The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), in partnership with
the UK’s Defence Science
and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), have
demonstrated for the first time the ability for the US and
the UK to jointly
develop, select, train, and deploy state-of-the-art machine
learning algorithms in support of the armed forces of each of the
2 nations.
This research is designed to support adjacent collaborating US
and UK brigades
with enduring wide-area situational awareness. It aims to improve
decision-making, increase operational tempo, reduce risk to life,
and reduce manpower burden.
The dual in-person and virtual demonstration was hosted jointly
at AFRL’s
Information Directorate in Rome, New York, and
at Dstl’s site
near Salisbury on 18 October 2021. The demonstration highlighted
integrated artificial intelligence (AI) technologies across the 2
nations, showcasing the ability to share data and algorithms
through a common development and deployment platform to enable
the rapid selection, testing, and deployment of artificial
intelligence capabilities.
The event was made possible by a UK and US Partnership Agreement
concerning autonomy and artificial intelligence collaboration,
established in December 2020. This was the first of a rotational
series of events to be hosted by the joint and international
signatories of the Autonomy and Artificial Intelligence
Collaboration (AAIC)
Partnership Agreement.
Leadership participants from both the US and
the UK attended in
person, with virtual participation by attendees from all services
and the United States Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
for Research and Engineering (OUSDR&E).
The AAIC Partnership
Agreement effort is led by the United States Department of the
Air Force (with AFRL as the lead
agency for the US Air Force) in partnership
with OUSDR&E,
the US Navy and Army, and the UK’s Dstl.
Dr Robert W Sadowski, US Army DEVCOM,
said:
We are dedicated to getting robotics and autonomous systems
capability into the hands of the warfighters.
Advances in robotics and autonomy will make our formations more
capable and mission-ready while providing protection to our
warfighters through unprecedented stand-off while enabling
enhanced lethality on the battlefield.
The 4-year partnership agreement includes objectives to
accelerate joint UK/US
development and sharing of AI technology and
capabilities. It spans from foundational research in test
verification and validation, to AI algorithm research and
development, to joint experiments advancing the joint all-domain
command and control capabilities of both nations.
Dr Lee M Seversky, AFRL lead for the
demonstration and the US Project Agreement, said:
The October 18 event demonstrated how the UK and US can
integrate AI technology to create the
first end-to-end machine learning research, development, and
deployment ecosystem, enabling rapid data sharing, algorithm
development, evaluation, and deployment.
AI will play a
critical role in accelerating decision making to meet the pace
and scale of the future battlespace.
During the demonstration, the simulated scenario focused on how
the UK and US can
cooperate and share AI capabilities to support
the ‘close’ fight. Where both countries operate in adjacent
areas, they are able to share data, AI algorithms and
capability tightly during mission execution.
The demonstration brought together key technologies from both
nations. The UK’s Model
Cards are able to present to a commander the ability to quickly
understand, explore, and select appropriate machine learning
(ML) models to deploy in
mission. The US StreamlinedML is a government-owned, extensible
open platform to quickly build ML workflows, train and
evaluate ML models, and deploy them
regardless of the source or ML software stack use – taking
advantage of the best of breed ML technology spanning commercial,
academia and government.
Dstl’s Todd
Robinson heads up the UK element to the project, and said:
This collaboration with AFRL and the US
services is crucial to drive the very latest AI technology into military
operations and innovative research in both nations.
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.
The demonstration successfully showed the integration of 15
state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms,
12 UK and US
datasets, 5 automated ML workflows for training and
retraining models based on mission needs, and the ability deploy
the models as a service to target end users and platforms.
This is the first of a series of joint technical and operation
experiments planned under the 4 year partnership agreement.
