Speech Recognition and AI Help Take the Pressure off Aircrew

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  17 décembre 2020

  How DoD can improve its technology resilience

  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is a key challenge for combat mission systems in the defense community as a result of accumulating technical debt, outdated procurement frameworks, and a recurring failure to prioritize learning over compliance.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/

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  9 septembre 2020

  New policy addresses 3D parts for Army aircraft

  By Courtesy As the Army explores the potential of some advanced manufacturing methods and 3D-printed parts to maintain and sustain its aviation fleet, recently published guidance aims to strike a balance between safety, improvements to readiness and escalating costs. Advanced manufacturing refers to new ways of making existing products and the production of new products using advances in technology. Advanced manufacturing includes additive manufacturing, a process of joining materials to make parts from 3D-model data. Additive manufacturing differs from the traditional subtractive process that cuts away material to shape and produce parts. The U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command recently published a policy memorandum addressing advanced manufacturing for Army aircraft parts, components and support products. “Evolving technologies create a unique challenge as we determine the airworthiness of parts when the data is immature, incomplete or even non-existent,” said AMCOM Commander Maj. Gen. Todd Royar, who serves as the Army's airworthiness authority, responsible for ensuring the safety of the service's aircraft components. As enduring aircraft, like the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, continue in service, the supply system with face challenges with obsolescence, meaning parts that are difficult to acquire or receive no bids from potential vendors to manufacture. As the Army keeps pace with technology, advanced manufacturing creates opportunities to optimize long-term sustainment efforts. The Army established a partnership recently with Wichita State University's National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR) to create a “digital twin” of an aging Black Hawk model. “One of the primary tasks in this effort is to convert all legacy 2D drawings of this aircraft into modern 3D parametric models,” said John Tomblin, senior Vice-President for Industry and Defense Programs and Executive Director of NIAR at Wichita State University. “This will allow the Army to source parts that are out of production as well as use advanced techniques, such as additive manufacturing, to produce parts.” The digital twin opens a door to the 3D modeling and more opportunities to use parts made through additive manufacturing. The NIAR project is not the Army's only effort. Army Aviation is already using advanced manufacturing methods and 3D-printed parts to solve specific challenges. When several CH-47 helicopters experienced structural cracks at a certain portion of the frame assembly, an initial solution was to replace the entire frame assembly. “Replacing the entire assembly is a time-consuming task that also poses logistical challenges because replacements are difficult to obtain,” said AMCOM's Aviation Branch Maintenance Officer, Chief Warrant Officer 5 Michael Cavaco. Instead, engineers designed a solution to restore the cracked frames to their original strength by creating repair fittings using Computer-Aided Design models. “After five iterations of 3D-printing prototypes, test fit and model adjustments, a final design solution was achieved,” Cavaco said. Additionally, 3D printers have created several tools and shop aids that have benefitted the field. Many of these stand-alone items that support maintenance operations are authorized within Army technical manuals, depot maintenance work requirements or similar publications. While too early to predict overall cost and time savings, the advantages of advanced manufacturing are significant. The use of advanced manufactured parts will eliminate wait time on back-ordered parts that, ultimately, delay repairs. A key focus of AMCOM's AM policy is on inserting evolving technologies into enduring designs that have relied on traditional manufacturing processes throughout their acquisition lifecycle. However, future Aviation are benefiting as well from advanced manufacturing. The Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP) includes a number of advanced manufacturing elements. “ITEP benefits from advanced manufacturing include reduced cost, reduced weight, increased durability, and enhanced performance when compared to traditional manufacturing methods,” said Col. Roger Kuykendall, the project manager for Aviation Turbine Engines. “The benefits of AM stem from the unique capability to produce more complex hardware shapes while simultaneously reducing part count.” The fine details of airworthiness expectations asserted in this policy were crafted by a team of engineers at the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation and Missile Center, led by Chris Hodges, the current acting associate director for Airworthiness-Technology. Hodges said the new policy was drafted after his team collaborated with stakeholders from across the aviation enterprise, reaching across Army organizations and out to sister services and the Federal Aviation Administration. “We considered a lot of input and ultimately organized expectations and requirements by category, spanning from tools and shop aids to critical safety items,” Hodges said. “The resulting policy sets a solid foundation with room to grow and fill in details as the story evolves.” For Army aviation applications, advanced-manufactured parts and components will be managed under six categories that range from articles that support maintenance operations to those aviation critical safety items, whose failure would result in unacceptable risk. The designated categories prescribe for engineers and manufacturers the allowed materials and appropriate testing methodology for each particular part. The new guidance is not intended as a replacement for other existing policies that address advanced manufacturing. “We intend to be in concert with Army policies and directives that pertain to readiness, maintenance and sustainment,” Royar said. “Our policy provides a deliberate approach to ensure airworthiness and safety while determining where research and efforts may best supplement the supply chain and improve performance while balancing cost.” AMCOM Command Sgt. Major Mike Dove acknowledged the methodology must continue to mature in multiple areas before confidence grows in the ability to measure airworthiness qualification requirements for advanced-manufactured parts. “We fully support the maturation requirements for advanced-manufacturing technology, but not at the expense of flight safety,” Dove said. As Army aviation continues to pursue and include advanced-manufacturing methods, Royar noted the potential impact as the technology evolves. “Advanced manufacturing touches units, depots and the broader supply chain,” Royar said. “As we sustain our enduring aircraft and look to future systems, it is important that we keep pace with this and other emerging technologies for the sake of the warfighter.” https://www.army.mil/article/238868/new_policy_addresses_3d_parts_for_army_aircraft

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  17 décembre 2020

  L'US Army développe un concept innovant de collaboration drones – robots

  Afin d'accroître l'endurance et la portée de ses drones, l'US Army entend faire collaborer des essaims aériens et terrestres. Des robots pour recharger des drones. L'US Army se penche actuellement sur un concept innovant visant à faire collaborer drones et robots et ainsi accroître les performances de ses essaims de drones. Afin de pouvoir augmenter les capacités des drones déployés au sein de l'essaim, ces derniers se rendront au sol et se poseront sur des robots, qui leur serviront de plateformes de chargement. Une idée astucieuse afin de considérablement augmenter la portée et l'endurance de ces petits aéronefs. Algorithmes et intelligence artificielle. Afin de conduire ce projet, le laboratoire de recherche de l'US Army a notifié à l'université d'Illinois un accord portant sur 4 ans et un budget de recherche de 8M$. L'enjeu est notamment de pouvoir définir une intelligence artificielle assez performante afin que les drones puissent se poser en toute sécurité sur les robots au sol, et que ces derniers parviennent à suivre les aéronefs en vol. Néanmoins, de nombreux aspects sont à prendre en compte eut égard à l'environnement opérationnel dans lequel ces drones seront déployés. Ils devront conserver leur discrétion, tout en évitant les potentiels obstacles, puisque toute la manœuvre sera réalisée de façon automatique. L'aspect essaim sera également à gérer car l'ambition est de pouvoir mener une mission en continu. Il faudra donc faire alterner les drones dans les phases de chargement afin qu'il n'y ait pas d'interruption de missions. Libérer la charge mentale du soldat. A travers ce projet, l'objectif est également de soulager les soldats, aussi bien d'un point de vue opérationnel que logistique. Les militaires n'auront plus à se charger du pilotage du drone ni à gérer le niveau et le remplacement des batteries. L'ensemble se fera automatiquement et permettra aux opérationnels de se concentrer sur des t'ches à haute valeur ajoutée. https://www.air-cosmos.com/article/lus-army-dveloppe-un-concept-innovant-de-collaboration-drones-robots-23979