Recent statistics about Artificial Intelligence (AI) are telling an astounding story about its potency. Experts expect the Artificial Intelligence market to grow to almost $60 billion. Statistics further suggest AI will increase the productivity of businesses by 40%, and by 2030, global GDP will increase by $15.7 trillion because of AI.
No wonder national security has such an interest in AI. If it is changing the world, it can also be a fundamental change for military applications. Military defense strategies and personnel can reap the same rewards as commercial businesses do from artificial intelligence.
In times of battle, quick decisions, agile methods, and intense levels of productivity are necessary to save innocent lives. Reaching such levels of efficiency takes time, research, and funding.
Keep reading for a look into the future, and how AI is changing military defense and their strategies forever.
The Only Constant Is the Change
Tactics, countermeasures, and technologies are constantly developing. Therefore, areas like electronic warfare, or EW, and radar are putting military application designers to the test.
To be more effective, industry experts believe that artificial intelligence may be the key to driving more efficiency and effectiveness. AI applications are expanding, meaning that the data center is no longer a restriction because data sets are too overwhelming. Big processing capability is now shrinking, using less power, and becoming more rugged.
This means that artificial intelligence applications are powering in a smarter way as mission-critical military platforms are now more capable. However, many physical enablers already exist. For instance, electronic packaging technology with a modern military grade can now shrink its computing architectures. This is through wafer-stacking and system-in-package techniques, which reduces system volume.
Top AI Trends for Enhancing Battlefield Effectiveness
EW test and measurement systems and radar are embracing AI by advancing their modes. They seek to achieve more adaptability in waveforms and anti-jamming, among other more effective systems.
AI is perfect for military applications because it can solve computational complexity. It can easily run an algorithm during times of tremendous pressure and stress. Also, it can decide at a much faster speed.
Further, decisions result from data, without human emotion. While artificial intelligence is highly beneficial for military applications, testing it to ensure its effectiveness is another story.
Opportunities for AI are Plentiful
The sheer volume of data that the military collects is overwhelming and requires the help of computer analysis. Running an algorithm is a much more effective way to make sense of all the raw data. It reduces big data into a digestible amount of information that a human can understand.
This is how military leadership can make actionable decisions based on facts. The military can make tremendous improvements with their strategic decision-making, including quick and exact scenario analyses. During urgent circumstances, AI can neutralize biases.
Artificial intelligence is a prime tool for training, lending itself to opportunities to give soldiers and personnel individualized instruction. Computer models and technology are reliable. Simulations and exercises of the future are becoming more and more real, helping the military better prepare for times of warfare.
AI can bridge gaps in military defenses, making departments less fragmented. Data processing runs more efficiently from various sources. Logistics is more proactive because it can make administrative tasks easier. Thanks to autonomous logistics, troops are in less danger, and support systems are more enhanced.
Risk Value
The battlefield is often a location that is extremely hazardous, and AI may mitigate some threats that the military faces. A prominent example of how AI is helping to keep soldiers safer during times of battle is that soldiers can use artificial intelligence to identify dangers faster, and AI can provide soldiers guidance on how they can handle potential dangers. Today’s ground vehicles and army aircraft have intelligent sensors. There is less need for humans, alleviating risk to human life.
Improving Recruitment
There are many hiring practices that national defense organizations employ. In years past, you have likely seen television ads and job fair booths to attract candidates. Artificial intelligence can improve recruitment tactics, making it easier to find qualified candidates for the military.
A recent example is 30 years of data from the Air Force Special Operations Command. One source revealed that the army website had 2.5 million monthly visitors, and of those, approximately 35% are female. Because of this, the army has not only a male chatbot but a female counterpart as well.
Training
Military defense requires extensive training for their people because national security depends on them. The more training soldiers can gain, the more they can directly affect their performance, boosting a soldier’s capabilities. It also boosts the performance of teams as they collaborate to achieve a mission.
By introducing artificial intelligence into training, textbook learning is becoming obsolete. They can share a syllabus on a tablet. Therefore, as technologies advance and changes are necessary, updates to the curriculum can distribute in real-time, versus waiting for a new book to publish.
Improvements in Cybersecurity
When a cyberattack strikes a company, it renders computers inoperable. Employees must leave behind technology and go back to manual techniques for a time to continue working.
Now, imagine a cyberattack strikes the military during a battle, bringing their technology down. The effects could be dire.
That is why the army is deploying artificial intelligence to research cybersecurity technologies that can protect personnel and their communication networks. In this way, AI is serving its most critical role in the military.
AI-enabled systems could protect against unwanted access to data, programs, networks, and computers. Further, online security military applications that possess AI capabilities can record patterns of cyberattacks. When AI recognizes patterns of threats, it can then create counterattack tools.
Easy Transportation
During combat, soldiers will deploy, navigating vehicles through terrain and territories that are unchartered. There can be few roads and a lack of mobility modes. That is why research is underway for autonomous vehicles to add artificial intelligence, to help soldiers travel.
AI Military Applications
Beyond the United States, several nations leverage AI for their armed forces’ military systems and weapons. These deploy in air, sea, land, and space. The current systems which incorporate AI require less involvement of humans and are more effective in combat.
There is also less maintenance, which improves performance and increases the synergy of military systems. Autonomous weapons equipped with artificial intelligence can launch coordinated assaults.
Target Recognition
Combat conditions can be incredibly challenging. To improve target recognition precision, AI techniques can aid military defenses. Defensive forces can gain a thorough understanding of probably operating domains when AI helps them to analyze reports, documents, newsfeeds, and other details.
When a target recognition system leverages AI, the military can better pinpoint the location of a target. Driven by AI, target identification systems could, among other things:
- Aggregate environmental data
- Employ mitigation techniques
- Analyze mission approaches
- Predict enemy activity
Using the collected data and machine learning, the military can track targets.
Warfare Healthcare
In conflict areas, soldiers need medical support. In case of surgery, AI combines with RGP, or Robotic Ground Platforms, to help heal soldiers.
AI-enabled systems can mine the medical history of a soldier in extreme circumstances. During extreme circumstances, this can help provide support for a diagnosis.
Situational Awareness and Threat Monitoring
Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance operations, or ISR operations, are critical for situational awareness and threat monitoring. Such operations need support to process information, which then helps determine military actions.
ISR operations could carry out a mission on a predetermined path by dispatching an unmanned system. When ISR operations include AI, they can better assess threats. This helps them to maintain situational awareness.
Artificial intelligence can team up with drones to communicate threat information, identify risks, and monitor border areas for reaction teams. Because of this, AI makes for better security for military personnel in times of combat.
Training and Combat Simulation
To assist soldiers and familiarize them with military operations and the many combat systems, it helps to integrate several disciplines. They can build computerized models, which include system engineering, computer science, and software engineering. Integrating these disciplines paves the way toward a military defense with tremendous preparation during times of warfare.
In fact, applications for simulation and training are receiving more funding now than ever before, with the United States Army conducting warfare analysis and starting sensor simulation programs. Meanwhile, the United States Navy is tapping a few organizations to support their initiatives, including companies like Leidos, SAIC, and Orbital ATK.
The Future of AI and the Military
Moving forward, military defenses will look toward artificial intelligence to continually improve and innovate military applications. This will all lead to an improvement in production, a decrease in workload, and an increase in the speed of operation.
Reports show the Pentagon wishes to allow the DOD to spend $874 million on defense and military technologies that relate to AI and ML. Further, the Pentagon segments $2.3 billion of its science and technology research budget to the military artificial intelligence.
Because of this, there will be investments in artificial intelligence to improve cyber weapons, direct energy, hypersonic technology, unmanned technologies, etc. All signs indicate that with the increase in funding, the military will use AI and technology more frequently, as they continue to conduct research. Soon you’ll see artificial intelligence changing the scope of today’s modern warfare.
