Artificial intelligence helps Soldiers learn faster

New technology allows U.S. Soldiers to learn 13 times faster than conventional methods, and Army researchers said this may help save lives. At the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, scientists are improving the rate of learning even with limited resources. It's possible to help Soldiers decipher hints of information faster and come up with quicker solutions, such as recognizing threats like a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device or potential danger zones from aerial war zone images. The researchers relied on low-cost, lightweight hardware and implemented collaborative filtering, a well-known machine learning technique on a state-of-the-art, low-power Field Programmable Gate Array platform to achieve a 13.3 times speedup of training compared to a state-of-the-art optimized multi-core system and 12.7 times speedup for optimized GPU systems. The new technique consumed far less power too.