Une législation américaine bloque la vente de «Rafale» à l'Egypte par la France

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  19 mars 2020 | International, C4ISR

  L3Harris is building an AI tool to help process imagery

  By: Nathan Strout L3Harris is building a new platform that will help analysts in the military use artificial intelligence to identify objects in large imagery data sets. “In general, there's a big challenge with the amount of remote sensing data that's coming down, whether that's from space or airborne assets,” explained Will Rorrer, principal of business development for geospatial at L3Harris Technologies. “So there's lots of imagery and other data types coming down from above, so much so that it really can't be looked at in its entirety — certainly not exploited in its entirety — by traditional means (with) purely human analysts. And so things like counting objects in imagery, monitoring different places, that's where there's a natural adoption of machine learning type of techniques,” he continued. L3Harris officials declined to share who the end customer for their product will be or the exact value of their multimillion dollar contract, which was issued by the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center. It's no secret that the Department of Defense and the intelligence community are eager to use artificial intelligence tools to sift through the vast torrent of data created by an ever increasing number of sensors and pick out the most important information for human analysts. For its platform, L3Harris is focusing on creating the training data and workflows that will enable a machine learning tool to process data for the Department of Defense and provide deliverable intelligence. Machine learning platforms are essentially made of three parts: the training data the neural network will learn from, the machine learning algorithm itself, and then how the platform integrates into other Department of Defense systems. L3Harris will be working on what Rorrer calls the front end and the back end of the AI platform. “A lot of AI/ML technologies can be ported into that middle category,” he said. “Neural network applications that have been developed in commercial space can be brought in if we can address the front end and the back end of that in DoD space.” For nearly 30 years, L3Harris has been incorporated advanced modeling and simulation capabilities to test out new payloads and optical systems, using computers to plot out how the atmosphere and other factors will impact their technologies. Now the company plans to use those modeling and simulation tools to develop the training data that will teach a machine learning algorithm how to solve complex DoD problems, such as identifying a threatening object within satellite imagery. “All of that summed up—we make very good fake imagery,” said Rorrer. “ We've taken that technology that was essentially developed for another reason and pivoted (to using it) as a source of synthetic training data for these neural net applications.” Synthetic training data can be especially important for developing DoD or intelligence community AI applications, since there's often not enough real world imagery of the threats they're focused on, said Rorrer. L3Harris believes that they can create fake imagery that looks enough like the real thing that when real imagery is fed into the algorithm it can find the objects it's supposed to. https://www.c4isrnet.com/intel-geoint/2020/03/18/l3harris-is-building-an-ai-tool-to-help-process-geoint/

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  2 novembre 2018 | International, Terrestre

  NATO general: Europe not moving fast enough on military mobility

  By: Aaron Mehta WASHINGTON — European nations are not moving as fast as needed to resolve long-standing logistical issues that could tie up efforts to meet invading Russian forces, according to a top NATO general. “From a military perspective, of course I would say it is not moving fast enough,” Lt. Gen. Jan Broeks, director general of the alliance's International Military Staff, said Wednesday. “It is not moving fast enough. Of course, there is always an element of how fast you can get financing, building the brigades, building the roads,” Broeks added. “It's a lot of work. but we need to be ambitious and we need to be very clear, in a military context.” Since Russia seized Ukrainian territory in 2014, NATO nations have woken up to the challenges involved in moving military forces from one side of the continent to a potential eastern front, an issue that broadly falls under the “military mobility” heading. Officials have been upfront that the situation needs a lot of work and investment, but Broeks' comments underline how much more work there is to do. Those challenges largely fall into two sets. The first is logistical — finding which roads can support the weight of military equipment, increasing capacity at key ports or repairing aged rail tracks. The second is legal — making sure nations have preapproved forces from other nations to enter their airspace and cross their borders. Broeks, who is from the Netherlands, traveled to Washington this week accompanied by Lt. Gen. Esa Pulkkinen, the Finnish officer who serves as director general of the European Union's military staff. The two were hosted by the Center for a New American Security think tank. Pulkkinen said the legal set of challenges is the one that can be most easily tackled. “These are the areas where you can proceed more [quickly]. Some of the issues are in the hands of the EU, some in the hands of the member states,” he said. And Broeks indicated there may be developments in the area of authorities coming “weeks and months” ahead of the alliances 2019 political guidance document. “When I think about rapid air mobility, it's a very critical element,” he explained. “At the moment, it is a procedural element. If we were deploying forces either through airlifts or through support through airlift, or elements of this [such as] rotary-wing and fixed-wing supporting missions, if they would not have to go through procedures for clearance, then we're there in rapid air mobility. “We in Europe control this,” he added. “We need to go with nations because nations own the airspace.” Since taking over their respective jobs, the two men have made it a point to regularly attend dinners to foster closer ties between military planning for NATO and the EU; the visit to Washington represents the first time two officers in those jobs have traveled together to America, and the trip is part of an effort to assuage concerns within the U.S. government that NATO and the EU are not coordinating defense priorities. Much of that concern stems from the EU's announcement in late 2017 of the Permanent Structured Cooperation on security and defense, or PESCO, a fund for EU defense projects. American officials quickly sounded the alarm that PESCO could take funds away from NATO priorities. Both Broeks and Pulkkinen have downplayed those concerns, with the two pointing to military mobility as one example where PESCO can help support NATO nations with extra funding while providing benefits for non-NATO nations. But Pulkkinen also emphasized that while PESCO is funding some initiatives on the mobility front, it should be treated as extra help, not the central solution. Another area of joint collaboration for military mobility has come from NATO's Trident Juncture exercise, now underway. Both men said the exercise includes a focus on moving units through various airspaces and over borders. “We get lessons learned out of this because the U.K. has forces [moving] through the Netherlands, through Denmark, through Norway. The Germans move forces north. So we get a lot of this, both from interoperability and military mobility,” Broeks said. “We don't have any EU exercises at all, [so] any chance to improve the interoperability of the forces, including the EU members' state forces, is good for us,” Pulkkinen added. “We are very grateful on the EU side that some non-NATO EU allies are [involved].” https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2018/11/01/nato-general-europe-not-moving-fast-enough-on-military-mobility

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  8 juillet 2019 | International, Autre défense

  Pentagon Looks into Virtual Reality to Prepare Troops for Nuclear War

  By JACK CORRIGAN The Defense Department is considering investing in virtual reality platforms to prepare troops to face nuclear threats. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency on Tuesday began seeking information on virtual reality training systems that would allow troops to rehearse different scenarios involving “radiological threats.” The agency, which focuses on countering weapons of mass destruction, could one day use the tech to train troops to intercept radiological weapons on the battlefield, respond to radioactive contamination and even prepare for full-fledged nuclear war, officials wrote in the solicitation. While virtual and augmented platforms wouldn't entirely replace the agency's current training regimen, they would expose troops to more training exercises than they could ever experience in the real world. Physical training is expensive and time-consuming, but through virtual reality, troops could run through more exercises more frequently and at a lower cost. Under the solicitation, officials are looking for industry to outline their own virtual reality platforms, the hardware required to use them and how environments can be modified to accommodate new exercises. Officials plan to use the information collected under the solicitation to inform potential future acquisitions. Responses are due Aug. 12. This wouldn't be the first time the Pentagon turned to virtual platforms to train troops for real-world scenarios. Last year, Microsoft won a $480 million contract with the Army to adapt its HoloLens augmented reality headsets for use in military training and combat operations. The headsets would be outfitted with artificial intelligence and machine-learning capabilities, and provide troops with “increased lethality, mobility, and situational awareness.” In February, Microsoft employees wrote a letter to executives demanding the company pull out of the contract, saying they “refuse to create technology for warfare and oppression.” The company opted to stand by its partnership with the Pentagon. https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2019/07/pentagon-looks-virtual-reality-prepare-troops-nuclear-war/158227/