By
Paul McLeary on March 16, 2021 at 2:35 PM
An unmanned ship, part of the Strategic Capabilities Office’s Ghost Fleet Overlord program
WASHINGTON: A new Navy document offers a broad outline for developing and fielding new generations of unmanned platforms, while refusing tie the service to any one capability, platform, timeline, or budget.
Next month, the Navy will also kick off a major exercise of the California coast to begin working through how to operate unmanned vessels and crewed ships together, putting a Zumwalt destroyer in the water to act as a testbed for the effort.
Overall, the unclassified version of the Unmanned Campaign Framework underscores the need to work with the defense industry, academia, and other services to build new systems that can operate autonomously and across the joint force, but “unmanned systems in themselves aren’t a goal,” Vice Adm. Jim Kilby, head of the Navy’s Warfighting Requirements and Capabilities office, told reporters in
By
Theresa Hitchens on March 08, 2021 at 4:51 PM
Laser interlinks for satellites, JAXA image
WASHINGTON: As DoD eyes low-cost satellite constellations to provide resilient communications, a crucial bottleneck has emerged: reliable optical data links both between satellites in space and from space to the ground.
“Think about it, getting a laser beam on a spacecraft to point to a laser receiver on another spacecraft accurately enough with the right power levels, the right waveforms etc.,– it’s not an easy thing,” Nick Bucci, vice president of program development at General Atomics said in an interview. ” And to be able to do that reliably at range is a difficult challenge.”
By
Theresa Hitchens on March 05, 2021 at 2:07 PM
NORAD space operations center under Cheyenne Mountain
WASHINGTON: Northern Command is prototyping and testing a set of AI tools to support Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) implementation, NORTHCOM officials tell Breaking Defense. Most importantly, they said, the new artificial intelligence will instantly pull together all sorts of data to give commanders a clear picture of the battlefield, enabling good, fast decisions.
The command is leading a virtual exercise, called the Global Information Dominance Exercise (GIDE) 2, March 18-23 to test three “decision aids” that use artificial intelligence/machine learning software to speed commanders’ ability to act, Col. Matt “Nomad” Strohmeyer, NORAD/USNORTHCOM J8 JADC2 Development Lead, explained in an exclusive interview. The AI algorithms will enable all-domain situational awareness, “information dominance,” and real-time “cross-Combatant Command collab
By
Paul McLeary on March 03, 2021 at 7:03 PM
Lt. Gen. Dennis Crall, J6 director at the Jan. 26 JADC2 Data Summit
WASHINGTON: The Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) strategy document could land on Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s desk within the next week, but the head of the Pentagon effort says huge hurdles remain to actually make it work.
Lt. Gen. Dennis Crall, who leads the Joint Staff’s J6 command and control directorate, said Tuesday the options being presented by industry for connecting far-flung forces have been lackluster. “I am looking for good enough and I have not found a good enough,” the Marine told an industry audience at an AFCEA event.
The AI-driven system – developed in large part by 18
th Airborne itself is already mature enough to let the corps strike more targets, more quickly than ever before, wherever it deploys, the corps’ fire support coordination officer, artillery veteran Col. Joe O’Callaghan said.
“The AI we work with today is ready now; it’s ready to fight tonight, and we would take it forward with us,” O’Callaghan told me in an interview. It’s tied into what he called a “nascent JADC2 network” – short for Joint All-Domain Command & Control, a top Pentagon priority – that connects multiple services’ sensors from ground to air to space.