Actor Dar Salim portrays an Afghan translator for an American soldier in the new film. The U.S. military is expected to expand the use of fitness trackers that were once the subject of a Pentagon ban. The Pentagon's Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), which helps adapt commercially available technology to military use, is working to develop the expanded use of fineness trackers such as watches and rings that were successfully used for early detection of COVID-19 within the ranks, according to a Military.com The devices were at one time banned for deployed troops amid concerns GPS trackers within the trackers could be used to reveal the locations of sensitives military installations in conflict zones. However, the DIU said it had success using the devices during the pandemic by developing an artificial intelligence algorithm it paired with the commercially available trackers.

The Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), the world's leading trade association for uncrewed vehicle systems, has announced a collaboration with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to further commercial cyber methodologies to build a shared standard--like the one used to develop the DIU's Blue UAS "Cleared List." AUVSI's effort is designed to expand the number of vetted Uncrewed Aircraft Systems, or UAS, that meet Congressional and federal agency drone security requirements. "The goal of this new pilot initiative is to extend relevant cyber credentialing across the U.S. industrial base, proactively, streamlining and accelerating capabilities available to the Department of Defense (DoD) and the rest of the U.S. government," said Brian Wynne, AUVSI President and CEO. "We are grateful for DIU's partnership and look forward to working with them to make the US drone industry more resilient and secure." AUVSI efforts will streamline the vetting process and further expand the potential small UAS entrants to the government through its Trusted Cyber Program.

Aurora Flight Sciences, a Boeing Company, recently completed a project to advance the capabilities of its Modular Intercept Drone Avionics Set (MIDAS) counter-unmanned aircraft system (C-UAS). Aurora engineers designed, implemented, and tested improvements to the drone engagement device (DED) and onboard autonomy, as well as to the speed and maneuverability of the vehicle platform. Using similar test parameters to last spring's demonstration for the Joint Counter-sUAS Office (JCO) and the Army Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office (RCCTO), MIDAS autonomously defeated 83% of small UAS targets. "Since our successful customer demos last year, we've continued to improve hardware and software systems on MIDAS to ensure we are prepared to meet the needs of future counter-sUAS programs," said Jason Grzywna, director of small UAS programs at Aurora. "The vehicle we used for the most recent tests included enhancements in agility and autonomy, which improved target acquisition, and in the bolos fired by the DED, which proved more effective in completely disabling the target."

This week, the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), the division of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) that awards emerging technology prototype contracts, published a first draft of a whitepaper outlining "responsible … guidelines" that establish processes intended to "avoid unintended consequences" in AI systems. The paper, which includes worksheets for system planning, development, and deployment, is based on DoD ethics principles adopted by the Secretary of Defense and was written in collaboration with researchers at Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute, according to the DIU. "Unlike most ethics guidelines, [the guidelines] are highly prescriptive and rooted in action," a DIU spokesperson told VentureBeat via email. "Given DIU's relationship with private sector companies, the ethics will help shape the behavior of private companies and trickle down the thinking." Launched in March 2020, the DIU's effort comes as corporate defense contracts, particularly those involving AI technologies, have come under increased scrutiny.

Automating tasks has long been a goal of large workforces, and none is larger than the Department of Defense. With financial management systems that process a more than $700 billion budget annually, getting a helping (digital) hand can reduce wasted labor hours and costly mistakes. But simple automation sometimes is not enough to help solve more complex challenges, like pairing unmatched transactions in databases. That's why the Defense Innovation Unit teamed up with the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center to inject a boost of machine learning so that robotic process automation (RPA) can approach more complex tasks, like finding mislabeled and unmatched transactions. "The DOD has been using RPAs for several years to help fix [unmatched transactions], but RPAs are based on simple'if-then-else' cases where most of the [unmatched transactions] require more sophisticated analysis, which up to now have required manual intervention," said Eric Dorsey, a DIU program manager in the AI portfolio.

Despite a summer of controversy surrounding the use of artificial intelligence for military purposes, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency says it has no problem garnering interest in its AI research projects. "We don't see that we are having problems engaging with industry," Valerie Browning, director of the Defense Science office at DARPA, said on a Washington Post event panel last week. DARPA recently announced a $2 billion campaign called "AI Next" aimed at "third wave" AI research. The goal is to get the technology to a place where machines adapt to changing situations the way human intelligence does. Responding to a question about whether and how Google's decision to end its work with Pentagon AI initiative Project Maven has impacted DARPA, Browning downplayed any effect.

The U.S. Air Force is expanding its embrace of predictive analytics tools to keep pace with maintenance demands for its huge fleet of fighters, bombers, tankers, transports and helicopters. There is no shortage of U.S. military aircraft, with estimates ranging as high as 5,400 for the Air Force alone. The problem has been keeping that air armada flying. According to Air Force Times, aircraft readiness as measured as a percentage of planes able to fly has steadily decreased over the past decade. Hence, the service has been enlisting analytics and AI software companies to help get a handle on maintaining increasingly complex aircraft loaded with electronics gear.

The U.S. Department of Defense is getting rid of Chinese-manufactured drones over cybersecurity concerns. The U.S. Pacific Command announced on Thursday that the Defense Department and the entire federal government will have access to secure, trusted, and American-made commercial drones on the General Service Administration schedule. This new DIU initiative, dubbed Blue small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS), is the culmination of 18 months of work by the Army and DIU to tailor the best technology from U.S. and allied companies to develop small unmanned aircraft systems that can be safely adopted by men and women in uniform, Acting Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Michael Kratsios announced at a virtual event hosted by the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU). During the Aug. 18 DIU event, Kratsios said it also has important impacts for the nation's broader economic and national security. "UAS technologies have incredible promise and potential to not only provide great economic benefit for the American people, but also to enhance safety and security for our nation. We need a strong, secure domestic UAS manufacturing base to ensure American leadership in this critical field," he said.

For the Defense Department, last month's executive order on artificial intelligence was the starting gun, and the department doesn't mean to lose the race it's been preparing for for some time. Air Force Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, director of the DoD's new Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, told lawmakers that he's already trying to stand up a small office around robotic process automation, a specific type of AI aimed towards improving business practices. He said he's already met with the department's chief management officer and chief data officer to discuss the matter, which he's convinced will yield many opportunities to help augment people currently doing those jobs. It's early in the process; he said the department wasn't concentrating on RPA a few months ago. But he's already prioritizing, and he thinks finance will be the first place to apply the new technology.