February 18, 2019 | International, C4ISR

There’s a Big Obstacle to the Pentagon’s New Strategy to Speed AI to Troops

BY PATRICK TUCKER

Defense officials want to accelerate the delivery of artificial-intelligence tools from the lab to the field. But it's hard to obtain the massive data streams that make AI work.

The Pentagon's new artificial-intelligence strategy, released on Tuesday, aims to get AI out of research labs and into the hands of troops and employees across the Defense Department. But truly transforming the Defense Department into an “AI First” institution will require help from tech companies — and the military to rethink its approach to the massive data streams that AI needs to work.

In a conversation with reporters on Tuesday, Dana Deasy, chief information officer of the Defense Department, and Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, who runs its new Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, said the JAIC will develop AI tools and programs to assist with everything the Pentagon does. That will eventually include combat operations, although both said the military won't deviate from its core doctrine that dictates how humans are to have authority over autonomous systems.

They said near-term projects include efforts to predict forest fires, better spot network anomalies that can indicate cyber attacks, and, most prominently, predictive maintenance.

It's an area where some smaller tech firms are already working with the Pentagon.

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One such firm is Uptake, run by GE alum Ganesh Bell, which has a contract with the Defense Innovation Unit to better predict and accelerate repairs for Bradley Fighting Vehicles. The company is building a virtual Bradley, using data streams from sensors on real Bradleys in the field — what Bell has called a learning, digital twin. “We are able to collect what the best-performing Bradley would look like because we are able to go into many of the subsystems and pull the data,” he said. “Just from a single vehicle, we were able to pull terabytes of data.”

Bell aims to also incorporate data from external sensors, and use it to digitally recreate the vehicles' operating environments.

It's a process that could be relevant to larger military endeavors, such as the Army's effort to design a new combat vehicle, Bell said. “If we prove the value here, imagine what we can do in that environment as we build that system out? We do the same thing in wind turbines. There's so much to learn from all the unused data in these industries; less than one percent of the data is ever actually used.”

Bell says that he's had promising conversations with Army officials about helping out. “It's better to get in all the data right now while you're designing the next generation of vehicles,” he said.

Or take California-based C3, whose nine Pentagon contracts include predictive-maintenance work on the Boeing E-3 Sentry for the Air Force's AFWERX office.

Here, too, massive amounts of diagnostic data plays the essential role. But finding that data wasn't easy. “You go through the wild goose chase with DOD to get the data that you need,” Lt. Col. Dave Harden, AFWERX chief operating officer, said in December. “I had another project where I literally had people with 10-terabyte hard drives going around the country to get the data. I talk to people who are in charge of the data. The data in the database isn't what we needed. I wonder, ‘Who put these people in charge of the data?'”

The main thing that the Defense Department brings to the process isn't the algorithms or machine-learning methodologies. Those are increasingly coming from the private sector and companies like Uptake and C3. It's the unique data sets. Thus, if getting that data is a problem, then the Department has a major obstacle in terms of realizing its ambitions.

In their briefing on Tuesday, Deasy and Shanahan said they are willing to work with companies on intellectual property issues, which have deterred some companies from taking government contracts. But Shanahan made one condition clear: “The government owns the government's data.” That begs a few questions: How will contractors get the data that they need if the Department is so bad at collecting and keeping it internally? Who owns a datastream that combines private and government data?

AFWERX's Harden said getting the Defense Department to change how it collects and makes data available on systems like the E-3 aircraft is less than totally straightforward. Another challenge is getting the department to actually accept AI-generated recommendations.

“All of the processes and procedures need to change,” he said. “When I get a prediction now that says, ‘Hey, this aircraft battery, the data shows you were parked in Alaska and it's cold in Alaska and you were there for years. You don't have to swap out this battery on a regular cycle like you're doing,' how are the policy and guidance and procedures changing to allow that to occur? That is our billion-dollar question for DoD. We haven't solved that. How do we get the technology win that we get and turn that into true ROI?”

https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2019/02/department-has-rolled-out-its-ai-strategy-now-hard-part-begins/154864/

On the same subject

July 6, 2020 | International, Aerospace

Space Force walks back stimulus contracts for small launch providers
Nathan Strout Less than two weeks after the U.S. Space Force invoked the Defense Production Act to prop up six small launch providers, those awards have been withdrawn. On June 16, the Space and Missile Systems Center announced in a beta.SAM.gov post that it was awarding rideshare contracts to six companies approved by the Industrial Base Council: Aevum, Astra, X-BOW, Rocket Lab USA, Space Vector and VOX Space. Each company was to be awarded two rideshare missions to be conducted over the next 24 months. The value of those contracts was not revealed. But as first reported by SpaceNews, SMC has withdrawn those awards. A new statement on beta.SAM.gov notes that the government “is re-evaluating its strategy on how best to proceed with this action” after receiving several responses to its decision. As a result, the contracts will not be awarded at this time. A Justification and Approval document was supposed to be made public within 14 days of contract award, but the withdrawal of the awards occurred before that deadline. While Space Force officials haven't spoken publicly about the Defense Production Act awards since they were announced online, the Pentagon was vocal in expressing concern about COVID-19 impacts on the small launch market in the months leading up to the announcement. On April 20, Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Ellen Lord stated that the small launch market was one of three sectors she was most worried about. The Space and Missile Systems Center elaborated on her remarks in a statement to C4ISRNET. “There is concern that the current financial and market constraints resulting from the COVID-19 have reduced funding sources necessary to continue development and operations for the nascent small launch industry,” said Col. Rob Bongiovi, director of SMC's launch enterprise directorate. “Much of the industry have limited flight capability or are in the critical transition from development to flight and this funding restriction may prevent or delay these systems. The Space and Missile Systems Center is evaluating the impacts to the small launch industrial base to consider actions to enable a robust U.S. launch industrial base.” Shortly thereafter, the Space Force Acquisition Council held an emergency meeting to discuss how they could support industry partners negatively impacted by COVID-19. The council ultimately sent out a survey to members of the Space Enterprise Consortium to see what industry needed from the Department of Defense. Finally on June 16, the same day the announcement went live, SMC Commander Lt. Gen. John “JT” Thompson suggested that the Space Force would use Defense Production Act awards to support the small launch market. “In the small launch environment, Secretary Lord and [U.S. Space Force Service Acquisition Executive Will] Roper have both commented about how important small launch is to our enterprise, and I can't give you the details right now but I would anticipate here very shortly some very critical Defense Production Act awards to our small launch providers to keep that industry going,” Thompson said https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/space/2020/07/02/space-force-walks-back-stimulus-contracts-for-small-launch-providers/
September 28, 2020 | International, Aerospace, Naval, Land, C4ISR, Security, Other Defence

Curtiss-Wright acquiring PacStar for $400 million
Andrew Eversden WASHINGTON — North Carolina-based defense technology company Curtiss-Wright announced Sept. 24 that it had entered into an agreement to acquire Pacific Star, a major tactical communications vendor for the U.S. Army. Curtiss-Wright, based in North Carolina, bought PacStar for $400 million in an effort to boost its network communications business. According to a press release from Curtiss-Wright, PacStar's business will operate within the Curtiss-Wright defense business and is expected to generate $120 million in sales in 2020. “The acquisition of PacStar establishes Curtiss-Wright as a critical supplier of advanced tactical and enterprise network communications solutions supporting a broad spectrum of high-priority U.S. military force modernization programs,” said David C. Adams, chairman and CEO of Curtiss-Wright Corporation, in a statement. “The combination of Curtiss-Wright's mission-critical mobile and secure COTS-based processing, data management and communications technologies with PacStar's highly complementary hardware and software solutions will enable us to deliver best-in-class platform network integration and tactical data link network management to the warfighter.” Curtiss-Wright ranked No. 72 in Defense News' Top 100 annual report on the world's largest defense companies. PacStar is an important vendor for the Army's tactical network modernization effort, where it provides products to improve tactical expeditionary communications. Back in July, PacStar was awarded work to support the fielding of satellite baseband communications to three Expeditionary Signal Battalion-Enhanced (ESB-E) units by Army Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications-Tactical. PacStar also provides networking and communications capabilities for the Marine Corps' Networking On-The-Move (NOTM) program. “PacStar, which represents the largest transaction in Curtiss-Wright's recent history, is well-positioned to benefit from the military's continued investment in robust, secure and integrated battlefield network management and is expected to yield significant opportunities for revenue growth," Adams said. "Further, this acquisition supports Curtiss-Wright's financial objectives for long-term profitable growth and strong free cash flow generation within our disciplined and balanced capital allocation strategy.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/industry/2020/09/25/curtiss-wright-acquiring-pacstar-for-400-million/
May 26, 2022 | International, C4ISR, Security

Le conflit en Ukraine pousse l’Europe à muscler sa stratégie cyber
Déclenchée une heure avant l'offensive terrestre russe, l'attaque destinée à couper les communications ukrainiennes utilisant le réseau de satellites KA-SAT, exploité par Viasat, avait, par ricochet, privé d'internet des milliers d'utilisateurs en Allemagne, en France, en Hongrie, en Grèce, en Italie et en Pologne. « Nous pouvons attribuer au gouvernement russe la cyberactivité malveillante menée contre l'Ukraine » déclarait le 10 mai dernier le chef de la diplomatie de l'Union européenne, Josep Borrell. C'est la première fois que les vingt-sept États membres de l'Union s'accordent sur une réponse conjointe face à une cyberattaque, en dégainant un outil pourtant à sa disposition depuis 2017. La France avait déjà fait du renforcement de la cybersécurité dans l'Union une de ses priorités. « Le conflit en Ukraine est le genre de choc systémique qui fait tout accélérer et prendre conscience qu'il faut faire encore davantage. Cela a donné un nouvel élan aux discussions sur le besoin de coopération renforcée, y compris dans le domaine cyber », explique Miguel Gonzalez-Sancho, chef de l'unité pour la cybersécurité à la direction générale des réseaux de communication et des technologies de la Commission européenne. Selon plusieurs spécialistes, le niveau d'échange d'informations sur les menaces n'a jamais été aussi élevé, à la fois entre États mais aussi entre agences publiques et de grandes entreprises privées. « La plupart des capacités de protection des systèmes d'information sont entre les mains du secteur privé », souligne Dan Cimpean, directeur de l'agence de cybersécurité roumaine. Les États réfléchissent à certifier à l'échelle européenne un réseau de prestataires privés qui permettrait d'aider entreprises et collectivités à faire face aux nombreuses attaques. Le conflit a aussi permis de conclure plus rapidement certaines négociations sur des textes pour renforcer le niveau global de sécurité au sein de tous les États membres de l'Union européenne, que ce soit au niveau des entreprises sensibles, des administrations ou des institutions européennes. « Il y a une volonté politique d'aller plus loin car la question cyber est devenue difficile à traiter au niveau national », ajoute Miguel Gonzalez-Sancho. Le Figaro du 21 mai

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