Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy
Autonomy describes the capability to accomplish a pre-defined mission without further human interaction and / or supervision. The degree of autonomy depends on a system’s abilities of sensing, analyzing, communicating, planning, decision-making, and acting (altogether forming the artificial intelligence of the system), ranging from semi-autonomy to full-autonomy.
Featured Publications
The Heart of Decision Superiority
Evolve or Lose – Why Your Next War May Be Won or Lost in Seconds
By Col (ret.)
Anthony
Bellione
‘The question is not whether NATO will need to evolve and develop its C4ISR capabilities but whether it can do so in time to meet the gathering threats to the Alliance.’ General James Cartwright, Former [...]
Freedom of Manoeuvre in Cyberspace
By Lt Col
Eric
Jodoin
By Maj
Fotios
Kanellos
NATO defines manoeuvre as ‘Employment of forces on the battlefield through movement in combination with fire, or fire potential, to achieve a position of advantage in respect to the enemy to accomplish the mission’. But [...]
Artificial Intelligence – Human Symbiosis in Fighter Aircraft
End of the Fighter Jet Era or a New Evolution?
By Lt Col
Rafael
Ichaso
‘The fighter jet era has passed.’ These words were famously spoken by Elon Musk at the 2020 Air Warfare Symposium when prompted to describe the future Air Domain. Musk’s position appears to be supported by [...]
Adversarial Machine Learning
A Threat to NATO Missions
By Dr
Elie
Alhajjar
The rapid progress in computer vision made possible by deep learning techniques has favoured the large diffusion of applications based on Artificial Intelligence (AI). The ability to analyse different kinds of images and data from [...]
Bots Taking Over
The New-Breed Decision Makers
By Maj
Mehmet
Bayram, PhD
Decision-making problems, one of the main research areas of management science, have been studied in a highly-interdisciplinary manner by the contributions of the scientists and engineers from various research fields. Advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) [...]
Speeding Up the OODA Loop with AI
A Helpful or Limiting Framework?
By Mr
Owen
Daniels
Strategists, warfighters, and technologists have heralded Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a potential tactical and strategic tool for outpacing adversary decision-making processes, commonly seen through the frame of the OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act) loop. [...]
Human-On-the-Loop
By Mr
Laurent
le Quement
By Brig Gen
Jean-Michel
Verney
By Col
Thomas
Vinçotte
In light of today’s uncertainties, there is a shared realization that NATO’s Air supremacy which has underpinned military operations since the 1980s is no longer a given. The playing field is being levelled due to [...]
Is Human-On-the-Loop the Best Answer for Rapid Relevant Responses?
By Brig Gen
Doug
Cherry
By Dr
Michael B.
Cowen
By Capt.
Rick
Williams
In this paper, we address three high-level questions that we recognize do not have clear answers as yet. Is a Human-On-the-Loop (HOTL) capability, giving user control only over autonomy planning, better at delivering Rapid Relevant [...]
Big Data Management in ISR and New Technology Trends
By Maj
Giuseppe
Valentino
The digital revolution and the endless use of data are transforming the way we live and work. Simultaneously, new technologies through data are providing great opportunities to make military operations different from the past. Command [...]
Potential Impact of Artificial Intelligence to C2 Systems
By Mr
Daniele
Frisoni
This paper is derived from the presentation ‘Potenziali impatti dell’applicazione dell’Intelligenza Artificiale nel Combat Management System’ held at Tiberio workshop, organized by Italian MoD, June 2019, Rome. In the frame of combat systems, the Command [...]
Exploiting AI in Command and Control of the Air Battlespace
By Lt Col
Asger Skov
Pilgaard
Leveraging existing and emerging technologies is one of the Allied Command Transformation challenges, along the Innovation and Technology path of Warfare Development in NATO. ‘Experimentation and Demonstration’ is one of the work strands that accentuates [...]
Harnessing AI and Deep Learning
Real-Time Automated Advance Persistent Threat Detection and Multi-Domain Situational Awareness
By Ms
Gentry
Lane
Cyberattacks (with the objective of disrupt and degrade critical communications) on military and intelligence targets are long, incremental operations that precede kinetic military strikes by months or years. Detecting and defending this ‘cyber strike before [...]
Command and Control in Digital Transformation
The Future of the Command Post
By Mr
Harold H.M.
Vermanen
The Crimean crisis showed Russia’s ‘new generation warfare’ capability or, as NATO described it, ‘hybrid warfare’ including propaganda, deception, sabotage and other non-military tactics. These tactics were used before. The difference was in their level [...]
Autonomous Weapon Systems in International Humanitarian Law
Errare Robotum Est
By Lt Col
Andre
Haider
The number of unmanned systems in military inventories has grown rapidly and is still increasing throughout all domains. At the same time, the level of automation built into these unmanned systems has not only increased [...]
The Future Role of Artificial Intelligence
Military Opportunities and Challenges
By Mr
Andy J.
Fawkes MSc MBA
By Lt Col
Martin
Menzel
Artificial Intelligence (AI) today is one of the hottest buzzwords in business and industry, and it has military applications, too. In fact, industry has developed AI as a technology over the last 60 years, and [...]
Future Unmanned System Technologies
Legal and Ethical Implications of Increasing Automation
By Ms
Maria Beatrice
Catarrasi
By Lt Col
Andre
Haider
The number of unmanned systems in NATO nations’ military inventories has grown rapidly and is still increasing throughout all domains. Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) currently represent the largest share of those systems. At the same [...]
Platform Autonomy
State-of-the-Art and Future Perspectives from an S&T Point of View
By Mr
Hans-Ludwig
Besser
By Dr.-Ing.
Dennis
Göge
By Mr
Michael
Huggins
By Dr.-Ing.
Dirk
Zimper
The Applied Vehicle Technology Panel (AVT) is an international network of defence scientists and engineers dedicated to increasing the performance of new and ageing vehicles in the air, sea, land, and space domains. This network [...]
Machines Do Not Think!
The Contradiction with Autonomous Systems
By Lt Col
Andre
Haider
“In three years, Cyberdyne will become the largest supplier of military computer systems. All stealth bombers are upgraded with Cyberdyne computers, becoming fully unmanned. Afterwards, they fly with a perfect operational record. The Skynet Funding [...]
