20 mars 2018 | International, C4ISR, Sécurité
By: Daniel Cebul
WASHINGTON ― As unmanned platforms, cyber systems and human-machine partnering become more prevalent in 21st century war fighting, the effectiveness of combat units will be determined by how quickly information can be processed and transmitted between air-breathers and machines. To achieve the high levels of brain-system communication that will be required on future battlefields, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has launched a new program to develop a noninvasive neural interface that will connect soldiers with technology.
The goal of the Next-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology (N³) program is to “pursue a path to a safe, portable neural interface system capable of reading from and writing to multiple points in the brain at once,” according to Dr. Al Emondi, a program manager in DARPA's Biological Technologies Office.
“We're asking multidisciplinary teams of researchers to construct approaches that enable precise interaction with very small areas of the brain, without sacrificing signal resolution or introducing unacceptable latency into the N3 system.”
Although technologies that allow for high-quality brain system communications exist today, these invasive techniques are not a practical solution for ubiquitous man-machine communication.
Before soldiers can communicate with their R2-D2 units, DARPA scientists must overcome several significant scientific and engineering challenges.
The most significant challenge, according to a DARPA press release, will be overcoming the physics of scattering and weakening of signals as they pass through skin, skull and brain tissue. If this initial challenge is surmounted, the focus of the program will shift to developing algorithms for encoding and decoding neural signals, evaluating system safety through animal testing and ultimately asking human volunteers to test the technology.
While communication neurotechnology has a stronger foothold in science fiction than reality, Emondi believes devoting resources to the enterprise will spur breakthroughs. “Smart systems will significantly impact how our troops operate in the future, and now is the time to be thinking about what human-machine teaming will actually look like and how it might be accomplished,” he said.
“If we put the best scientists on this problem, we will disrupt current neural interface approaches and open the door to practical, high-performance interfaces.”
DARPA wants the four-year project to conclude with a demonstration of a bidirectional system being used to interface human-machine interactions with unmanned platforms, active cyber defense systems or other Department of Defense equipment.
Recognizing the potentially wide ethical, legal and social implications of such neurotechnology, DARPA is also asking independent legal and ethical experts to advise the program as N³ technologies mature.
https://www.c4isrnet.com/it-networks/2018/03/19/darpa-wants-to-connect-human-brains-and-machines
18 août 2022 | International, Aérospatial
Airborne Technologies is now licensed to manufacture a wide variety of F-16 structural components under the Lockheed Martin Hologram Products Program.
16 août 2019 | International, C4ISR
The Pentagon is exploring how artificial intelligence can help build more digitally secure vehicles, weapons systems and other network-connected platforms in a fraction of the time it takes today. For years, cyber experts have urged agencies to make security a priority when building new systems, but that's easier said than done, at least when it comes to military tech, according to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Virtually every piece of military hardware includes a digital component and understanding how adversaries might attack these so-called “cyber physical systems” before they're constructed requires a lot of manpower and computer modeling. Because the Defense Department works under tight deadlines, officials often limit the number of designs they consider, potentially passing up more effective but out-of-the-box options, according to DARPA. But using artificial intelligence, the Pentagon could significantly accelerate the construction of cyber physical systems while also unlocking more effective—and yet unimagined—designs, the agency said. On Tuesday, the agency kicked off a research initiative that will focus on building AI-powered tools that help the Pentagon rapidly assess different blueprints for cyber physical systems. According to DARPA, the tech developed under the Symbiotic Design for Cyber Physical Systems program would “be a game changer, and may result in a new generation of unexpected, counterintuitive design solutions.” As it stands, the process for building cyber physical systems is decentralized, iterative and resource-intensive, officials said. Different teams design different parts of the system, and errors frequently arise as those components are pieced together, forcing the department to go back to the drawing board. But with “AI co-designers,” the process would change dramatically: Humans would feed both project requirements and preliminary blueprints into the tech, and the tools would propose different designs for individual components of the system. Officials would then work with the machine to narrow down possible designs, and the system would test different component combinations to find the most effective overall system. While today the Pentagon must constantly address vulnerabilities as they arise, using AI, officials would start building cyber physical systems with a blueprint that's already been thoroughly tested and optimized. “We expect order of magnitude improvement in design productivity, but equally important, the appearance of surprises, in the discovery of unconventional but highly performant designs,” officials said. DARPA plans to divide the program into three tracks, with teams working together to design the AI co-designer itself, develop a way for humans to interact with the system and build a training regimen to teach the AI to learn from the successes and failures of previous system design. The program is expected to run for about four years, and interested vendors must submit their final proposals by Oct. 14 https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2019/08/pentagons-research-arm-wants-ai-help-design-more-secure-tech/159210/
21 septembre 2023 | International, Aérospatial
The contract award will bring the total fleet size in Australia to four aircraft