Data Friendliness Will Make Some Weapons More Valuable, Says Northrop CTO

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  July 10, 2020 | International, C4ISR, Security

  Pentagon AI center shifts focus to joint war-fighting operations

  Nathan Strout The Pentagon's artificial intelligence hub is shifting its focus to enabling joint war-fighting operations, developing artificial intelligence tools that will be integrated into the Department of Defense's Joint All-Domain Command and Control efforts. “As we have matured, we are now devoting special focus on our joint war-fighting operation and its mission initiative, which is focused on the priorities of the National Defense Strategy and its goal of preserving America's military and technological advantages over our strategic competitors,” Nand Mulchandani, acting director of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, told reporters July 8. “The AI capabilities JAIC is developing as part of the joint war-fighting operations mission initiative will use mature AI technology to create a decisive advantage for the American war fighter.” That marks a significant change from where JAIC stood more than a year ago, when the organization was still being stood up with a focus on using AI for efforts like predictive maintenance. That transformation appears to be driven by the DoD's focus on developing JADC2, a system of systems approach that will connect sensors to shooters in near-real time. “JADC2 is not a single product. It is a collection of platforms that get stitched together — woven together ― into effectively a platform. And JAIC is spending a lot of time and resources focused on building the AI component on top of JADC2,” said the acting director. According to Mulchandani, the fiscal 2020 spending on the joint war-fighting operations initiative is greater than JAIC spending on all other mission initiatives combined. In May, the organization awarded Booz Allen Hamilton a five-year, $800 million task order to support the joint war-fighting operations initiative. As Mulchandani acknowledged to reporters, that task order exceeds JAIC's budget for the next few years and it will not be spending all of that money. One example of the organization's joint war-fighting work is the fire support cognitive system, an effort JAIC was pursuing in partnership with the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab and the U.S. Army's Program Executive Office Command, Control and Communications-Tactical. That system, Mulchandani said, will manage and triage all incoming communications in support of JADC2. Mulchandani added that JAIC was about to begin testing its new flagship joint war-fighting project, which he did not identify by name. “We do have a project going on under joint war fighting which we are going to be actually go into testing,” he said. “They are very tactical edge AI is the way I'd describe it. That work is going to be tested. It's actually promising work — we're very excited about it.” “As I talked about the pivot from predictive maintenance and others to joint war fighting, that is probably the flagship project that we're sort of thinking about and talking about that will go out there,” he added. While left unnamed, the acting director assured reporters that the project would involve human operators and full human control. “We believe that the current crop of AI systems today [...] are going to be cognitive assistance,” he said. “Those types of information overload cleanup are the types of products that we're actually going to be investing in.” “Cognitive assistance, JADC2, command and control—these are all pieces,” he added. https://www.c4isrnet.com/artificial-intelligence/2020/07/08/pentagon-ai-center-shifts-focus-to-joint-warfighting-operations/

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  September 18, 2020 | International, Aerospace

  Companies are lining up to build a replacement for the MQ-9 Reaper drone

  Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — As the U.S. Air Force embarks on a new effort to field a replacement for the MQ-9 Reaper drone, multiple defense companies are stepping up with new, long-range, stealthy design concepts for the emerging MQ-Next competition. On Sept. 11, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin released renderings of their respective offerings for the Air Force's MQ-Next program. Northrop made public its swarming SG-2 concept, and Lockheed announced its flying-wing design. General Atomics put out a concept drawing of a next-generation uncrewed aerial system on Sept. 14 to correspond with the first day of the Air Force Association's Air, Space and Cyber Conference. For the past two decades, the Air Force has relied on the MQ-1 Predator and then the MQ-9 Reaper — both made by General Atomics — as its workhorse drones for surveillance and strike missions in the Middle East. But as more commercial drone makers enter the fray, it may become more economical and effective to operate a family of UAVs, with some built for high-end penetrating strike and reconnaissance missions, and others for low-end surveillance from commercial off-the-shelf manufacturers, said Will Roper, the Air Force's top acquisition official. “You might make the case that the Department [of the Air Force] needs both,” he said during a Sept. 15 roundtable with reporters. “But I wanted to give our team time to discuss with industry options that exist on both sides of that divide. We've got a lot of interesting responses, and I'm in discussions right now with the operational side of the Air Force about what they think the requirement is going to be.” The Air Force issued a request for information to industry on June 3, seeking market research on available technologies as well as conceptual designs. Boeing and Kratos each confirmed they responded to the request for information but have not released concept art for their potential offerings. General Atomics, Lockheed and Northrop have begun to shed light on their respective designs. Northrop's flying-wing design bears a close resemblance to the X-47B the company designed for the Navy, including using the same Distributed Autonomy/Responsive Control flight management system, which allows for operators to task multiple drones to fly autonomously according to parameters set by the user. However, the aircraft in the rendering is just one potential concept that Northrop could develop for the MQ-Next family of systems, said Richard Sullivan, the company's vice president of program management. “The customer didn't really give us strict requirements. We know that the [National Defense Strategy] scenario calls out environments with a pretty significant threat scenario. And so, what would we do to mitigate those?” he said. “We looked at those things, and we came up with a family of concepts ... trying to solve the problem across the landscape in terms of the ranges, the threats and the costs.” The General Atomics concept features a stealthy, long-winged, jet-powered air vehicle — a departure from the turboprop-powered MQ-9 Reaper. Dave Alexander, president of General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, told Defense News that the aircraft's survivability and endurance, which is “significantly longer” than the Reaper, will be defining characteristics for the company's offering. Alexander also pointed to internal investments made by the company's aeronautics division and its Electromagnetic Systems Group on advanced propulsion systems, though he declined to say more about potential engine advancements. Keeping costs down will also be an important factor, he said. “Some platforms that get up to super high costs, even though they're unmanned — you can't afford to lose them. So they're not attrition-tolerant, and we want to hang on to that piece of it.” Lockheed Martin's operational analysis has found that an optimal-force mix of drones will require high-end aircraft and low-cost, expendable systems that can operate in swarms, according to Jacob Johnson, the company's unmanned aerial systems program manager. The company's next-generation UAS concept art features a tailless, stealthy, flying-wing design geared toward the high-end fight, although Johnson said Lockheed may put forward less exquisite systems depending on the Air Force's final requirements. “Over the last few years, with a lot of the [drone] shootdowns across the globe, one of the trends that I think is hard to ignore is what used to be considered permissive airspace. [It] is becoming increasingly contested,” he said. “Survivability is really the key to almost any mission, and I think that trend is going to continue into the future.” However, survivability alone will not be enough, Johnson said. The Air Force has made clear that any future air system must plug into the service's Advanced Battle Management System and export data across that system. Lockheed also plans to develop the drone using digital engineering to lower the total cost. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/air-force-association/2020/09/17/defense-companies-are-lining-up-to-build-a-replace

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  June 11, 2018 | International, Aerospace

  Watchdog warns Pentagon to fix F-35 tech problems before full-rate production starts

  By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — The F-35 fighter jet is finally cruising toward the end of its development phase, but a congressional watchdog is warning the Defense Department not to move to full-rate production until it's certain it's resolved all critical technical issues. The F-35 Joint Program Office intends to make a decision in October 2019 on whether to move to full-rate production, but had planned to defer certain critical technical deficiencies until after that time, the Government Accountability Office stated in a June 5 report. That could make the program more expensive overall. “In its rush to cross the finish line, the program has made some decisions that are likely to affect aircraft performance and reliability and maintainability for years to come. Specifically, the program office plans to resolve a number of critical deficiencies after full-rate production,” it wrote. “Resolving these deficiencies outside of the developmental program may contribute to additional concurrency costs.” The GAO advised the F-35 JPO to resolve all critical deficiencies before full-rate production — a recommendation with which the JPO concurs and says it will pursue. However, it's important to understand what “resolve” means in this case. “The Department of Defense expects the F-35 Program to resolve all critical deficiencies prior to entering Initial Operational Test and Evaluation (IOT&E), with either a fix, a Service Operational Test Agency approved workaround or a formal acceptance of the deficiency,” the JPO said in a statement. “The full-rate production decision will include an assessment of SDD [development phase] and IOT&E DRs [deficiency reports], as well as follow-on improvement DRs deferred for post-SDD action.” Translation: While the JPO will take steps to address all critical deficiencies, there are some that may require future work in order to be completely fixed. GAO noted that it is common practice for Defense Department acquisition programs to require that problems are “resolved” and not “fixed” because it “affords the department with more flexibility to develop alternative solutions rather than technical fixes.” In a statement, Greg Ulmer, Lockheed Martin's vice president of the F-35 program, said the company was working with the JPO to prioritize and correct issues. The F-35's next stage The GAO report was also critical about the JPO's new plan for Block 4 follow-on modernization, telling its congressional audience that it should consider holding back funding for that phase of the program until the JPO provides full details including an independent cost estimate, final acquisition strategy and test plan. Last year, Vice. Adm. Mat Winter, the F-35's program executive, announced that the JPO would pursue a path of rapid, agile software modernization during Block 4 called continuous capability development and delivery, or C2D2. The thrust behind C2D2 is for the government to constantly be developing, testing and delivering new capabilities as they become available, instead of as part of a traditional batch of upgrades every couple years. Currently, the cost of the new plan is unknown. The Department of Defense plans to update its acquisition strategy in time for a Defense Acquisition Board meeting this month, when it will decide when to start the competition for Block 4 development. By: Valerie Insinna Currently, the cost of the new plan is unknown. The Department of Defense plans to update its acquisition strategy in time for a Defense Acquisition Board meeting this month, when it will decide when to start the competition for Block 4 development. Sign up for our Military Space Report Get the latest news about space and strategic systems Subscribe However, a full business case won't be finalized until March 2019 — despite the fact that the Pentagon has asked for $278 million in fiscal 2019 for Block 4 development. “As a result, DOD requested funding for modernization over a year before the program has a business case for Block 4,” the report stated. “This means that the program is asking Congress to authorize and appropriate funds for Block 4 without insight into its complete cost, schedule, and technical baselines. Furthermore, once Congress appropriates these funds, DOD would be able to award a contract, beginning a long-term commitment to Block 4, the costs of which are not fully understood.” However, the GAO also acknowledged that there are some elements of that plan that could end up being a boon to the DoD. For one, it plans to use “government-owned open systems architecture and acquire data rights” for Block 4 development, which could increase competition throughout the F-35's life cycle and make it easier and cheaper to upgrade the platform. The C2D2 strategy may also “potentially shorten time frames for delivering capabilities over a traditional acquisition approach,” the agency said in the report. Most of the noted flaws in the C2D2 plan revolve around oversight — specifically the DoD's decision to keep Block 4 underneath the F-35 program instead of making it a separate acquisition program. “According to DOD's January 2018 report, however, each capability will be baselined separately in the program's future Block 4 annual reports to Congress,” the GAO noted. “We will review these future reports to Congress to determine what level of insight they provide into the program's cost, schedule, and performance goals.” https://www.defensenews.com/air/2018/06/05/watchdog-group-to-pentagon-fix-f-35-tech-problems-before-full-rate-production-starts/