While stopping weapons of mass destruction and cyber attacks are high security priorities, the kinetic effects from cyber forces are a looming threat today. Malevolent uses for artificial intelligence combined with autonomous systems provide frightening new levels of capabilities to potential adversaries, and the U.S. Defense Department and the intelligence community are being called upon to address them with extraordinary vigor.
autonomous systems
February 1, 2018
Artificial intelligence has a trust problem. While adoption is increasing in both the government and commercial sectors, artificial intelligence-infused technologies have not reached their full potential in many critical applications because their opaque nature does not give users a window into the decision-making process.
Lockheed Martin Corporation, Grand Prairie, Texas, has been awarded a $12,933,908 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for the Squad X Experimentation program to design, develop and validate system prototypes for a combined-arms squad. Bids were solicited via the Internet with one received. Work will be performed in Grand Prairie, Texas; Rome, New York; Menlo Park, California; Woburn, Massachusetts; Ann Arbor, Michigan; and Cherry Hill, New Jersey, with an estimated completion date of August 14, 2019. Fiscal 2016 and 2017 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the amount of $7,506,796 were obligated at the time of the award. U.S.
May 24, 2017
Autonomous functionality is increasing. The evidence is everywhere from drones and self-driving cars to voice-controlled devices such as IBM's Watson and Amazon’s Echo. The key to successfully transitioning to these increasingly autonomous systems for the military and defense industry is trust, said Dr. Paul D. Nielsen, director and CEO, Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University.
May 8, 2017
Direct feedback and technical evaluations from warfighters and senior leadership participating in an amphibious, autonomous warfare exercise could affect the way the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps look at prototyping and rapidly acquiring technology. By pairing sailors and Marines with scientists and technologists, the Ship-to-Shore Maneuver Exploration and Experimentation Advanced Naval Technology Exercise (S2ME2 ANTX) will help increase the pace of innovation, says Dr. David E. Walker, director of technology, Office of Naval Research (ONR).
February 1, 2017
U.S. Navy researchers hope to advance maritime countermine technology by developing fully autonomous systems that support the service’s latest ships and doctrine. Both new threats and innovative naval systems are remaking the undersea arena in ways that render obsolete conventional countermine
November 1, 2016
Over the next decade—if not sooner—the U.S. Defense Department wants more of its military systems to operate autonomously, capable of independently determining the right course of action no matter the situation. The Defense Science Board predicts the department will get there.
Autonomous systems address several problem areas, and reasons to pursue the technology are numerous, according to a technical panel presenting this week at the MILCOM 2016 conference in Baltimore.
July 1, 2016
Every U.S. Army soldier in 2040 may have a personal robot. It also is possible that autonomous systems will carry heavy loads, establish ad hoc mesh networks, act as communications retransmission stations, file spot reports on enemy forces and be the first to engage adversaries on the battlefield.
August 7, 2015
PreTalen Limited, Columbus Grove, Ohio, has been awarded a $15 million indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity, small-business innovation research phase III contract for position navigation and time autonomous negotiator applying cognitive effects-based analysis. The contractor will provide the extension of the suite of custom software and hardware designed to simultaneously and autonomously test available Global Navigation Satellite System receivers across the threat spectrum. Work will be performed in Columbus Grove, Ohio, and at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, and is expected to be completed by August 9, 2020. This award is the result of a sole-source acquisition.
September 13, 2010
It's nice when Fido obeys commands, but isn't it even better when he instinctively anticipates those directives? Apply this concept to unmanned systems-robotics to be exact-and the warfighter has a more foolproof companion by his side on the battlefield. That's the idea driving the U.S. Army Research Laboratory's Robotics Collaborative Technology Alliance (CTA) to advance the state of the art in unmanned technologies and move them more quickly into theater. Robots will eschew remote-control guidance, relying on programming that gives them autonomy via artificial intelligence.
October 15, 2014
With its developing fleet of autonomous “guard dogs,” the U.S. Navy is becoming more lethal and protective using the same technology.
The sea service is capitalizing on a first-of-its-kind autonomous technology, with software originally developed by NASA for the Mars Rover, which can transform just about any surface vessel into an unmanned platform able to protect other ships or “swarm” hostile vessels, officials say.
