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Artificial intelligence and machine learning are reshaping the defence industry and battlefield, and Defence Science and Technology is seeking to leverage the technologies to ensure that as Australian warfighters are bombarded with an ever-expanding smorgasbord of rich and diverse tactical information, they are able to synthesise and action it.
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On-board sensors on a multitude of platforms are generating intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance data streams that, if processed, can provide the warfighter with the tactical advantage.
Defence scientist Dr Angela Consoli has been awarded a fellowship at DSTG that gives her three years to focus on how artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can be introduced to help warfighters consume the data smorgasbord without heartburn.
Dr Consoli’s research is of particular interest as warfighters come up against an array of smart, intelligent and asymmetric threats, where traditional methodologies are proving to be less and less effective. She believes human/AI augmentation is critical for the future of ADF warfighting.
“We need a paradigm shift toward AI-centric warfare to cope with the amount of tactical information now being generated,” she says. “I’ll be focusing on ways Defence can augment its tactical systems with AI to give Australian warfighters a tactical edge. Most of the AI in current Defence systems is implemented at the operational layer, away from the warfighter. The question I’ll be answering is — how do we use AI/ML to help our warfighters by giving them the best information and decision superiority?”
Dr Consoli has been fortunate to have been able to continue her university PhD research at DSTG. Her thesis dealt with how to enhance co-ordination and co-operation techniques with AI to improve team automation. She emphasises that this research is not about developing killer robots.
“You can thank Hollywood for that fear,” she says. “Military platforms at the moment struggle to have any AI in them. It’s very early days for AI on the front line.”
For Dr Consoli, Australian warfighters need systems that support them in selecting the best course of action at that moment in time — the quickest and best decisions in order to save their lives while also assuring mission objectives.
“I’m talking about getting to the point where we have the ability to collect the situational information, process and assess the information, and then not only represent it but also make inferences and point out relationships that exist in that data. That’s what we call reasoning, and that’s the next big step after learning,” Dr Consoli explained.
The first challenge is getting the AI into the Defence system, integrated and augmented with the human, and trusted by the human. Much work is being done in this area of trust.
“Currently human/AI teaming relationships are sharply partitioned. The endpoint we are heading towards is augmentation such that in the final analysis, it won’t be clear who has processed the information and made the inference,” Dr Consoli added.
According to Dr Consoli, that step from structuring data to inferring relationships is the hard part for AI because it’s a much higher cognitive construct and machines are inherently rules-based.
In line with Defence’s new science and technology strategy, More, together, a major priority for Dr Consoli will be outreach and partnering across Defence, academia and industry to harness the best of human and computer sciences.
She added, “For us to ensure we can transition outcomes from S&T to capability, it’s really important for AI that we work with defence industries and with Defence end users. Initially, I’ll be looking at what machine reasoning is for Defence, and translating what we already know in AI/ML into the military platform representations that we have here at DSTG.”
Over the course of the next few years, by drawing on the best of cutting-edge research in computational intelligence and cognitive science, Dr Consoli aims to develop machine learning algorithms to extract and contextualise unstructured tactical information.
Dr Consoli’s fellowship research will contribute to the Agile C2 and Information Warfare STaR Shot, part of the Defence S&T Strategy.
