Partners of the tripartite Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States (AUKUS) security pact have advanced their co-development of resilient and autonomous artificial intelligence technology (RAAIT), the Australian Department of Defence (DoD) announced on 9 August.
The latest effort to enhance autonomous systems capability, which sequenced AI algorithms to support target detection and decision-making, is being pursued under the auspices of AUKUS Pillar II – Advanced Capabilities as one of the six key pillar of critical technology.
According to the DoD, RAAIT puts together AI tools and techniques as well as autonomy packages from all three AUKUS countries and tests and refines their ability to work together collaboratively.
It added that the latest AUKUS RAAIT event was held during Project Convergence Capstone Four (PC-C4), a US-led combined joint and multinational experiment, in the United States. During PC-C4, AUKUS uncrewed assets operated collaboratively to meet common goals, supported by novel AI models to detect targets for simulated strike.
“RAAIT-based technologies enable us to collect information at pace and scale through the use of autonomy borne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR),” said Australia’s Program Lead of the AUKUS AIA Working Group, Dr Robert Hunjet.
“During PC-C4 we were able to stretch the technology and test its true capability,” added Dr Hunjet. “We are stronger as a coalition because we are no longer just training AI and autonomous systems based solely on US operational data.”
AUKUS partners earlier validated integration of advanced autonomy and AI in uncrewed ground vehicles (UGVs) that were used in a contested environment
The DoD said in February that the Trusted Operation of Robotic Vehicles in a Contested Environment (TORVICE) trial “combined Australian, UK and US innovation and technology to test leading-edge AI in uncrewed robotic vehicles”, assessing the ability of these autonomous vehicles to complete their missions and preserve network connectivity in a challenged environment. The event was conducted in South Australia in late 2023.
“The TORVICE trial takes us a step closer to adopting these technologies in the land domain,” said the DoD, noting that UK and US UGVs were used as surrogates for autonomous multi-domain launchers and conducted simulated long-range precision fires and other associated missions. At the same event, Australian scientists subjected the UGVs to electronic warfare, electro-optical laser, and position, navigation and timing (PNT) systems attack to test their resilience.
The inaugural AUKUS AI and autonomy trial was conducted in April 2023 at Upavon in Wiltshire, UK, which involved collaborative swarming of AI-driven unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and UGVs to detect and track military targets in real time in a representative environment.
by Jr Ng
