19 septembre 2022 | International, Aérospatial
Boeing demonstrates MQ-25'²s utility as surveillance drone
Though the MQ-25 will first deploy as a tanker, Boeing is working to mature a second mission set for the long-endurance carrier-based drone.
15 août 2019 | International, Terrestre
Download, Disconnect, Fire! Why Grunts Need JEDI Cloud
By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR.
ARLINGTON: To see through the fog of war on future battlefields, ground troops will need near-real-time access to huge amounts of information from a host of sensors — from satellites to F-35s to mini-drones to targeting goggles, all sharing data through a joint combat cloud. But to evade the enemy's own swarms of sensors, soldiers will also need to know when to disconnect from the network and go dark.
Switching quickly from being hyperconnected to being cut off — whether as a tactical choice or as the result of enemy jamming and hacking — will put a new kind of strain on future frontline commanders. The capability to cope is central both to the Army's evolving combat concept, Multi-Domain Operations, the Pentagon's controversial Joint Enterprise Defense Initiative, the JEDI cloud computing program.
The Case For Cloud
“Why do we want to go to the cloud? Because you get better synthesized data,” said the Army's senior futurist, Lt. Gen. Eric Wesley, in a recent conversation with reporters. “Sensors are going to be ubiquitous on the battlefield,” he said. They'll provide such masses of data that unaided human brains and traditional staff processes can't collect it all in one place, let alone make sense of it: “It's got to be synchronized by tools such as artificial intelligence and cloud-based computing.”
“If I am a warfighter, I want as much data as you could possibly give me,” said the head of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, Air Force Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, at a separate roundtable. “Let me use my algorithms to sort through it ... at machine speeds...It's really hard for me to do that without an enterprise cloud.”
While disconnected, troops will have to make do with whatever data they've already downloaded, perhaps to a backpack mini-server with built-in AI. Then, Wesley continued, “when you're back up on the net, you might need to do a download, adjust your algorithms, adjust your data.
“But you won't necessarily have access to that all the time,” Wesley warned. “You can imagine where a given [unit] will be off the net for a period — maybe go dark, not unlike the way submarines operate now. ”
While disconnected, troops will have to make do with whatever data they've already downloaded, perhaps to a backpack mini-server with built-in AI. Then, Wesley continued, “when you're back up on the net, you might need to do a download, adjust your algorithms, adjust your data.”
“You're going to have balance both cloud computing and computing at the edge,” Wesley said. “It's absolutely a form of maneuver.” Transmitting and going silent, uploading and downloading, will need to be as well-practiced and intuitive as digging in a hasty defense or laying an ambush.
Wesley, who works for Army Futures Command, didn't mention the all-service JEDI program by name. But Shanahan, who reports to the Pentagon CIO, made the link explicit.
“JEDI will include cloud capabilities that are able to operate out of standalone, portable hardware even in the absence of communications links,” Shanahan said. “It will re-synch with the rest of the JEDI cloud as soon as communications are restored.”
“You have the central JEDI cloud, then you have, maybe, portable data centers that are downrange,” Shanahan explained. “The beauty of that is not only are you getting access to all the benefits of the cloud down to the very edge of the battlefield: As you're collecting data, that data can then go back into [the central cloud], so everybody is benefiting from that.”
“If you get disconnected, as is going to happen in combat, especially in a high-end fight, you still have what you had at the point it was disconnected,” Shanahan said. Your latest downloads will be saved at the closest local server, which might be in a CONEX shipping container carried by truck to a forward command post or in a pair of soldiers' backpacks, accessible even when long-range communications fail. Then, he continued, “when it suddenly comes back, you have all of this ... connected across the entire enterprise.”
Multi-Domain Command & Control
While JEDI plays a central role in this vision of future warfare, it's just one part of a much larger push, an Air Force system for communicating and combining all this information, the Multi Domain Command and Control System (MDC2). The goal is to move data from any part of the force, anywhere in the world, in any of the five recognized domains — land, sea, air, space and cyberspace — to any other part, quickly and in useful form. In essence, the Air Force and JEDI are attacking the multi-domain problem from the top down, starting with central servers, higher headquarters, and satellites, while the Army is coming from the ground up, grunt-first.
“Imagine a scout on the reverse side of a tactical slope,” Wesley said. “Imagine an F-35 may have just flown over that slope, that space, in the previous 60 minutes. Those aircraft are going to be taking in all sorts of data. How is the scout going to get access to that data without waiting for a direct point-to-point communication with that aircraft?” The solution, he said, is for all sensors to share their data in a common “combat cloud,” a term which he noted comes from in the Air Force.
It's not just intelligence, Wesley went on: It's targeting data. The ultimate goal is some AI algorithm — carefully monitored and directed by human commanders — that can match a target with the weapon best suited to destroy it, whether that weapon is a strike fighter, a land-based missile launcher, or a warship. A future commander could call for fire support the way today's urbanites call an Uber
To experiment with how this might work in real life, the Army has already created a brigade-sized Multi-Domain Task Force, whose collective eyes are a battalion-sized Intelligence, Information, Cyber, Electronic Warfare, & Space (I2CEWS) detachment. The original MDTF has been holding wargames and field exercises in the Pacific with the other services and with allies like Australia; a second task force is planned for Europe, and a third will join the first in Asia. After that, Wesley said, the Army plans to develop new organizations like a Theater Fires Command to coordinate long-range strikes by its new thousand-mile missiles.
But this cannot be only an Army effort, Wesley emphasized, and it isn't. “The Air Force and Army are well aligned in that this future design is going to have to be increasingly joint,” he said. “Headquarters are going to be increasingly purple in the future.”
“We must have a joint concept going forward,” Wesley said. “The former acting secretary of defense, [Patrick] Shanahan, directed joint wargames that will ensue this fall. I think that's the next big moment where you're going to see the services come together.“
https://breakingdefense.com/2019/08/download-disconnect-fire-why-grunts-need-jedi-cloud/
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8 décembre 2020 | International, Terrestre
DoD SBIR/STTR Component BAA Open: Army SBIR BAA 21.4, Topic A214-001
The DoD Small Business and Technology Partnerships Office announces the opening of the following Broad Agency Announcement (BAA): Army SBIR 21.4 • A214-001: Identifying and Enabling Emerging Technology Leaders IMPORTANT DATES: • December 8, 2020: BAA opens, begin submitting proposals in DSIP • December 23, 2020: Topic Q&A (formerly SITIS) closes to new questions at 12:00 p.m. ET • January 12, 2021: BAA closes, full proposals must be submitted in DSIP no later than 12:00 p.m. ET The instructions and topics for these BAAs are available on DSIP at https://www.dodsbirsttr.mil/submissions/login and at https://rt.cto.mil/rtl-small-business-resources/sbir-sttr/. Please be sure to submit your proposals as early as possible in order to avoid unexpected delays due to high volume of traffic during the final hours before BAA close. Report system difficulties to the DSIP Help Desk IMMEDIATELY and include screenshots of any error messages received [NEW!] DSIP Registration and Login Effective August 13, 2020: The DoD SBIR/STTR Innovation Portal (DSIP) is now integrated with Login.gov – a government-wide registration platform that provides a seamless login experience. ALL Small Business Concerns (SBCs) are required to register for a Login.gov account and link it to your DSIP account. If you already have a Login.gov account, simply link your existing account to DSIP. To set up your Login.gov account, click the “Login/Register” button on the DSIP homepage, here: https://www.dodsbirsttr.mil/submissions/login. NOTE: The email address you use for Login.gov should match the email address associated with your existing DSIP account. If you do not recall the email address associated with your DSIP account, or if you already have an existing Login.gov account using a different email address, you will need your Firm's DUNS number and your Firm PIN in order to link your Login.gov account with your DSIP account. If the email address associated with your existing DSIP account has been used for multiple DSIP accounts within your Firm, you will also need your Firm's DUNS number and your Firm PIN in order to link your Login.gov account with your DSIP account. The Firm PIN can be obtained from your Firm Admin. You can view the Firm Admin's contact information by entering your Firm's DUNS number when prompted. If you are the Firm Admin, please ensure that you contact all DSIP users in your Firm and provide them with the Firm PIN. Job Aids and Help Videos are in the Learning & Support section of DSIP, here: https://www.dodsbirsttr.mil/submissions/learning-support/training-materials. ALL SBCs MUST complete your Login.gov setup as soon as possible to avoid delays in submitting proposals in DSIP. After setting up your Login.gov account, take a few minutes to log in and become familiar with DSIP. • Returning users can log in from the DSIP homepage. • For new program participants, follow the steps for New User Registration to create your account in DSIP. Topic Q&A (formerly SITIS) Proposers may submit technical questions through Topic Q&A page at https://www.dodsbirsttr.mil/submissions/login. All questions and answers are posted electronically for general viewing. Topic Q&A will close to new questions on December 23, 2020 at 12:00 p.m. ET, but will remain active to view questions and answers related to the topics until the BAA close. Proposers are advised to monitor Topic Q&A during the BAA period for questions and answers and frequently monitor DSIP for updates and amendments to the topics. Learning & Support Visit the Learning & Support section for Job Aids and Help Videos to guide you through submitting and viewing questions and answers in the Topic Q&A, preparing and submitting your proposal in DSIP, and more: https://www.dodsbirsttr.mil/submissions/learning-support/training-materials DSIP Help Desk Contact Info • Phone Number: 703-214-1333 • Email: DoDSBIRSupport@reisystems.com • Non-Holiday Hours: Monday – Friday, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. ET • Please refer to the DSIP homepage for Help Desk availability on holidays. Thank you for your interest in the DoD SBIR/STTR Program. DoD SBIR/STTR Support Team To sign up and receive upcoming emails, please follow this link: https://secure.campaigner.com/CSB/Public/Form.aspx?fid=667492&ac=g9gk https://rt.cto.mil/rtl-small-business-resources/sbir-sttr/
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14 août 2020 | International, C4ISR, Sécurité
Northrop Grumman Awarded DARPA Gamebreaker Contract
Linthicum, Md. – August 12, 2020 – Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) was recently awarded a contract from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Strategic Technology Office (STO) for the Gamebreaker program. This innovative program seeks to develop and apply artificial intelligence (AI) to existing real-time strategy games to break a complex model or create an imbalance. Northrop Grumman will use this opportunity to evaluate and develop technology to improve flexible planning, optimization and discovery in products that operate dynamic environments. “Using AI to exploit engagement models can help to enable intelligent systems that could in turn enhance military strategy,” said Susan Wilson, director, intelligent mission capabilities and advanced technology laboratory, Northrop Grumman. “We are exploring how we may be able to use this methodology in the future.” Northrop Grumman's Gamebreaker team includes Hazardous Software and Slitherine Software's Matrix Games. Working closely together, this partnership will use advanced AI techniques to model and break balance within a highly complex simulator environment called “Command: Modern Operations”. “Hazardous Software Inc. (HSI) is excited to continue our partnership with Northrop Grumman,” said Christopher Hazard, CEO, Hazardous Software. “Building upon our 13 years of history modeling dynamic adversarial scenarios and leveraging the Diveplane machine learning platform, HSI's approach to Gamebreaker complements Northrop Grumman's longstanding experience and technology capabilities.” “Command Professional Edition is the only wargame being analyzed by DARPA in the Gamebreaker program,” said Iain McNeil, CEO, Slitherine Software. “We are very interested to see how the AI behaves and if it manages to identify loopholes that need assessment, or it comes up with innovative strategies that are applicable to the real world.” Hazardous Software Inc. (HSI) creates technology that enables and incentivizes people to operate strategically in uncertain environments, regardless of whether it is a game, a simulation, or a real-life event. HSI leverages its unique capabilities in counterfactual reasoning and through understandable artificial intelligence via its relationship with Diveplane Corporation, a company it spun out in 2017. Matrix Games specializes in COTS physics-based simulations and strategy video games. Through careful research and development, commercial simulations are turned into modern and powerful programs that are able to replicate complex military operations, from tactical and operational to analytical. Matrix Games, utilizing the Flashpoint Campaigns Sim, has now been appointed to year 2 of the ATHENA Prototype Project by DEFENSE ENERGY CENTER OF EXCELLENCE (NSTXL) on behalf of the United States Army Future Studies Group. The company is also a “single source” contractor and research and development supplier of the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl). Northrop Grumman solves the toughest problems in space, aeronautics, defense and cyberspace to meet the ever evolving needs of our customers worldwide. Our 90,000 employees define possible every day using science, technology and engineering to create and deliver advanced systems, products and services. View source version on Northrop Grumman: https://news.northropgrumman.com/news/releases/northrop-grumman-awarded-darpa-gamebreaker-contract