This Technology will Secure Digital Weapons

This Technology will Secure Digital Weapons

Photo illust. US Marines Corps
U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Tyler J. Urchuck, front, a rifleman with Fox Company, Battalion Landing Team 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), and a native of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, performs a speed reload on his M4 carbine during weapon manipulation drills aboard the USS San Diego (LPD 22), Sept. 30, 2014. The 11th MEU is embarked with the Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group and deployed to maintain regional security in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Jonathan R. Waldman/Released)

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Cybersecurity is the name of the game when talking about future weapon systems. The Pentagon is exploring how artificial intelligence can help build more digitally secure vehicles, weapons, and other network-connected platforms in a fraction of the time it takes today. 

Virtually every piece of military hardware includes a digital component; understanding how adversaries might attack these so-called “cyber physical systems” before they’re constructed requires a lot of manpower and computer modeling. 

A research initiative by DARPA will focus on building AI-powered tools that help the Pentagon rapidly assess different blueprints for cyber physical systems. According to DARPA, the tech developed under the Symbiotic Design for Cyber Physical Systems program would “be a game changer, and may result in a new generation of unexpected, counterintuitive design solutions.”

The process for building cyber physical systems is decentralized, iterative and resource-intensive, officials said. Different teams design different parts of the system, and errors frequently arise as those components are pieced together, forcing the department to go back to the drawing board. But with “AI co-designers,” the process would change dramatically: Humans would feed both project requirements and preliminary blueprints into the tech, and the tools would propose different designs for individual components of the system. Officials would then work with the machine to narrow down possible designs, and the system would test different component combinations to find the most effective overall system, according to defenseone.com.

While today the Pentagon must constantly address vulnerabilities as they arise, using AI, officials would start building cyber physical systems with a blueprint that’s already been thoroughly tested and optimized.