to the 386 squadron goal, which is 74 more than the service has now. But now, AMC has a better idea of what it could require, Miller told reporters during an Oct. 26 roundtable. The analysis from “The Air Force We Need” supports adding three new C-17 Globemaster III squadrons and cutting two C-130 Hercules squadrons from the airlift inventory, she said. That would bring the total number of airlift squadrons up to 54, an increase of one squadron. But Boeing's C-17 production line in Long Beach, California is dead, with the company having manufactured the final Globemaster in 2015. Increasing the number of C-17s could entail restarting the production line — an expensive proposition for any aircraft — but Miller said the Air Force had not yet begun discussing the possibility with Boeing. "Those are the details that we have not looked at,” Miller said. “That will be the next discussion as we proceed, talking with Congress and working with Congress, because the same would apply for the tanker fleet,” she said. “An additional 14 squadrons by 2030 — what would be the path to get there? Something we're looking at, but again, this is just the initial stages of talking with Congress and getting this concept out there." It's unclear what other options would exist to increase the number of C-17 squadrons aside from restarting the production line. The U.S. Air Force currently operates 222 C-17s, but began retiring some of the oldest Globemaster IIIs in 2012. It may be possible that those C-17s could be taken out of storage and revitalized. A spokeswoman for Boeing had no comment. Miller stressed that discussions about the makeup of the future airlift fleet are still in the beginning stages, and will be informed not only by Congress but also by an ongoing AMC study. That Mobility Capabilities Requirements Study is slated to be delivered to Capitol Hill in a couple of months, and may have different recommendations than the “Air Force We Need” analysis on how many airlift squadrons are needed, and of what aircraft models. “The two studies took slightly different approaches to that,” she said. “The results of each of those studies will be reviewed and I think there will be a combination somewhere in there to try to validate the results of those studies put together.” https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/airlift-tanker-annual/2018/10/26/could-the-air-force-restart-the-c-17-production-line