Projet Tempest : BAE Systems souhaite fortement recourir à l’impression 3D et à la robotisation

Sur le même sujet

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  2 avril 2020

  Panel wants to double federal spending on AI

  Aaron Mehta A congressionally mandated panel of technology experts has issued its first set of recommendations for the government, including doubling the amount of money spent on artificial intelligence outside the defense department and elevating a key Pentagon office to report directly to the Secretary of Defense. Created by the National Defense Authorization Act in 2018, the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence is tasked with reviewing “advances in artificial intelligence, related machine learning developments, and associated technologies,” for the express purpose of addressing “the national and economic security needs of the United States, including economic risk, and any other associated issues.” The commission issued an initial report in November, at the time pledging to slowly roll out its actual policy recommendations over the course of the next year. Today's report represents the first of those conclusions — 43 of them in fact, tied to legislative language that can easily be inserted by Congress during the fiscal year 2021 budget process. Bob Work, the former deputy secretary of defense who is the vice-chairman of the commission, said the report is tied into a broader effort to move DoD away from a focus on large platforms. “What you're seeing is a transformation to a digital enterprise, where everyone is intent on making the DoD more like a software company. Because in the future, algorithmic warfare, relying on AI and AI enabled autonomy, is the thing that will provide us with the greatest military competitive advantage,” he said during a Wednesday call with reporters. Among the key recommendations: The government should “immediately double non-defense AI R&D funding” to $2 billion for FY21, a quick cash infusion which should work to strengthen academic center and national labs working on AI issues. The funding should “increase agency topline levels, not repurpose funds from within existing agency budgets, and be used by agencies to fund new research and initiatives, not to support re-labeled existing efforts.” Work noted that he recommends this R&D to double again in FY22. The commission leaves open the possibility of recommendations for increasing DoD's AI investments as well, but said it wants to study the issue more before making such a request. In FY21, the department requested roughly $800 million in AI developmental funding and another $1.7 billion in AI enabled autonomy, which Work said is the right ratio going forward. “We're really focused on non-defense R&D in this first quarter, because that's where we felt we were falling further behind,” he said. “We expect DoD AI R&D spending also to increase” going forward. The Director of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) should report directly to the Secretary of Defense, and should continue to be led by a three-star officer or someone with “significant operational experience.” The first head of the JAIC, Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, is retiring this summer; currently the JAIC falls under the office of the Chief Information Officer, who in turn reporters to the secretary. Work said the commission views the move as necessary in order to make sure leadership in the department is “driving" investment in AI, given all the competing budgetary requirements. The DoD and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) should establish a steering committee on emerging technology, tri-chaired by the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Principal Deputy Director of ODNI, in order to “drive action on emerging technologies that otherwise may not be prioritized” across the national security sphere. Government microelectronics programs related to AI should be expanded in order to “develop novel and resilient sources for producing, integrating, assembling, and testing AI-enabling microelectronics.” In addition, the commission calls for articulating a “national for microelectronics and associated infrastructure.” Funding for DARPA's microelectronics program should be increased to $500 million. The commission also recommends the establishment of a $20 million pilot microelectronics program to be run by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), focused on AI hardware. The establishment of a new office, tentatively called the National Security Point of Contact for AI, and encourage allied government to do the same in order to strengthen coordination at an international level. The first goal for that office would be to develop an assessment of allied AI research and applications, starting with the Five Eyes nations and then expanding to NATO. One issue identified early by the commission is the question of ethical AI. The commission recommends mandatory training on the limits of artificial intelligence in the AI workforce, which should include discussions around ethical issues. The group also calls for the Secretary of Homeland Security and the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to “share their ethical and responsible AI training programs with state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement officials,” and track which jurisdictions take advantage of those programs over a five year period. Missing from the report: any mention of the Pentagon's Directive 3000.09, a 2012 order laying out the rules about how AI can be used on the battlefield. Last year C4ISRNet revealed that there was an ongoing debate among AI leaders, including Work, on whether that directive was still relevant. While not reflected in the recommendations, Eric Schmidt, the former Google executive who chairs the commission, noted that his team is starting to look at how AI can help with the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, saying "“We're in an extraordinary time... we're all looking forward to working hard to help anyway that we can.” The full report can be read here. https://www.c4isrnet.com/artificial-intelligence/2020/04/01/panel-wants-to-double-federal-spending-on-ai/

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  21 juillet 2020

  Startups Need Free Data To Work With Army: Venture Capitalists

  Because open-source software lacks the same kind of cyber certification that comes with more sensitive information, it is fertile ground for start-ups looking to work on military data, provided each service makes an open-source library available. By KELSEY ATHERTONon July 20, 2020 at 7:01 AM ALBUQUERQUE: Venture capitalists want the Pentagon to be a good market. But for an industry that makes many unsuccessful bets in the promise that just a few pan out spectacularly, marketing software exclusively to the Pentagon poses an almost unacceptable risk. To ease startups into contracting, investors suggest the Army should provide unclassified, open-source data as the Air Force already does. Near the top of his investors' wishlist, says Stu Solomon, CTO of intelligence provider Recorded Future, is removing “a lot of the friction necessary to get innovation into the government without having to be directly aligned or affiliated with the big solution integrators.” Hitching new technology to a company already firmly ingrained in the Pentagon's ecosystem is a popular way to shepherd new software through the acquisitions process. It is also partly explains how, despite hundreds of millions of dollars in military contracts going to Silicon Valley companies, tech adoption seems as slow from the Valley as elsewhere. Solomon's remarks came during a panel at AFCEA's 2020 AFCEA Army Signal conference. Recorded Future was founded in 2008, received early funding from IN-Q-TEL, received a contract from DIU in 2017, and a contract from Cyber Command in 2020. Much of Recorded Future's product is built on ingesting open-source information and offering analysis. As a feature, that meant the company could sustain itself in the commercial market, selling enterprise software, while still planning long-term to contract with the military, DHS, and intelligence services. “If you think this is eventually going to be a market that matters to you, you're not going to be able to wait four years for the procurement process to mature as your product matures,” said Elizabeth Lawler, founder of Founder of AppLand. If a startup's focus is solely on processing classified data, the capital investors need to be aligned directly with that goal to fund it since getting certified to handle classified material is one of the major sources of cost and friction. “My current startup, focused on providing real-time up-to-date software images, works on things that are less sensitive as a starting point,” said Lawler, “for example, some of the code bases in the Air Force's open source code repository.” Because open-source software lacks the same kind of cyber certification that comes with more sensitive information, it is fertile ground for start-ups looking to work on military data, provided the service makes an open-source library available. “When it comes to this Valley of Death, I really view what we do when we start companies as an awful lot like a really difficult special forces mission,” said Andy Palmer, co-founder and CEO of data management company Tamr. “When you go in, you drop onto the ground to start a company, with a small team of people, and limited resources, and what oftentimes feels like an unreasonable objective. It's hand to hand combat for much of it, it's not pretty. The goal is survival.” So, if the Army wants to bring new data tools to the battlefields of the future, it could start by creating open-source environments that allow companies to solve problems, at a smaller scale and without the hurdles of classification, suggested several panelists. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/07/startups-need-free-data-to-work-with-army-venture-capitalists/

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  3 décembre 2020

  Aviation Startups Making Progress, But Can They Disrupt The Industry?

  Graham Warwick December 02, 2020 The concept of a minimum viable product is not new to aviation. It is how the industry started. But as aircraft technology has advanced, customers have come to expect more than a minimum capability. Along comes Silicon Valley's startup culture, with its drive to find a foothold from which to launch a new technology—a less-than-perfected product that can be developed quickly to disrupt or create a market. How well is that going for aviation? From autonomy and artificial intelligence (AI) to hybrid-electric and hydrogen propulsion, is there a viable product taking shape that can perform a valuable mission? Autonomy The vision: unmanned cargo aircraft plying the skies to meet the ever-growing express logistics needs of the e-commerce giants. The reality: a pair of startups that are converting the Cessna Caravan into a remotely piloted regional cargo aircraft as a first step. The goal is that supervised autonomy would enable several aircraft to be managed by one remote pilot on the ground, increasing aircraft utilization and reducing operating costs. Reliable Robotics and Xwing plan to operate their aircraft manned initially, the autonomy advising the pilot while accumulating the experience required to certify the system. The companies hope to begin commercial flights by 2022. There are plenty of startups pursuing the express logistics market with unmanned cargo aircraft, but by targeting an existing market—several hundred Caravans fly as freight feeders for package carriers—and modifying an already certified aircraft and taking a staged approach to introducing autonomy, these two companies hope to lower the certification hurdles. Artificial Intelligence The vision: automated aircraft flown by machine-learning algorithms that replicate the skills of human pilots but not their mistakes. The reality: The initial approach is to use AI to help the pilot in high-workload phases of flight, such as landing. Swiss startup Daedalean is developing a camera-based system to provide safe landing guidance for general-aviation aircraft and vertical-takeoff-and-landing vehicles. Airbus has the longer-term goal of bringing autonomy to its commercial aircraft but has started in the same place, demonstrating fully automatic vision-based takeoffs and landings with an A350 in April. By tackling one well-defined subtask of visual flying, and proving the system can be safer than human piloting, Daedalean hopes to create the path to certification of AI for safety-critical applications. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency, which has been working with the startup to frame the rules, expects the first AI applications to be certified in 2022. Hybrid-Electric The vision: propulsion systems that overcome the limitations of batteries to deliver the economic and emissions benefits of electrification in larger, faster, longer-range aircraft. The reality: Starting small, startups Ampaire and VoltAero are testing power trains in converted Cessna 337 Skymasters. Ampaire's route to market is to modify existing aircraft, beginning with the Skymaster as the four-seat, 200-mi. Electric EEL but moving on to the 19-seat de Havilland Canada Twin Otter. France's VoltAero, meanwhile, is taking the clean-sheet approach with plans for a family of hybrid-electric aircraft with up to 10 seats and 800-mi. range. Delivery of the initial four-seat Cassio 330 version is planned for 2023. While batteries have improved enough to make pure-electric urban air taxis feasible, longer ranges are still out of reach. But there are startups working to field all-electric nine- and 19-seat aircraft within just a couple of years of the first hybrid-electric types. It remains to be seen whether hybrid propulsion is just a stopgap, as with cars, or a long-term market niche. Hydrogen The vision: zero-emissions flight for aircraft of all sizes and ranges. The reality: adapting automotive fuel-cell technology to modify regional turboprops and kick-start the market for green hydrogen as an aviation fuel. ZeroAvia made the first flight of a six-seater with a fuel-cell power train from Cranfield, England, in September and plans a 300-mi. demonstration flight. The startup's route to market is to modify existing 10- and 20-seaters to hydrogen-electric propulsion, aiming for its first certification within three years. Universal Hydrogen is more ambitious, targeting the 50-seat de Havilland Canada Dash 8-300 for conversion to hydrogen fuel-cell propulsion for market entry by 2024. Introducing a new fuel to aviation is an infrastructure issue. By starting small, the startups believe the challenge of producing green hydrogen can be made manageable. But to have an impact on aviation's contribution to climate change, hydrogen needs to be scaled up to larger and larger aircraft as quickly as possible. https://aviationweek.com/aerospace/emerging-technologies/aviation-startups-making-progress-can-they-disrupt-industry