Charles Lyons-Burt
As technology capabilities have evolved, sensor-to-shooter times, or the rate at which military intelligence gatherers are able to equip warfighters with the necessary information to engage in the mission at hand, have been condensed. While this has meant that soldiers have increased connectivity at remote locations, it has also forced the U.S. Army in particular to disperse its activities more, since their ability to “mask” their digital presence is not what it used to be, according to Rodney Davis, the Army’s deputy program executive officer for aviation.
The need for dispersion comes with a requirement for less hardware maintenance, Davis said, prompting the Army to target longer maintenance-free operating periods for their tech.
“So how do we build those into the aircraft where we can afford to operate for longer without that heavy maintenance? We need to be able to do that. We need to be better at logistics, we need to be better at predicting logistics,” Davis said at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2024 Army Summit on June 13. Davis participated in a panel discussion about harnessing technology for force readiness moderated by Capgemini Americas Lead Lisa Mitnick.
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Davis said that artificial intelligence is a good way to achieve effective predictive logistics for aircraft and other tech, which will help the Army make good on what he calls the “opportunity cost of moving parts.”
Another important use of AI in the Army is for training education, noted Dr. Andrew Midzak, strategic research program integrator for the Defense Health Agency.
“[Large language models] are great at providing the next step, the next answer, and to develop individual coaching tools to assist both in crews as well as in professional military education, distilling down doctrine training manuals so that you don’t flip through them. It’s something we’re also investing in both in the medical and in the non-medical space,” Dr. Midzak said.
He went on to say the service “sees opportunities” for AI and machine learning to assist in training for the largest contingents of Army medical professionals: the Bravo injury treatment cohort, dubbed 68Ws, who work as combat medics.
Col. Betty Dufour, chief of the force development division at the Army National Guard, said that the ARNG and the Army as a whole is committed to Project Linchpin, the flagship program of record for pushing out AI offerings at scale.
“It’s supposed to enable artificial intelligence and machine learning through traceability, observability, replaceability and consumption. And it’s supposed to deliver trusted artificial intelligence machine learning capabilities by leveraging a collaborative competitive ecosystem of industry partners secure pipelines so that we can get the intelligence, the cyber situational awareness and the situational understanding that we need, but safely,” Col. Dufour shared.
“There’s always the tension in terms of the efficiency and speed, but you need to trust and verify. And so getting that right is important,” she continued.
