THE WATCH STAFF
In a joint effort, the militaries of the United States and United Kingdom have successfully demonstrated machine-learning algorithms.
The cooperation between the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and the U.K.’s Defense Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) showcased the countries’ ability to collaborate on deploying artificial intelligence (AI) in support of war fighters, according to an October 20, 2021, story in the Air Force Times newspaper.
The joint effort is part of a four-year Autonomy and Artificial Intelligence Collaboration (AAIC) Partnership Agreement signed in December 2020, according to the Air Force Times. The AFRL is the lead agency for the partnership, and the Army and Navy are also participating.
The demonstration — the first event in a series of planned demonstrations — took place simultaneously on October 18 at AFRL’s Information Directorate in New York and Dstl’s Salisbury site in the U.K. The countries simulated a combat scenario with adjacent forces. Using a common platform, the countries shared data and machine-learning (ML) algorithms to support situational awareness, the Air Force Times said.
“This research … aims to improve [brigades’] decision-making, increase operational tempo, reduce risk to life, and reduce manpower burden,” Dstl said in a news release.
The AFRL, on its website, describes AI as the “ability of machines to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence — for example, recognizing patterns, learning from experience, drawing conclusions, making predictions, or taking action — whether digitally or as the smart software behind autonomous physical systems.”
U.S. Air Force Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, who leads U.S. Northern Command, has said the U.S. must capitalize on domain awareness and information dominance to deal with threats from near-peer competitors Russia and China.
“The days of having a single supported combatant commander are over,” VanHerck said in August 2021 at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium. “We need the ability to collaborate globally, across all domains in near real-time or in real-time to present options to our nation’s leaders.”
The joint exercise was important in the development of that capability.
“The demonstration is just the first step toward our ambition of deploying novel AI that can learn in the field into an experimental trial environment, something that hasn’t been done before and is only possible due to this collaboration,” Todd Robinson, who heads the U.K. team for the project, said in the Dstl news release.
His U.S. counterpart, AFRL project lead Lee Seversky, said that AI will “play a critical role in accelerating decision making to meet the pace and scale of the future battlespace,” according to the Air Force Times.
The U.K. used its model cards, which allowed commanders to quickly use the best ML algorithms for a mission. The U.S. used its StreamlinedML, which the Air Force Times described as an “open platform where users can build ML learning workflows, evaluate models and deploy them.”
AFRL said the two countries used 15 ML algorithms, 12 data sets and five automated ML workflows in the demonstration.
IMAGE CREDIT: FORT BELVOIR