Air Force Takes New Step With AI-Enabled Attack Networking

VIDEO: Pentagon& Raytheon Innovate New “Cyber Resilience” Tools

By Kris Osborn – Warrior Maven

(Washington D.C.) This kind of networking connectivity was made possible by the kinds of innovations central to ABMS, much of which is centered upon the use of AI-enabled networking and advanced algorithms to gather, discern, analyze, and organize intelligence data in seconds, an emerging technical capacity which enables sensors and high-speed interceptors to operate with the speed and precision necessary to take out something as dangerous as an attacking cruise missile.

The U.S. Air Force is taking massive new steps with its emerging program to expedite, speed up, and streamline air war, and multi-domain, sensor-to-shooter time by quickly moving its well known Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) to the next level of development.

A Dec. 4 Air Force TV newscast reported that Air Force Acquisition Executive William Roper has signed a directive moving ABMS from a purely experimental phase to the Rapid Capabilities Office to fast-track integration, testing and development, production and deployment of a new sphere of networking technologies, war platform sensors and intelligence-gathering technologies.

The move comes following a series of successful phased testings of ABMS designed to assess and refine the ability for war platforms to function as both attack systems and “nodes” within a meshed, combat network system intended to find, track, and share crucial, time-sensitive targeting and surveillance data across the force in near real-time. These tactics, which proved both effective and successful in ABMS testing, help optimize attack and massively decrease the vital and at times life-saving sensor to shooter time pairing the best attack systems or weapons with a given target.

Some of the “2nd On-Ramp” of the ABMS testing included breakthrough uses of AI, data collection, analysis, and transmission, as well as success using a Howitzer artillery platform and hypervelocity projectile to track and take out a fast-moving cruise missile. The speed and accuracy with which this defensive intercept was unprecedented, carving a new multi-domain warfare path. This kind of networking connectivity was made possible by the kinds of innovations central to ABMS, much of which is centered upon the use of AI-enabled networking and advanced algorithms to gather, discern, analyze, and organize intelligence data in seconds, an emerging technical capacity which enables sensors and high-speed interceptors to operate with the speed and precision necessary to take out something as dangerous as an attacking cruise missile.