Germany in talks with Lockheed Martin over ‘fragile’ missile defense program

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  10 juillet 2019 | International, Autre défense

  Battelle To Explore Artificial Intelligence, Neural Interfaces with DARPA Award

  COLUMBUS, Ohio--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Battelle is combining years of brain-computer interface (BCI) projects, such as NeuroLife®, with its expertise in machine learning and artificial intelligence under a new award from the federal government's forward-thinking government agency, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The award is part of DARPA's Artificial Intelligence Exploration program called Intelligent Neural Interfaces. Using terabytes of neural data gathered in the past five years during NeuroLife sessions, Battelle Senior Data Scientist David Friedenberg and his team will build new decoding algorithms to make neural interfaces more robust over long periods of time. The BCI systems typically rely on a decoder that monitors brain activity and then translates it into actions—in the case of NeuroLife, those signals are sent to a special sleeve that uses electrodes to stimulate muscles to evoke hand movement. However, the decoders require significant and time-consuming calibration to learn the mapping between the brain data and the user's intended action. In June, the Battelle team began work on a $1 million, 18-month project that will try to solve longstanding problems with decoder optimization and maintenance while improving accuracy and robustness. To accomplish this goal, Battelle will develop a hybrid approach for stable long-term neural decoding using end-to-end deep neural network decoders to learn optimal features from the raw electrode recordings. In addition, using third-wave AI approaches, Battelle will develop models that account for changing context and continuously adapt accordingly. This allows for adjusting both the features and the decoder on-the-fly during normal system use to counteract non-stationarities and instabilities in the signal without requiring the user to intervene and recalibrate the system. The next evolution of BCIs will occur as the systems move from the lab into the real lives of users. “We want these systems to require less training and be more robust to interruptions and interference,” said Friedenberg. “We want to develop optimal decoders that automatically and continuously adapt to each individual and the BCI they're using.” About Battelle Every day, the people of Battelle apply science and technology to solving what matters most. At major technology centers and national laboratories around the world, Battelle conducts research and development, designs and manufactures products, and delivers critical services for government and commercial customers. Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio since its founding in 1929, Battelle makes the world better by commercializing technology, giving back to our communities, and supporting science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. For more information, visit www.battelle.org. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190710005082/en

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  20 septembre 2018 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

  Obscure Pentagon Fund Nets $2B, Sets Pork Senses Tingling

  John M. Donnelly The Pentagon will soon have received about $2.3 billion in the last nine years — money the military never requested — for a special fund intended to help replace earmarks after Congress banned them, our analysis shows. Buried deep inside the $674.4 billion Defense spending measure for fiscal 2019 that the Senate is expected to vote on this week is a chart with one line showing a $250 million appropriation for the Defense Rapid Innovation Fund, the latest installment of sizable funding for a largely unknown program that quietly disburses scores of contracts every year. To supporters, the fund is a way to bankroll innovative systems that the military may not yet know it needs. To critics, the fund is just earmarking by another name. The kinds of systems that net contracts from the innovation fund run the gamut. In fiscal 2016, they included programs to demonstrate artificial intelligence systems for aerial drones, anti-lock brakes for Humvees and underwater communications systems for undersea drones. The systems may be technologies for which the military services have not yet established a requirement because they may not know what is technically possible. It is not clear how many of the systems actually become operational. The defense fund's eclipsing of the $2 billion mark comes as debate heats up in Washington over whether to revive earmarks. And the special account highlights key elements of that debate. Talk of earmarks 2.0 Earmarks have generally been defined as parochial spending, directed by lawmakers and received by people who have not competed for it. In 2011, after earmarks were tied to several scandals and spending projects seen as excess, Congress barred them — or at least a narrow definition of them, critics contend, noting that, among other loopholes, committees could still add money for parochial projects without spelling out who supports them. President Donald Trump suggested earlier this year that a return of earmarks, which were often used in horsetrading for votes, might be beneficial. Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, has suggested he would aim to bring back earmarks if his party takes control of the House next year. The senior Democrat on Senate Appropriations, Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, has also supported a comeback for the practice. Republican leaders are less vocal right now, but many of them also support a return to earmarks. “I don't doubt that the next organizing conference for the next Congress will probably wrestle with this issue,” outgoing House Speaker Paul D. Ryan told reporters earlier this month. Account quietly amasses funds The Defense Rapid Innovation Fund was launched in 2010 (first as the Rapid Innovation Program) in the fiscal 2011 defense authorization law. It was a way to capture what proponents called the innovative spirit of programs called earmarks that were clearly about to be banned. Unlike earmarks, the defense fund's money would be competitively awarded by the Pentagon, not directed by Congress, supporters of the idea pointed out. Democrat Norm Dicks, then a senior Defense appropriator, and other advocates of the program described it at the time as a way to capture the innovation among smaller companies, including many who had received earmarks. “We have not always had an adequate way of bringing these smaller firms and their innovation into the defense pipeline,” Dicks said in 2010. Each year since its creation, the fund has received another installment of funds, never less than $175 million or more than $439 million. The program has awarded several hundred contracts, averaging about $2 million each, mostly for small businesses with technologies that were relatively mature and that could address some military need, according to a fiscal 2017 Pentagon summary of the program's results. Full article: http://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/obscure-pentagon-fund-nets-2-billion

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  7 octobre 2021 | International, C4ISR, Sécurité

  Palantir scores US Army contract to build out intelligence data fabric

  The program will help modernize the Army's intelligence and data dissemination efforts to provide global information in a near peer fight.