January 17, 2020 | International, Aerospace
Redwood City, CA – January 15, 2020 – C3.ai, a leading enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) software provider for accelerating digital transformation, today announced a five-year agreement with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to deliver C3 Readiness for Aircraft™ an AI-based software application that increases the readiness and availability of aircraft to accomplish their missions.
Predicting an aircraft subsystem's risk of failure is essential to the U.S. military's fleet readiness. By using machine learning algorithms to monitor high-priority subsystems for risk of failure and predict the requirements for parts at air bases and depots, C3 Readiness for Aircraft shifts the paradigm from reactive to predictive maintenance.
C3 Readiness for Aircraft provides a near real time view of aircraft health for each individual tail number. Using C3 Readiness for Aircraft, maintainers can be made available and prepared for work, and operations personnel can ensure that the right parts are available at the right time and at the right locations. With this application, organizations can substantially expand the use of existing aircraft and reduce the cost and time associated with unexpected maintenance.
“Each hour an aircraft is grounded costs taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars – and approximately $292 billion of the Pentagon's annual budget is spent on operations and maintenance costs ,” said Ed Abbo‚ President and CTO, C3.ai. “Given these numbers, even a fractional increase in aircraft mission capability can save billions. We look forward to building on our initial success delivering solutions that extend the DoD's competitive advantage and support its ambitious plans to implement artificial intelligence at scale.”
Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) is the DoD organization based in Silicon Valley charged with accelerating the adoption of innovative commercial technologies into the U.S. military to strengthen the nation's security. DIU connects customers with leading technology companies to prototype, transition, and field capabilities within 36 months. DoD has made it a priority to address readiness in the FY2020 Budget so that forces meet a minimum standard. Applying AI techniques helps the DoD achieve this objective rapidly in a cost-effective manner.
C3.ai has repeatedly demonstrated its capabilities to DIU to significantly improve readiness for several Air Force units. As a result of a number of successful US Air Force implementations, including the E-3 Sentry (AWACS), C-5 Galaxy, F-16 Fighting Falcon, and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Lightning II aircraft, and expansion to Army Aviation platforms such as UH-60 Blackhawk and AH-64 Apache helicopters, DIU sponsored the current up-to-$95M agreement that allows all the Services and other federal agencies to use C3.ai's software for aircraft predictive maintenance.
C3 Readiness for Aircraft operates on the C3 AI Suite™, an integrated software platform that enables organizations to rapidly design, develop, and deploy enterprise-scale AI applications on any public or private cloud environment. The C3 AI Suite allows the DoD to integrate and unify large amounts of fragmented and disparate data, and make those data available for use by machine learning algorithms for insights that improve operations and provide situational awareness. C3.ai's applications are configurable for a variety of capabilities beyond AI predictive maintenance including intelligence data fusion, clearance adjudication, insider threat, improved logistics, supply risk identification, and AI-based operational support.
About C3.ai
C3.ai is a leading AI software provider for accelerating digital transformation. C3.ai delivers the C3 AI Suite for developing, deploying, and operating large-scale AI, predictive analytics, and IoT applications in addition to an increasingly broad portfolio of turn-key AI applications. The core of the C3.ai offering is a revolutionary, model-driven AI architecture that dramatically enhances data science and application development. Organizations such as Royal Dutch Shell, ENGIE, 3M, and Enel are currently leveraging C3.ai's enterprise software for greater efficiency, productivity, and reliability.
Contact:
C3.ai Public Relations:
April Marks
650-503-2200
pr@c3.ai
View source version on C3.ai: https://c3.ai/us-defense-department-awards-c3-ai-95m-contract-vehicle-to-improve-aircraft-readiness-using-ai/
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By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — As the U.S. Space Force looks to expand the military's communications capabilities in the far north, it is facing a problem. The global pandemic has hit space startups exponentially hard, and OneWeb, one of the companies aiming to provide internet to Arctic locations, filed for bankruptcy in March. The Defense Department is considering taking action to help fortify OneWeb and other vulnerable space startups, said Lt. Gen. David Thompson, vice commander of Headquarters Space Force. “I will say with respect to OneWeb specifically and others, we continue to work,” he said during a May 12 event held by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. “We work with the White House and we'll be working with Congress, not just focused on OneWeb but all of the commercial space companies that face bankruptcy and face those concerns.” Thompson did not lay out options under consideration by the Pentagon to aid OneWeb, but he did say the department's Space Acquisition Council devised a list of proposed investments for space companies that need rapid, aggressive action. That capital is needed to ensure emerging space technologies remain available to the U.S. military but also so “that potential adversaries don't have the opportunity to acquire those capabilities,” he said. OneWeb is pursuing a sale of the business as part of bankruptcy proceedings, saying that “while the company was close to obtaining financing” through its own negotiations with investors, “the process did not progress because of the financial impact and market turbulence related to the spread of COVID-19.” So far, the company has launched 74 satellites, secured global spectrum and has half of its 44 ground terminals in development or complete — making it attractive to potential bidders such as Amazon or European satellite company Eutelsat. However, two unnamed Chinese firms have also submitted proposals, according to The Telegraph. That could raise major concerns among Defense Department officials, who have warned that adversary nations — particularly China — could use the financial instability caused by the coronavirus pandemic as an opportunity to increase investments in technology companies with national security applications. “The [defense-industrial base] is vulnerable to adversarial capital, so we need to ensure that companies can stay in business without losing their technology,” Ellen Lord, the Pentagon's top acquisition official, said in March. If OneWeb is sold to a Chinese owner, the Defense Department could lose access to one of the few suppliers of commercial broadband internet servicing the Arctic. While the Space Force operates two Enhanced Polar System satellites to provide secure, jam-resistant military communications, few commercial satellite providers extend their coverage to the far north. As a result, troops have limited communication options in the Arctic, and the Pentagon has long been concerned about a lack of resiliency. Companies like OneWeb and SpaceX, which intend to create a network of hundreds of small satellites in low-Earth orbit, could change that paradigm by providing low-cost commercial internet services that span the globe. In September, OneWeb announced it would begin to provide low-latency broadband service to the Arctic by the end of 2020, with full, 24-hour coverage expected in 2021. For its part, SpaceX stated that its Starlink constellation would begin providing broadband service this year. The military has expressed interest in working with both companies. U.S. Northern Command sought $130 million to explore OneWeb's and SpaceX's capabilities in order to provide reliable and potentially cost-effective internet in the Arctic, listing the effort on top of the unfunded priority list sent to Congress this spring. Nathan Strout in Washington contributed to this story. https://www.defensenews.com/smr/2020/05/12/a-bankrupt-oneweb-could-get-some-help-from-the-defense-department/