11 juin 2021 | International, Aérospatial
Gen. Tod Wolters’ comments echo a sense of common purpose among NATO allies that sometimes gets lost in defense-industrial infighting.
15 septembre 2021 | International, Aérospatial
Leonardo Helicopters has taken a further step in strengthening its credentials as the home team in the United Kingdom's upcoming New Medium Helicopter requirement, announcing nine local companies have joined its Team AW149 UK bid.
17 décembre 2020 | International, C4ISR
Mark Pomerleau WASHINGTON — The Department of Defense must bolster its resilience in mission platforms in order to stay ahead of threats, a new think tank report says. With the military's shift toward great power competition, or conflict against nation states, its systems and platforms will be under greater stress than technological inferior adversaries battled during the counterterrorism fight of the last decade-plus. Systems and networks are expected to be contested, disrupted and even destroyed, meaning officials need to build redundancy and resilience in from the start to work through such challenges. In fact, top defense officials have been warning for several years that they are engaged in conflict that is taking place below the threshold of armed conflict in which adversaries are probing networks and systems daily for espionage or disruptive purposes. “Resilience is a key challenge for combat mission systems in the defense community as a result of accumulating technical debt, outdated procurement frameworks, and a recurring failure to prioritize learning over compliance. The result is brittle technology systems and organizations strained to the point of compromising basic mission functions in the face of changing technology and evolving threats,” said a new report out today by the Atlantic Council titled “How Do You Fix a Flying Computer? Seeking Resilience in Software-Intensive Mission Systems.” “Mission resilience must be a priority area of work for the defense community. Resilience offers a critical pathway to sustain the long-term utility of software-intensive mission systems, while avoiding organizational brittleness in technology use and resulting national security risks. The United States and its allies face an unprecedented defense landscape in the 2020s and beyond.” This resilience, is built upon three pillars, the authors write: robustness, which is the ability of a system to negate the impact of disruption; responsiveness, which is the ability of a system to provide feedback and incorporate changes on a disruption, and; adaptability, which is the ability to a system to change itself to continue operating despite a disruption. Systems, the report notes, are more than just the sum of its parts — hardware and software — but rather are much broader to include people, organizational processes and technologies. To date, DoD has struggled to manage complexity and develop robust and reliable mission systems, even in a relatively benign environment, the report bluntly asserts, citing problems with the F-35′s Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS) as one key example. “A conflict or more contested environment would only exacerbate these issues. The F-35 is not alone in a generation of combat systems so dependent on IT and software that failures in code are as critical as a malfunctioning munition or faulty engine — other examples include Navy ships and military satellites,” the authors write. “To ensure mission systems like the F-35 remain available, capable, and lethal in conflicts to come demands the United States and its allies prioritize the resilience of these systems. Not merely security against compromise, mission resilience is the ability of a mission system to prevent, respond to, and adapt to both anticipated and unanticipated disruptions, to optimize efficacy under uncertainty, and to maximize value over the long term. Adaptability is measured by the capacity to change — not only to modify lines of software code, but to overturn and replace the entire organization and the processes by which it performs the mission, if necessary. Any aspect that an organization cannot or will not change may turn out to be the weakest link, or at least a highly reliable target for an adversary.” The report offers four principles that defense organizations can undertake to me more resilient in future conflicts against sophisticated adversaries: Embrace failure: DoD must be more willing to take risks and embrace failure to stay ahead of the curve. Organizations can adopt concepts such as chaos engineering, experimenting on a system to build confidence in its ability to withstand turbulent conditions in production, and planning for loss of confidentiality in compromised systems. Improve speed: DoD must be faster at adapting and developing, which includes improving its antiquated acquisition policies and adopt agile methodologies of continuous integration and delivery. Of note, DoD has created a software acquisition pathway and is implementing agile methodologies of continuous integration and delivery, though on small scales. Always be learning: Defense organizations operate in a highly contested cyber environment, the report notes, and as the department grows more complex, how it learns and adapts to rapidly evolving threats grows in importance. Thus, it must embrace experimentation and continuous learning at all levels of systems as a tool to drive improvement. Manage trade-offs and complexity: DoD should improve mission system programs' understanding of the trade-offs between near-term functionality and long-term complexity to include their impact on systems' resilience. https://www.c4isrnet.com/cyber/2020/12/14/how-dod-can-improve-its-technology-resilience/
31 mai 2019 | International, Aérospatial, C4ISR
New Program Will Focus On Rapid Deployment Of Artificial Intelligence Innovations In Operations, Disaster Response, And Medical Readiness Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson has announced a contract with Massachusetts Institute of Technology focused on accelerating artificial intelligence technologies through fundamental research in computational intelligence, reasoning, decision-making, autonomy and relevant societal implications. The agreement includes selecting eleven Airmen for a research and development collaboration team designed to field practical AI solutions for real-world, national security challenges. Beginning this summer, the combined officer and enlisted team representing various Air Force career fields, is expected to work with researchers at MIT to harness the university's student talent, renowned faculty and state-of-the art facilities and laboratories. “MIT is a leading institution for AI research, education and application, making this a huge opportunity for the Air Force as we deepen and expand our scientific and technical enterprise. Drawing from one of the best of American research universities is vital,” Wilson said. The partnership will address a broad range of AI projects such as decision support, maintenance and logistics, talent management, medical readiness, situational awareness, business operations and disaster relief. “This collaboration is very much in line with MIT's core value of service to the nation,” said Maria Zuber, MIT's vice president for research and the E.A. Griswold professor of geophysics. “MIT researchers who choose to participate will bring state-of-the-art expertise in AI to advance Air Force mission areas and help train Air Force personnel in applications of AI.” As part of its Science and Technology Strategy, the Air Force launched a number of similar partnerships with higher education institutions around the U.S., each with a different focus area underscoring the Air Force's emphasis on driving innovation through government, academic and private sector partnerships. “MIT continues to pursue research that addresses current problems, while training researchers to think through the implications for tomorrow as research is translated to new technologies and new problems,” adds Krystyn Van Vliet, associate provost and professor of materials science and engineering and of biological engineering. “The MIT-Air Force AI Accelerator allows MIT to demonstrate that concept when AI provides one of the tools for human decisions." The Air Force plans to invest approximately $15 million per year as it builds upon its five-decade long relationship with MIT. (Source: USAF, MIT news releases) http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?do=main.textpost&id=3df3a529-4d35-463c-8f74-f927b83e0b32