U.S. ‘Not Prepared To Defend Or Compete’ With China On AI According To Commission Reporthttps://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/39559/national-security-commission-warns-u-s-is-not-prepared-to-defend-or-compete-with-china-on-aiThe National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, or NCSAI, issued a report on Monday, March 1, 2021, which offers a stark warning to the leadership of the United States. According to the thorough 756-page report, China could likely soon replace the U.S. as the world’s leader in artificial intelligence, or AI, and that shift will have significant ramifications for the U.S. military at home and abroad.
https://www.nscai.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Full-Report-Digital-1.pdf
... The NSCAI report specifically cites AI-enabled and autonomous weapon systems of all types, not just autonomous aerial vehicles, noting that “the global, unchecked use of such systems could increase risks of unintended conflict escalation and crisis instability.” In particular, the report cites increasingly sophisticated cyberweapons, commercial drones armed with AI software “smart weapons” that can wreak havoc on infrastructure, and AI-enabled “weapons of mass influence” designed to sow discord among the U.S. populace.
The NSCAI report states that despite the progress being made in the private sector in terms of AI tools, “visionary technologists and warfighters largely remain stymied by antiquated technology, cumbersome processes, and incentive structures that are designed for outdated or competing aims.” ... "Many Departmental processes still rely too much on PowerPoint and manually driven work streams. The data that is needed to fuel machine learning (ML) is currently stovepiped, messy, or often discarded. Platforms are disconnected. Acquisition, development, and fielding practices largely follow rigid, sequential processes, inhibiting early and continuous experimentation and testing critical for AI."
Among the many recommendations the report makes, in order to counteract this rising foreign AI threat, one is bolstering the U.S. talent base through a new National Defense Education Act, scaling up digital talent in government, and establishing a domestic manufacturing base for microelectronics. Currently, the U.S. is almost entirely reliant on foreign-made electronics to power most of its technologies, both in the defense and consumer sectors. ... The commission advises the U.S. government to more than double the amount of money it invests in AI R&D by 2026, aiming for $32 billion a year.
It also urges President Joe Biden to reject calls for a global ban on AI-powered autonomous weapons, saying that China and Russia are unlikely to keep to any treaty they sign.... America's two main adversaries,
Google & Facebook China & Russia, are just as keenly aware of how AI supremacy could lead to battlefield supremacy and are making just as much investment into AI as the new NSCAI report recommends America does.
The commission was established as part of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act and the majority of its members -- who include representatives from Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services and Oracle -- were appointed by Congress.
... The report’s key takeaway is that the Department of Defense and the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) must be “AI-ready” by 2025 ... [
... except, SkyNet will become self-aware in 2024]
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Australia's Autonomous AI 'Loyal Wingman' Drone Has Flown For The First Timehttps://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/39539/australias-loyal-wingman-air-combat-drone-has-flown-for-the-first-timeKnown as the Airpower Teaming System (ATS), Boeing Australia's new loyal wingman drone for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) has taken to the sky for the first time. It's not clear exactly when the flight took place, but it occurred at the high-security RAAF Base Woomera and its surrounding range complex. The flight was originally supposed to occur around the end of 2020, but it was pushed back due to a number of factors.
The first flight test profile was intended to validate basic flight functions and included a significant degree of autonomous operations.
The ATS, which is a modular design capable of having its entire nose section swapped out quickly, is seen as a landmark program for Australia and the RAAF. It is the first clean-sheet aircraft Boeing has brought to fruition outside the U.S. and the first military aircraft Australia has independently produced in over half a century.
... “Boeing and Australia are pioneering fully integrated combat operations by crewed and uncrewed aircraft,” said Boeing Defense, Space & Security President and CEO Leanne Caret.
... “The Loyal Wingman project is a pathfinder for the integration of autonomous systems and artificial intelligence to create smart human-machine teams.
... Additional Loyal Wingman aircraft are currently under development, with plans for teaming flights scheduled for later this year. ... Much of the basic command logic that will drive the ATS has already been tested on subscale flying demonstrators.The U.S. is actively pursuing similar capabilities in the form of its Skyborg program, as well as other parallel initiatives. Boeing Australia's design could even factor into that program in the near future.
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Boeing Is Adapting Its Australian Combat Drone For The U.S. Air Force's Skyborg Programhttps://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/39560/boeing-is-adapting-its-australian-combat-drone-for-the-u-s-air-forces-skyborg-program
Just days after the first flight of the Boeing Airpower Teaming System combat drone that’s being developed for Australia, the company confirmed this unmanned aircraft will also provide the basis for its offering for the U.S. Air Force’s Skyborg loyal wingman program.
... Unlike fighter jets, the drone uses a commercially available jet engine; Boeing won’t disclose the manufacturer.
The company is using robots to build the drone, unlike the labor-intensive human assembly lines of their manned companions.“For this particular concept to work, it needs to be at a cost point that the customer is willing to lose the aircraft because there is no future scenario in the future fight where there isn't attrition in the airspace,” Arnott said. “The whole idea here is it's better for that to happen in an uncrewed system than a crewed system."
... Skyborg covers the development a whole range of systems that will form an artificial intelligence-driven “computer brain” capable of flying networked “loyal wingman” type drones and autonomous unmanned combat air vehicles, or UCAVs.------------------------------------------------
Lockheed Martin's 'Skunk Works' Secretive 'Speed Racer' Programhttps://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/39495/heres-everything-we-know-about-skunk-works-secretive-speed-racer-programLockheed Martin's Skunk Works advanced projects bureau has officially revealed the design of its secretive Speed Racer air vehicle. The missile-shaped unmanned system is ostensibly intended to serve as an experiment in digital engineering techniques, but has the potential to be the basis for future swarming drones and low-cost cruise missiles.
From what little Lockheed Martin has shared so far, the main focus of Speed Racer is to validate the StarDrive toolset. "Lockheed built the StarDrive to reduce the time and cost of producing and operating new flight vehicles for the military," the
Aviation Week story from earlier this month had explained.
... "The ultimate capability of the system is really not what the project is focusing on," ... “What we are really working to do is show how we use the toolset and how we implement [it], starting from a one-page concept, and [bringing] that all the way through flight."
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The Navy Plans To Launch Swarms Of Aerial Drones From Unmanned Submarines And Shipshttps://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/39535/navy-contract-exposes-plans-to-launch-swarms-of-drones-from-unmanned-boats-and-submarines... This is "a rapid capability effort to achieve operational launch capability from unmanned surface vessels (USVs) and an unmanned underwater vessel (UUV). The intended concept of operations (CONOP) and tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) are to provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and precision strike capability from maritime platforms," the contracting notice added. "Additionally, the High Volume Long Range Precision Strike (HVLRPS) from USVs and Fires (HVLRPF) from UUVs demonstrations will leverage prior efforts including the Innovative Naval Prototype (INP) and progress on the Mobile Precision Attack Vehicle (MoPAV)."
... Autonomous swarming technology, including artificial intelligence-driven flight and targeting capabilities, are becoming increasingly popular additions to loitering munitions, as well. This kind of swarm can more rapidly search for and then engage multiple targets, either automatically or with human approval, across a large area. It's important to note that ONR has already conducted demonstrations involving Block 1 Coyotes operating in swarms as part of its Low-Cost UAV Swarming Technology program, or LOCUST.
The Navy's interest in loitering munitions is hardly surprising, both for its own use or in support of U.S. Marine Corps requirements. Both services, as well as other elements of the U.S. military, are pursuing multiple programs in this same general vein.
What is much more notable about this particular contract is the desire to rapidly develop an operational capability to deploy swarms of loitering munitions from both unmanned boats and submarines.An edition of
Future Force, an official ONR magazine, that was published last year said that recent "experimentation efforts" in support of Navy and Marine Corps requirements had included
"Close-in Covert Autonomous Disposable Aircraft super swarm experimentation." ... "This record-setting effort simultaneously launched 1,000 unmanned aerial vehicles out of a C-130 and demonstrated behaviors critical to future super swarm employment,"... A swarm might not necessarily have to just be made up of loitering munitions, either. Coyotes, or other small drones, carrying ISR, electronic warfare, or other payloads, could also be networked together, providing different types of functionality to make it easier to find threats and engage them in the most optimal way.
... the Navy has made clear that it sees its future operations as being full of swarms that expand the capabilities of its surface and underwater fleets, both at sea and over the shore.
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Air Force Testing Out Weapons That Fry Enemy Drones with Directed Energy, Microwaveshttps://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/02/25/air-force-testing-out-weapons-fry-enemy-drones-directed-energy-microwaves.htmlThe U.S. Air Force is testing new counter-drone systems that use either direct energy or microwaves to take out unmanned drones that pose a threat to troops and bases overseas.
The service announced this month that it has been testing an upgraded laser system, known as the High Energy Laser Weapon System 2, or H2, through a series of experiments that began last summer at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico.
The news follows the U.S. Army's announcement Wednesday that it will partner with the Air Force on its Tactical High Power Operational Responder, or THOR, which can disable a drone's electronics at certain ranges. During its development phase, THOR was referred to as the Tactical High-power Microwave Operational Responder.
... THOR, developed by the Air Force Research Lab and housed at Kirtland, looks like a standard Conex box with a satellite dish strapped to it.
While high-energy lasers can kill one target at a time, high-powered microwaves "can kill groups or swarms, which is why we are pursuing a combination of both technologies"
"The system output is powerful radio wave bursts, which offer a greater engagement range than bullets or nets, and its effects are silent and instantaneous," added Amber Anderson, THOR program manager. [
... works on humans, too ... just sayin']
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... expect a lot of cancers ------------------------------------------------
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Report: Protecting Against the Threat of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS)https://publicintelligence.net/cisa-unmanned-aircraft-systems-threats/
