Contract Awards by US Department of Defense – October 16, 2020

On the same subject

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  December 21, 2020 | International, Aerospace, C4ISR

  AI Copilot: Air Force Achieves First Military Flight With Artificial Intelligence

  Signaling a major leap forward for national defense in the digital age, the Air Force flew with artificial intelligence as a working aircrew member onboard a military aircraft for the first time Dec. 15. The AI algorithm, known as ARTUµ, flew with the pilot, U.S. Air Force Maj. “Vudu”, on a U-2 Dragon Lady assigned to the 9th Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base. Air Combat Command's U-2 Federal Laboratory researchers developed ARTUµ and trained it to execute specific in-flight tasks that otherwise would be done by the pilot. The test flight was the result of years of concerted effort within the Air Force to apply cutting-edge technology to military operations as it competes with other world powers in the digital age. “ARTUµ's groundbreaking flight culminates our three-year journey to becoming a digital force,” said Dr. William Roper, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics. “Putting AI safely in command of a U.S. military system for the first time ushers in a new age of human-machine teaming and algorithmic competition. Failing to realize AI's full potential will mean ceding decision advantage to our adversaries.” During this flight, ARTUµ was responsible for sensor employment and tactical navigation, while the pilot flew the aircraft and coordinated with the AI on sensor operation. Together, they flew a reconnaissance mission during a simulated missile strike. ARTUµ's primary responsibility was finding enemy launchers while the pilot was on the lookout for threatening aircraft, both sharing the U-2's radar. The flight was part of a precisely constructed scenario which pitted the AI against another dynamic computer algorithm in order to prove the new technology. “We know that in order to fight and win in a future conflict with a peer adversary, we must have a decisive digital advantage,” said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr. “AI will play a critical role in achieving that edge, so I'm incredibly proud of what the team accomplished. We must accelerate change and that only happens when our Airmen push the limits of what we thought was possible.” After takeoff, the sensor control was positively handed-off to ARTUµ who then manipulated the sensor, based on insight previously learned from over a half-million computer simulated training iterations. The pilot and AI successfully teamed to share the sensor and achieve the mission objectives. The U-2 Federal Laboratory designed this AI technology to be easily transferable to other systems and plan to further refine the technology. Today's flight provided invaluable data for not only the team to learn from, but also ARTUµ. “Blending expertise of a pilot with capabilities of machine learning, this historic flight directly answers the National Defense Strategy's call to invest in autonomous systems,” said Secretary of the Air Force Barbara Barrett. “Innovations in artificial intelligence will transform both the air and space domains.” The U-2 Federal Laboratory is a 15 U.S.C. compliant organization established to bring together a “confluence of warfighter, developer, and acquirer” vertically-integrated under the same operational roof. The lab has developed and been approved by the National Institute of Standards and Technology to establish the 20th Laboratory Accreditation Program in the federal government. It promotes “edge development” – a concept to develop new software integration on operational systems in a bounded, safe environment. The historic flight with AI comes just two months after the U-2 Federal Laboratory team updated inflight software for the first time during a U-2 training mission. The team leveraged the open-source container-orchestration software Kubernetes, another military first.ieve. We want to give the UK the tools it needs to defeat coronavirus and get back on its feet as soon as possible." https://www.asdnews.com/news/defense/2020/12/16/ai-copilot-air-force-achieves-first-military-flight-with-artificial-intelligence

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  October 1, 2020 | International, C4ISR, Security

  Palantir wants to be the ‘central operating system for all US defense programs’

  Andrew Eversden WASHINGTON — Palantir, the Silicon Valley-based software company that successfully sued the Army in 2016, wants to become “the central operating system for all U.S. defense programs," the company wrote in paperwork filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for its initial public offering. The software company, known for its controversial work with the U.S. government, went public on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday said that it wants its big data analytics platforms to “become the default operating system for data across the U.S. government.” Palantir, according to the filing, views the U.S. government's push toward alternative acquisition methods as a primary opportunity to for their company to grow. The federal government, particularly the Defense Department, is increasingly using what's known as Other Transaction Authorities and Small Business innovation Research contracts to eliminate the long timelines associated with the traditional contracting process. In 2019, research showed that those types of awards accounted for nearly 10 percent of the department's research, development, test and evaluation spending. “Our software is well positioned for this new procurement approach. Our platforms have been tested and improved over years of use across industries and can rapidly be deployed by the government with minor configurations. This gives us a significant edge over contractors selling custom tools,” the filing states. Palantir expects that there is $26 billion worth of work in the federal space, the filing stated. The company offers two big data analytics platforms, Foundry and Gotham, for data-driven decisionmaking by its customers. According to the filing, the company is currently working with Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines, Special Operations Command and “other defense agencies,” along with several other civilian agencies, including the Department of Veterans Affairs. The filing also states that the Army uses the platform to “keep one million troops ready for their missions, and every battalion in the U.S. Army uses our software for intelligence analysis.” In its filing, the the company specifically cites the DoD's $144 billion in fiscal 2020 on procurement funds and $105 billion on research, development, testing, and evaluation dollars as areas where its software “can contribute to programs covered by both of those budgets.” In 2016, Palantir sued the Army over its procurement strategy for an intelligence analysis system. After winning that case, which forced the Army to seek commercial solutions before building their own system. Since winning the case in 2018, the company has received $134.5 million in revenue from Army accounts, up from about $52 million in the previous 10 years. “Our victory in federal court is transforming the procurement of goods and services across the U.S. federal government,” the filing states. “For us, this shift in government acquisition represents a significant expansion of our [total addressable market] with the U.S. federal government. We are working towards becoming the central operating system for all U.S. defense program.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/industry/2020/09/30/palantir-wants-to-be-the-central-operating-system-for-all-us-defense-programs/

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  July 22, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security

  COVID Drives AUSA Mega-Conference Online: Gen. Ham

  Bringing together an estimated 33,000 soldiers and civilians from around the world was just too dangerous in the coronavirus era. By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.on July 21, 2020 at 3:42 PM WASHINGTON: Every October, the Walter E. Washington convention center in downtown DC – a behemoth building covering two whole city blocks – fills with soldiers, contractors, and reporters. Over 30,000 people pack shoulder-to-shoulder in conference rooms to hear from Army leaders, speak face to face, line up for fried chicken, shake hands, hug, and handle military hardware from prototype rifles to full-sized tanks. But with COVID-19 cases rising alarmingly around the country, none of that will happen this October. “We've made the difficult decision to convert the 2020 AUSA Annual Meeting from an in-person meeting to a virtual experience,” said retired Gen. Carter Ham, the Association of the US Army's president and CEO, in a statement Tuesday afternoon. The mega-conference – historically one of the biggest in-person gatherings for the defense industry in the DC area – will now take place entirely online over Oct. 13-16. Breaking Defense plans to cover the virtual event as exhaustively (and as exhaustingly for our reporters) as it has the physical one every year since 2011. “With recent trends, it just became clear to me that we simply could not, in any reasonable manner, ensure a safe, secure environment for the 32,000-plus people we expected this October,” Gen. Ham told me in an follow-up email. “We are working very closely with the Army to craft an agenda which provides opportunities for key leaders to connect with our members and constituents.” “One of the keys to that is finding ways to connect Army leaders with the businesses, large and small, who normally are present in the exhibition hall,” Ham said. “Finding a way to do something similar to that experience in the virtual world will be a challenge, but it is an integral part of the AUSA Annual Meeting, so we'll figure it out.” AUSA is still working out the logistics of this massive switch. Registrations and sponsorship agreements from the in-person version of the event will not automatically carry over. “Registration for the new virtual meeting is expected to open by September,” the AUSA statement says. “AUSA is now coordinating details for the virtual event, and team members will be reaching out directly to exhibitors and sponsors about new opportunities.” With over 600 sponsors in a typical year – ranging from small businesses with a single, small booth to titans like Boeing and Lockheed Martin – the Annual Meeting is a major source of revenue for AUSA. How this will impact the association's budget is unclear – even to AUSA itself at this point. Breaking Defense graphic from AUSA data “The AUSA Annual Meeting is our most important revenue-generating event of the year,” Ham said bluntly. “The revenue from this event is largely what allows us to conduct other events throughout the year. So, I don't know yet precisely what the impact will be, but there will be some effect. Fortunately, AUSA is in a strong financial position so we will be able to sustain this change.” AUSA's latest annual report said the 2018 conference “generated $16 million in revenue,” just under half the association's total projected revenue of $33 million for the 2018-2019 fiscal year. (The report for 2019-2020 hasn't been published yet). But AUSA also reported its investment portfolio was worth $51 million; that was as of May 2019, before COVID roiled the stock market, but the portfolio should still be large enough to offer at least some buffer. The initial wave of the COVID-19 coronavirus forced AUSA to cancel its Global Force conference in Huntsville, Ala. this March just a week ahead of opening day. That gave the association no time to schedule virtual alternatives, although multiple events from Army aircraft announcements to Shark Tank-style pitch meetings were hastily turned into teleconferences or webcasts. Global Force had expected some 6,000 attendees. Since then, AUSA has held a host of online events, largely but by no means entirely without glitches, but they were all much smaller in scale. The Annual Meeting had expected some 33,000 attendees. Moving that conference online will be a vastly larger organizational and technical challenge. It's also an opportunity, Ham argued. “While we will all certainly miss the opportunity to be together with the broader Army Family, choosing to provide our programs in a virtual environment does offer us an opportunity to connect with audiences who might not know AUSA all that well or who have simply not been able to travel to Washington DC for the event in prior years,” he told me. “I view this very much as a chance to extend our reach and to more effectively fulfill our mission to support the Army.” Even if nothing glitches, though, the virtual Annual Meeting won't replace the human connection that came from the Army's annual gathering of its disparate tribes. “What will I miss? This is the Army's family reunion,” Ham said. “Every October, the opportunity to see old friends and to make new friends is the most enjoyable part of the Annual Meeting. I'll miss that, to be sure, but I also know that via this virtual experience, we will make new connections, new relationships that will make AUSA 2021 even better when we can all be together again.” https://breakingdefense.com/2020/07/covid-drives-ausa-mega-conference-online/