June 27, 2019 | International, Aerospace, Other Defence

The Air Force’s 5 principles to advance artificial intelligence

The Air Force has been on an almost three-year journey to integrate artificial intelligence into operations and that effort will soon be more apparent as the service plans to declassify its artificial intelligence strategy, Capt. Michael Kanaan, the service's co-chair for artificial intelligence, said June 26 at the AI World Government Conference in Washington, D.C.

“We had to find a way to get us to a place where we could talk about AI in a pragmatic, principled, meaningful way,” said Kanaan.

During his speech, Kanaan laid out five principles that have guided the Air Force with artificial intelligence in the meantime. They are:

1. Technological barriers will be a significant hurdle.

Kanaan said the service has made it a point to limit technological obstacles. However, one problem contractors may face is higher priced products geared toward security-driven government programs versus the same, less expensive commercial programs. A new attitude toward commercial off-the-shelf technology within the service can help, he said.

“Too often working with our agencies, they have to take risks in the framework of time, people and bespoke unique solutions to deploy on your systems,” Kanaan said. However, this does not have to be the case. “Accept commercial standards because unclassified does not mean un-secured."

2. Data needs to be treated like a strategic asset.

“We used to ask the question, if a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound. Well, in the 21st century the real question to ask is was something there to measure it,” he said. He explained this involves looking at when and how to digitize workflows.

3. The Air Force must be able to democratize access to AI.

“This is an opportunity now to say, machine learning as our end state, if done right, should be readable to everyone else,” Kanaan said.

This will involve balancing support and operations and taking into consider the reality that the demographics of the traditional workforce are going to shift, Kanaan explained.

“Not looking at the top one percent, but focusing on the 99 percent of our workforce,” he said. “The Air Force, of those 450,000 people, 88 percent are millennials [adults under 40]."

Looking to digital natives in the integration process will be valuable because this younger slice of the workforce already has insights into how this technology works.

4. Computer skills must be viewed as strategic assets.

Just as the Defense Department has treated foreign language skills as an asset, Kanaan said, the Air Force must view computer skills the same way.

In the United States, 50,000 graduates qualified for 500,000 technology-based jobs each year, and the Air Force must promote emerging technology skills the way it did traditional electrical engineering, astronautics and aeronautics during the space race, Kanaan said. “I believe that it is time for another national defense education act," Kanaan said.

5. Communication, transparency and cooperation are imperative.

As innovations are made, communication, transparency and cooperation are necessary for discussions with international governments, industry and academic partners, Kanaan said.

“As Americans we should be communicating about the ethics of artificial intelligence and how we view society every single day. These are important topics and they do provide that signal to the rest of the world that we view our society in different ways than maybe some others and our values and norms are important because AI at its end state bolsters our biases.”

Most importantly, these issues must be addressed sooner rather than later, Kanaan said.

https://www.c4isrnet.com/artificial-intelligence/2019/06/26/the-air-forces-5-principles-to-advance-artificial-intelligence/

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September 13, 2019 | International, Aerospace

Lockheed To Migrate F-35 Backbone To Cloud Architecture
Lee Hudson and Steve Trimble Lockheed Martin intends to migrate its F-35 digital support backbone, the Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS), to a native-cloud architecture by year's end and field it in 2020. A joint government and industry team tested an early version of the new framework in both lab and flight test environments in May, company spokesman Mike Friedman said in a Sept. 11 statement to Aerospace DAILY. “By moving all ALIS applications to a cloud-native, open architecture, we can rapidly develop and test pieces of ALIS without having to load the entire system for each upgrade,” he said. “And instead of aggregating many fixes over a 12- to 18-month period into a single upgrade, the new approach allows developers to create, test, receive feedback and implement fixes every few weeks while reducing development and fielding costs.” The new construct still must be tested in an operational environment so that developers can garner user feedback to refine their approach. Separately, the newest ALIS software release, 3.1.1, is saving pilots an average of 35 min. in report generation and review. The new software release also is saving maintainers 40 min. each day in report generation and several hours weekly in managing fleet directive reports, he added. “This latest release leverages the development work Lockheed Martin completed in 2018 with its internal investment funding,” Friedman said. “In 2018, Lockheed Martin invested approximately $50 million in ALIS and will continue investing approximately $180 million through 2021 to modernize ALIS and enhance enterprise sustainment systems.” Extrapolated across the enterprise of more than 425 aircraft flying today, it will save more than 20,000 manhours annually. Lockheed Martin has invested in additional time saving and efficiency ALIS automations and is working with the government on implementation and fielding plans, Friedman said. https://aviationweek.com/defense/lockheed-migrate-f-35-backbone-cloud-architecture
March 1, 2023 | International, Aerospace

US Air Force awards Boeing first contract for fleet of 26 E-7 aircraft
Boeing's contract will be worth up to $1.2 billion, as the service begins work on a fleet to replace the iconic E-3 Sentry.
October 9, 2018 | International, Aerospace

Air Force introduces hypersonic flight research vehicle
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The Air Force’s 5 principles to advance artificial intelligence

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US Air Force awards Boeing first contract for fleet of 26 E-7 aircraft Boeing's contract will be worth up to $1.2 billion, as the service begins work on a fleet to replace the iconic E-3 Sentry.

US Air Force awards Boeing first contract for fleet of 26 E-7 aircraft
Boeing's contract will be worth up to $1.2 billion, as the service begins work on a fleet to replace the iconic E-3 Sentry.