Retour aux nouvelles

1 octobre 2019 | International, Aérospatial

Air Force paints a digital future where data from satellites play central role

by

In a few months the Air Force will start a series of experiments to try to connect fighter aircraft and other weapon systems into a single network so they can all share critical data and intelligence, much of which is collected by satellites in space. Will Roper, the assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, described the venture as the “first demonstration of what you could call ‘step 1' of ABMS.”

ABMS is short for Advanced Battle Management System, and it is a hard concept to explain because it is not like a traditional piece of hardware or software. It can be best described as a network where data is piped in from sensors located in space, at sea, in the air or on the ground. That information would be instantly analyzed with artificial intelligence tools and shared across the network. This is the type of technology that will “allow us to be more collaborative,” Roper told reporters at the recent 2019 Air Space & Cyber symposium.

Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein is “driving this idea across the Air Force,” said Roper. Goldfein has been a champion of ABMS and wants to make it a “large dollar item in our 2021 budget,” said Roper. The thinking is that the Air Force will spend less money on shiny new platforms and more on exploiting data and advanced networks. It would be like the “Internet of Things, but applied to military systems,” said Roper.

Air Force leaders initially pitched the ABMS idea to Congress two years ago as a vision of the future where access to timely data is key to success in the battlefield. They suggested that the Air Force should invest in ABMS rather than spend billions on new command-and-control airplanes. Congress gave the plan a skeptical reception but the Air Force will continue to press its case.

In a keynote speech at Air Force Association's Air Space & Cyber conference last week, Goldfein described the future as one of “multi-domain operations” where all weapons and military forces receive up-to-the-minute intelligence and are able to share that data, something that ABMS would make possible.

“What I'm talking about is a fully networked force where Air Force paints a digital future where data from satellites play central role each platform's sensors and operators are connected,” said Goldfein.

While the concept seems straightforward, putting it into practice is not. One of the challenges is how to handle the vast amounts of data available from satellites and the infrastructure required to bring this data to the ground, analyze the data and then transport it to where it's needed.

Some of the crucial technologies that will enable ABMS or any similar efforts will come from the world of commercial space and cloud computing. The Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center has recognized this as it pursues a project called CASINO, short for Commercially Augmented Space Inter Networked Operations.

CASINO is a spinoff of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Blackjack program that is attempting to demonstrate the military utility of small satellites in low Earth orbit. SMC has made CASINO one of its signature efforts to show how commercial technology could be used to process and distribute data from large LEO constellations.

The Pentagon's Silicon Valley-based Defense Innovation Unit on Sept. 10 awarded a contract of undisclosed value to Ball Aerospace and Microsoft to demonstrate cloud processing capabilities in support of the CASINO project. The companies will have to show how simultaneous, worldwide data streams from large, distributed constellations of small satellites can be processed quickly using Microsoft's Azure cloud and Ball Aerospace algorithms.

This is about making satellite data more actionable more quickly, Azure Global vice president Tom Keane said. One of the questions this project seeks to answer is “what would it take to completely transform what a ground station looks like, and downlink that data directly to the cloud?” Keane said.

Perhaps one option is to place electronically steered flat panel antennas on the roof of a data center to connect multiple LEO satellites. Ball Aerospace algorithms in this project will process data streams from up to 20 satellites. With the data in the cloud, customers can direct it to where it's needed. Clearly, there is a long way to go to achieve what Goldfein calls the “Air Force That We Need” — one where all U.S. and allied forces are connected and get relevant information quickly. But you have to start somewhere.

https://spacenews.com/air-force-paints-a-digital-future-where-data-from-satellites-play-central-role/

Sur le même sujet

  • Four companies win contracts to build the Air Force’s Skyborg drone

    24 juillet 2020 | International, Aérospatial

    Four companies win contracts to build the Air Force’s Skyborg drone

    By: Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON — Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Atomics and Kratos will move forward in the Air Force program to build an AI-enabled drone wingman known as Skyborg. Each company Thursday was awarded an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract worth up to $400 million, but no seed money was immediately allocated as the firms will have to compete against each other for future orders. Through the Skyborg program, the Air Force wants to field a family of unmanned aerial systems that use artificial intelligence to adapt to battlefield conditions. The Skyborg drone should be cheap enough where the loss of aircraft in combat could be sustained, yet survivable enough so that it could move into a high-end fight and function as a wingman to manned fighter jets. “Because autonomous systems can support missions that are too strenuous or dangerous for manned crews, Skyborg can increase capability significantly and be a force multiplier for the Air Force,” said Brig. Gen. Dale White, who leads the Air Force's program office for fighters and advanced aircraft. “We have the opportunity to transform our warfighting capabilities and change the way we fight and the way we employ air power.” Air Force acquisition executive Will Roper has said that Skyborg could eventually become smart enough that, like R2-D2 in the Star Wars films, it can autonomously present information and conduct tasks to help decrease fighter pilot workload. The system learns from prior experiences how best to support human pilots. But in the near term, the Air Force wants to use the Skyborg program to integrate an autonomous air vehicle with open mission systems as a way to demonstrate that it can team with a manned fighter, the service said in a statement. “Autonomy technologies in Skyborg's portfolio will range from simple play-book algorithms to advanced team decision making and will include on-ramp opportunities for artificial intelligence technologies,” said Brig. Gen. Heather Pringle, the Air Force Research Laboratory commander. “This effort will provide a foundational government reference architecture for a family of layered, autonomous, and open-architecture UAS.” https://www.defensenews.com/unmanned/2020/07/23/four-companies-got-contracts-to-build-the-air-forces-skyborg-drone

  • Unmasking the True Cost of Cyberattacks: Beyond Ransom and Recovery

    23 avril 2024 | International, Sécurité

    Unmasking the True Cost of Cyberattacks: Beyond Ransom and Recovery

    Businesses face massive disruptions from cyberattacks. From revenue losses to strained customer relations. Discover the hidden costs of cyber breaches

  • US Army pushes Air Launched Effects development with $30 million in contracts

    27 août 2020 | International, Aérospatial

    US Army pushes Air Launched Effects development with $30 million in contracts

    By Garrett Reim The US Army has awarded 10 contracts worth $29.8 million for development of Air Launched Effects technologies, which include unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) that the service sees as working alongside its helicopters. The projects are divided into three focus areas: air vehicle; mission systems; and payloads. The aim of the projects is to eventually produce a new and more advanced Air Launched Effect prototype, the service said on 24 August. Air Launched Effects are a broad category of UAVs that would act as extensions of rotorcraft, performing missions involving reconnaissance, electronic warfare and loitering munition strikes. The service sees Air Launched Effects as important tools for reaching into enemy territory while keeping rotorcraft beyond the range of adversaries' anti-aircraft weapons. It plans to use the drones from its Boeing AH-64 Apache attack helicopters and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems MQ-1C Gray Eagle UAVs, as well as its Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft. Alliant Techsystems Operations, Raytheon and Area-I won contracts for Air Launched Effects vehicle design development. In March, the army demonstrated a Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk launching an Area-I ALTIUS drone from just 100ft above the ground. L3 Technologies, Rockwell Collins and Aurora Flight Services won mission systems contracts, and Leonardo Electronics, Technology Service, Raytheon, and Alliant Techsystems secured payloads contracts. The army says it plans to select designs for the Air Launched Effect vehicle, payload and mission system for its final prototype in 15 months. The service wants to initially field its prototype in fiscal year 2024. https://www.flightglobal.com/military-uavs/us-army-pushes-air-launched-effects-development-with-30-million-in-contracts/139908.article?referrer=RSS

Toutes les nouvelles