When decisions have to be made quickly -- sometimes instantly -- taking into account an enormous amount of information, and when lives are at stake, artificial intelligence can provide crucial assistance. From developing intricate flight plans to implementing complex supply systems or creating training simulation exercises, AI is a natural partner in the modern military.

Introductory Readings

Darpa Chief Speaks. Noah Shachtman interviews Tony Tether. Wired's Danger Room blog (February 20, 2007). "Tony Tether has headed up the Pentagon's way-out research arm, Darpa, since 2001. That makes him the longest-serving director in the agency's nearly 50-year history. ... NS: And how about something that maybe isn't on the battlefield right this second, but maybe just on the horizon? TT: Well, we are working hard. One problem is language. We realized that we're either going to have to teach all of our soldiers 16 different languages or come up with the technology to do so, to help them out. When 2001 came we had already been working on a Phraselator, which is a [simple,] one-way [translation] device. One-way in that it has phrases in it that in any of eight different languages -- ... NS: Do you know of anything that Darpa's working on right now that's really game changing? TT: Yes -- our cognitive program. The cognitive program's whole purpose in life is really to increase the tooth-to-tail ratio [military-speak for the number of combat troops to the number of support troops]. ..."

Stanford Wins Desert Race by a Microchip. By John Johnson Jr.. Los Angeles Times (October 10, 2005). "Stanford University's robot racing team Sunday was declared the winner of $2 million in the Defense Department's Grand Challenge race to develop an autonomous vehicle that could become a model for battlefield robots. The team's technology-laden robotic vehicle, a converted Volkswagen sport utility vehicle named Stanley, navigated a 131-mile course in the southern Nevada desert in 6 hours, 53 minutes and 58 seconds, beating the second-place finisher, Carnegie Mellon University's Sandstorm Humvee, by about 11 minutes. The race was Saturday, but a winner was not declared until Sunday, after race judges computed the results. ... DARPA's goal when it opened the competition in 2004 was to encourage development of vehicles that could operate autonomously in war zones, meeting a congressional mandate that 30% of the military's vehicle fleet be robots by 2015. The technology of robotic vehicles 'is no longer a toy,' Tether said. Stanley's average speed of 19.1 mph is in the range that military convoys travel, he said. Several of the teams have appointments scheduled with the Army in coming weeks, Tether said. ... What separated Stanford from the pack, team members said, was a combination of testing experience and software that allowed the vehicle to make good decisions on the fly. 'We spent the last two months in the desert in Arizona,' said Mike Montemerlo, a post-doctoral candidate in Stanford's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory who was in charge of the vehicle's software package."

Robot infantry get ready for the battlefield. By Paul Marks. New Scientist (September 23, 2006, Issue 2570: page 28; subscription req'd). "'Please put down your weapon. You have 20 seconds to comply.' So said the armed robot in Paul Verhoeven's 1987 movie RoboCop. The suspect drops his weapon but a fault in the robot's software means it opens fire anyway. Nearly two decades later, such fictional weapon-toting robots are looking startlingly close to reality - and New Scientist has discovered that some may eventually help to decide who is friend and who is foe. Sometime in the coming months, chances are that we'll be seeing TV reports that an armed remote-controlled robot has been used in anger for the first time. ... Both companies stress that there is always a human in control of the robots. Apart from a planned autonomous 'return home' function, neither [Foster-Miller's] Sword nor the iRobot prototype operates autonomously. Nevertheless, more complex machines may soon be on the drawing board. A research request issued in August by the Pentagon's Office of Naval Research (ONR) shows that military robots are one day going to be asked to make some important decisions on their own."

• Also see: A New Model Army Soldier Rolls Closer to the Battlefield. By Tim Weiner. The New York Times (February 16, 2005; subscription req'd.). "The American military is working on a new generation of soldiers, far different from the army it has. 'They don't get hungry,' said Gordon Johnson of the Joint Forces Command at the Pentagon. 'They're not afraid. They don't forget their orders. They don't care if the guy next to them has just been shot. Will they do a better job than humans? Yes.' The robot soldier is coming. The Pentagon predicts that robots will be a major fighting force in the American military in less than a decade, hunting and killing enemies in combat. Robots are a crucial part of the Army's effort to rebuild itself as a 21st-century fighting force, and a $127 billion project called Future Combat Systems is the biggest military contract in American history. ... Military planners say robot soldiers will think, see and react increasingly like humans. In the beginning, they will be remote-controlled, looking and acting like lethal toy trucks. As the technology develops, they may take many shapes. And as their intelligence grows, so will their autonomy."

Who Do You Trust More: G.I. Joe or A.I. Joe? By George Johnson. The New York Times (February 20, 2005; subscription req'd.). "Ever since the catapult, warfare has been technology's driving force. Computers were first developed to calculate missile trajectories and break enemy codes."

Special Report - The Cutting Edge of Defense IT. Government Computer News (August 6, 2007; (Volume 26, Number 20). "Technology has always been essential to military strength, but breakthroughs developed within the military often are not limited to weapons. This special report introduces some of the Pentagon’s most advanced information technology projects, in the context of their relation to commercial products and battlefield necessities." [Audio is available for each article.]

Army tests remote warfare, Soldier performance. By Ashley John. Army News Service (August 16, 2006). "In a six-week experiment at Fort Knox, Ky., the U.S. Army Research Development and Engineering Command measured how science and technology implemented in Future Combat Systems’ unmanned vehicles enhances Soldiers’ capabilities and performance. 'This gave us (Army) an opportunity to see how computer-automated tools can assist with tasks that are conventionally performed by Soldiers,' said Lt. Col. John Janiszewski, chief of experimentation and analysis directorate for the Army's Unit of Action Maneuver Battle Lab. 'It's important that our Soldiers become capable of using unmanned vehicles efficiently because their use means fewer Soldiers being exposed to dangers of the battlefield.' The experiment centered on two key metrics: autonomous mobility and Crew Aiding Behaviors (CABS) software, which automates such common tasks as route planning and the selection of observation and fire positions in crew stations developed by RDECOM’s Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC), Army Research Laboratory (ARL). The experiments showed that the use of automated software significantly reduced threat-engagement time and improved the way Soldiers controls the robot. ... TARDEC will now focus on integrating and improving Solider-robot interaction. 'We need to find ways to improve how Soldiers communicate with unmanned assets. We want to be able to let Soldiers know what the robot is thinking,' said [Patrick] Nunez."

Experts Use AI to Help GIs Learn Arabic. By Eric Mankin. USC News (June 21, 2004). "To teach soldiers basic Arabic quickly, USC computer scientists are developing a system that merges artificial intelligence with computer game techniques. The Rapid Tactical Language Training System, created by the USC Viterbi School of Engineering's Center for Research in Technology for Education (CARTE) and partners, tests soldier students with videogame missions in animated virtual environments where, to pass, the students must successfully phrase questions and understand answers in Arabic. ... 'Most adults find it extremely difficult to acquire even a rudimentary knowledge of a language, particularly in a short time,' said CARTE director W. Lewis Johnson. 'We’re trying to build an improved model of instruction, one that can be closely tailored to both the needs and the abilities of each individual student,' Johnson said." Read the story and then watch the video!

The Next "New Frontier" of Artificial Intelligence. By John Rhea. Military & Aerospace Electronics Magazine (November 2000; Vol. 11, Issue 11). " After decades of research and disappointing results, U.S. military experts start to see new directions for artificial intelligence in data processing, pattern recognition, and decision aids. Artificial intelligence (AI) is getting down to business. ... In fact, AI techniques are becoming so ubiquitous that the computers that now bear the label "Intel inside" could well be labeled 'AI inside,' says Alan Meyrowitz, director of the Navy Center for Applied Research in Artificial Intelligence at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington." Topics covered in this article include expert systems, robots, data mining, planning and scheduling systems, case-based reasoning, and autonomous vehicles.

"The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is the central research and development organization for the Department of Defense (DoD). It manages and directs selected basic and applied research and development projects for DoD, and pursues research and technology where risk and payoff are both very high and where success may provide dramatic advances for traditional military roles and missions." Here's a sample of what is available at their site:

• Programs, such as:
  • Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems (J-UCAS) Programs - "The J-UCAS vision is to develop a weapon system that expands tactical mission options and provides revolutionary new air power and penetrating surveillance capability. The J-UCAS weapon system will exploit the design and operational flexibility of an uninhabited vehicle to enable a new paradigm in warfighting while maintaining the judgment and moral imperative of the human operator. The J-UCAS is designed for minimal maintenance to reduce cost. It will be capable of dynamic mission replanning with varying levels of autonomy."
• Grand Challenge: see our Autonomous Vehicles page.
• Talking Up a Good Game - Computer Simulation to Stimulate Soldiers to Speak in Tongues. By Paul Eng. ABCNEWS.com (March 9, 2004). "Computer science professors at the University of Southern California, with funding from DARPA, have been working on a simulation program designed to help military personnel perform a more prevalent -- and difficult -- task in the international war on terrorism: communicating peacefully and correctly with foreigners in their own native tongues.

Knowledge Engineering Group (KEG) at the Center for Strategic Leadership (CSL) United States Army War College (USAWC). "The KEG provides elective courses to USAWC to help War College students gain an appreciation for the military implications of AI and emerging automation technology. We also advise student research projects involving AI or advanced technology, and provide professional development to CSL software developers." On this page you'll find links to their projects, tutorials, and the class:

• Military Applications of Artificial Intelligence. "This elective introduces the study and application of artificial intelligence, and its application to military and strategic domains. It provides an executive level overview of various AI technologies including knowledge-based systems, neural networks, genetic algorithms, intelligent agents, and natural language processing."
• If you scroll down the home page for this course you'll find links to a collection of student projects: "Previous versions of this course required students to construct a web site that explores the use of any AI technology to help solve a current strategic-level military problem. Although this is no longer part of the course, the following are selected student projects from previous terms. (These papers represent the opinions of the authors and do not constitute the position of the US Army War College or the United States Army)."

"The Navy Center for Applied Research in Artificial Intelligence (NCARAI) has been involved in both basic and applied research in artificial intelligence since its inception in 1982. NCARAI, part of the Information Technology Division within the Naval Research Laboratory, is engaged in research and development efforts designed to address the application of artificial intelligence technology and techniques to critical Navy and national problems."

General Readings

Robot wars - Technology guru Ray Kurzweil offers a vision of future fighting machines. By Philip Ball. news @ nature.com (February 8, 2005). "BALL: How will warfare change in the next 50 years? KURZWEIL: ... Already, our abilities benefit from close collaboration with machines. Within 50 years, the non-biological portion of the intelligence of our civilization will predominate. Applying non-biological intelligence to areas such as strategy, decision-making and intelligent weapons will characterize military power."

Ahoy there, solution. By Doug Beizer. Washington Technology (May 29, 2006; Volume 21, Number 10). "It’s not uncommon for a family preparing for a long road trip to use pad and pencil to tick off items on a checklist as they load the minivan. And until recently, the Navy used much the same method when loading a vessel for an ocean voyage. The difference is more than one of size. Intricate planning is needed to store hundreds of pieces of cargo on a ship’s multiple decks. Even more complex planning and precise loading is necessary to safely load and store hazardous materials. But now the armed forces have upgraded their loading arsenal to include specialized software running on rugged handhelds, said Boone Pendergrast, a customer support representative for CDM Technologies Inc., a San Luis Obispo, Calif., company that developed the software. The Integrated Computerized Deployment System (Icodes) is a ship stow-planning application that uses artificial-intelligence principles and techniques that CDM developed in association with California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. ... 'Under the old scenario, if you don’t notice the mistake until two or three hours later, there could be 30 to 50 pieces that might have to be moved to get that one piece out,' Pendergrast said. The system also has slashed the planning time, he said. Where once it took five people five days to plan a load, now one skilled user can do a stow plan in half a day."

The Unmanned Army. By Matthew Brzezinski. The New York Times (April 20, 2003; subscription req'd). "The pilotless planes that hovered over Baghdad are the cusp of a technological revolution that could change the way wars are fought -- with fewer soldiers and smarter machines. But within the military itself, the idea persists that all wars eventually have to be won on the ground, with blood and guts."

War of Machines. By George Cahlink. GovExec.com(July 15, 2004). "When the job is too dangerous, monotonous or demanding, send in the drones. ... The Pentagon has increased spending on flying drones. Between fiscal 2004 and fiscal 2009, the Defense Department proposes to spend $12 billion on UAVs, ranging from those that performed well in Iraq to yet-to-be-developed bomb-carriers. By 2009, the armed forces plan to spend $3.5 billion a year on UAVs. The highest-profile effort is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's $4.3 billion development of the Joint Unmanned Combat Air System. ... Aerial drones resemble existing aircraft operating on autopilot, but ground vehicles often must be retooled completely to operate autonomously across varied terrain. Thus, development and adoption of ground drones has moved more slowly. But that's changing as technologies mature and systems prove their worth in Iraq and Afghanistan. NASA's recent success with the Mars Exploration Rover mission also has heightened military interest in robotics."

Machines Are Filling In for Troops. By James Dao and Andrew C. Revkin. The New York Times (April 16, 2002; subscription req'd). "But the Pentagon, energized by successes in Afghanistan, is moving ever closer to draining the human drama from the battlefield and replacing it with a ballet of machines. Rapid advances in technology have brought an array of sensors, vehicles and weapons that can be operated by remote control or are totally autonomous. Within a decade, those machines will be able to perform many of the most dangerous, strenuous or boring tasks now assigned to people, military planners say, paving the way for a fundamental change in warfare."

Soldiers, Agents and Wireless Networks: A Report on a Military Application. By Robert S. Gray. In Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference and Exhibition on the Practical Application of Intelligent Agents and Multi-Agents, Manchester, England, April, 2000. Click here to learn more about the ActComm Project.

Battlefield Robots Leap From Science Fiction to Reality. By Brian Handwerk. National Geographic News (July 1, 2004). "Once the fantasy of science fiction, battlefield robots are now a reality. 'The whole idea is to take the war fighter out of harm's way,' Robin Laird said. Laird is supervisor of the Unmanned Systems Branch of the U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) in San Diego. 'In my mind, someday we'll be doing battle with robots -- not killing people,' said Laird, whose program serves all four branches of the U.S. military. ... Military robots can be used for disposing of explosives, combat engineering tasks like clearing mines or placing explosives, reconnaissance, detecting nuclear and biological agents, and hazardous materials cleanup, among others tasks. ... Though the goal is to disarm explosives without detonating them, the loss of a U.S. $50,000-robot is seen positively. 'We have lost robots because we [were] doing inspections -- and that makes us ecstatic,' Laird said. 'That means somebody didn't lose an arm. That's why were doing this. So those losses are successes.'"

Interchanging Agents and Humans in Military Simulation. By Clinton Heinze, Simon Goss, Torgny Josefsson, Kerry Bennett, Sam Waugh, Ian Lloyd, Graeme Murray, and John Oldfield. AI Magazine 23(2): Summer 2002, 37-48. "The innovative reapplication of a multiagent system for human-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation was a consequence of appropriate agent-oriented design. The use of intelligent agents for simulating human decision making offers the potential for analysis and design methodologies that do not distinguish between agent and human until implementation. With this as a driver in the design process, the construction of systems in which humans and agents can be interchanged is simplified. Two systems have been constructed and deployed to provide defense analysts with the tools required to advise and assist the Australian Defense Force in the conduct of maritime surveillance and patrol. The experiences gained from this process indicate that it is simpler, both in design and implementation, to add humans to a system designed for intelligent agents than it is to add intelligent agents to a system designed for humans."

E-translators - the more you say, the better, By Gregory M. Lamb. The Christian Science Monitor (April 22, 2004). "Universal translation is one of 10 emerging technologies that will affect our lives and work 'in revolutionary ways' within a decade, Technology Review says. ... Meanwhile, the US military is giving a simpler one-way translation device a rugged road test in Iraq. ... US forces are using the Phraselator to communicate with injured Iraqis, prisoners of war, travelers at checkpoints, and for other peacekeeping duties, according to Tony Tether, director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), who testified before a House subcommittee on terrorism last month."

Machines, the Military, and Strategic Thought. By Colonel Antonio M. Lopez, Jr., Colonel Jerome J. Comello, and Lieutenant Colonel William H. Cleckner. Military Review, 84(5) September - October 2004, 71-77. "The Dynamic Analysis and Replanning Tool (DART) is an AI-based decision-support system installed at the U.S. Transportation Command and U.S. European Command within 3 months of its conception and used throughout the Persian Gulf war. DART solved the logistical nightmare of moving military assets from Europe to Saudi Arabia. The money DART saved reportedly offset all funds the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) had funneled into AI research in the previous 30 years.10 After the Persian Gulf war, AI researchers devel- oped intelligent systems to capture lessons learned through firsthand human experience. One such deployed system is the U.S. Air Force’s Air Campaign Planning Advisor, which is a Web-based system linked to a performance support system [fn]. ... To make web content more accessible and understandable to intelligent agents, DARPA funded research in languages, tools, infrastructure, and applications [fn]. The DARPA Markup Language (DAML) is the language autonomous intelligent agents use to understand Semantic Web pages."

Armchair warlords and robot hordes. Comment and Analysis by Paul Marks. New Scientist (October 28, 2006; Issue 2575: page 24 |subscription req'd). "It sounds like every general's dream: technology that allows a nation to fight a war with little or no loss of life on its side. It is also a peace-seeking citizen's nightmare. Without the politically embarrassing threat of soldiers returning home in flag-wrapped coffins, governments would find it far easier to commit to military action. The consequences for countries on the receiving end - and for world peace - would be immense. This is not a fantasy scenario. ... 'Teleoperation [remote control] is the norm, but semi-autonomous enhancements are being added all the time,' says Bob Quinn of Foster-Miller, a technology firm in Waltham, Massachusetts, owned by the UK defence research company Qinetiq." [Also see this related article.]

• A Congressional Research Service (CRS) Report mentioned in the article (Unmanned Vehicles for U.S. Naval Forces: Background and Issues for Congress, updated July 26, 2006) is available from the Conventional Weapons Systems collection maintained by Steven Aftergood for The Federation of American Scientists (FAS).

Incorporating AI into Military Decision Making: An Experiment. By Robert Rasch, Alexander Kott, and Kenneth D. Forbus. IEEE Intelligent Systems 18(4): 18-26 (July/August 2003). Abstract excerpt: "The US Army Battle Command Battle Lab conducted experimental explorations of AI-based decision aids for performing several critical steps of a US Army brigade Military Decision Making Process: from capturing a high-level course of action to producing a detailed analysis and plan of tasks. The Integrated Course of Action Critiquing and Elaboration System (ICCES) integrated several available technologies based largely on AI techniques, ranging from machine-understandable course-of-action representations entered via sketching and constrained natural language to interleaved adversarial planning and scheduling."

The DRAIR Advisor: A Knowledge-Based System for Material Deficiency Analysis. By Brian L. Robey, Pamela K. Fink, Sanjeev Venkatesan, Carol L. Redfield, and Jerry W. Ferguson. 1993. In Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence, 169 - 182. Menlo Park, Calif.: AAAI Press. "Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and the U.S. Air Force Materiel Command designed and developed an automated system for the preparation of Deficiency Report Analysis Information Reports (DRAIRs). The DRAIR provides Air Force engineers with an analysis of an aircraft item’s performance history that includes maintenance, supply, and cost. The DRAIR also recommends improvements for a deficient materiel or aircraft Part. The successful design, development, and deployment of the DRAIR Advisor system by applying a combination of knowledge-based system and database management techniques are the subject of this paper."

Terror Games - Can computer games be devised to model the thinking and predict the actions of allies, enemies and even terrorists? Some in the U.S. government think so. Are they playing God? By Jeffrey Rothfeder. Popular Science (February 2004). Mentioned in the article are:

• Naval Postgraduate School's Modeling, Virtual Environments and Simulation Institute (Moves).

The Drone Armies Are Coming. By Lakshmi Sandhana. Wired News (August 30, 2002). "Allen Moshfegh at the Office of Naval Research is the head of the Autonomous Intelligent Network and Systems (AINS), a program that aims to create an operational drone army by the year 2020. ... Going well beyond autopilot and preprogramming, he envisions swarms of unmanned, unattended and untethered drones on the ground, in the air and underwater. These machines would be capable of independently handling events in a hostile combat zone, such as surveillance, strike and even capture and detention. Aiming to create an adaptive, dynamic, self-healing network of drones, Moshfegh intends to rework the whole idea of military structure. 'The army of the future will be one where human and machine collaborate to achieve a common goal,' said Moshfegh."

Robot Wars. Hack radio program on triple j radio (August 17, 2006). Listen as Kaitlyn Sawrey (host), Luke Williams (reporter), and Dr. Rob Sparrow of Monash University explore the question: "For the countries with big defence budgets robot soldiers might seem like a good, clean way of fighting a war... But can a robot fight a war ethically?"

Researchers fine-tune F-35 pilot-aircraft speech system. By John Schutte. Air Force Materiel Command News (October 11, 2007). "When the first F-35 Lightning II rolls out in 2008, communications between pilot and aircraft will enter a new era thanks in part to testing and analysis conducted at the Air Force Research Laboratory's Human Effectiveness Directorate. The F-35 will be the first U. S. fighter aircraft with a speech recognition system able to 'hear' a pilot's spoken commands to manage various aircraft subsystems, such as communications and navigation. ... Currently pilots must press buttons, flip switches or glance at instruments for status information. The new system not only simplifies a pilot's workload but increases safety and efficiency, since pilots can remain focused on flying the aircraft and scrutinizing the combat environment. ... SRI International developed the DynaSpeak® speech recognition software as a highly accurate system for noisy environments, specifically for embedded devices like personal digital assistants, in-car navigation systems and avionics systems, Mr. Williamson said. It is speaker-independent, meaning a pilot can use it without first 'training' the system to his or her voice, which took up to an hour on previous experimental systems. SRI International is working with integrating contractor Adacel Systems, Inc., to tailor the system for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter's airborne environment."

The War Room. By Steve Silberman. Wired News (August 20, 2004; This article will appear in the September 2004 issue of Wired Magazine.) "The installation is the brainchild of the Institute for Creative Technologies, an Army-funded R&D group at the University of Southern California. ICT brings together videogame developers, f/x artists, research scientists, and Pentagon experts to create faster, cheaper, and more effective ways of preparing recruits for their jobs on the front lines.

Using Intelligent Agents in Military Simulation or "Using Agents Intelligently". By Gil Tidhar, Clint Heinze, Simon Goss, Graeme Murray, Dino Appla, and Ian Lloyd. 1999. In Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence, 829 - 836. Menlo Park, Calif.: AAAI Press. "Modern defence systems include advanced aircraft, ships, radar, weapons, command and control systems, and most importantly human operators. The main objective of modelling and simulation tools is to allow operational analysts to rapidly specify and evaluate existing and proposed systems and procedures for operating these systems. Such tools are required to model all aspects of defence systems including physical systems and human operators and the reasoning processes that they adopt. Agent-oriented technology is a natural candidate for developing a model of reasoning processes performed by human operators. It allows the operational analyst to work at a high level, formulating cognitive processes, while keeping the detailed computer programming hidden. This premise has led to the development of the Operator-Agent. The base model was completed in June 1996. The model is fully operational and is an integral part of the tools used by operational analysts from the Australian Department of Defence. It has been successfully used for operational analysis and evaluation of multi-billion dollar acquisitions."

Launching a new kind of warfare - Robot vehicles are increasingly taking a role on the battlefield - but their deployment raises moral and philosophical as well as technical questions. By Pete Warre. The Guardian / Guardian Unlimited Technology (October 26, 2006). "By 2015, the US Department of Defense plans that one third of its fighting strength will be composed of robots, part of a $127bn (£68bn) project known as Future Combat Systems (FCS), a transformation that is part of the largest technology project in American history. The US army has already developed around 20 remotely controlled Unmanned Ground Systems that can be controlled by a laptop from around a mile away, and the US Navy and US Air Force are working on a similar number of systems with varying ranges. According to a US general quoted in the US Army's Joint Robotics Program Master Plan [link], 'what we're doing with unmanned ground and air vehicles is really bringing movies like Star Wars to reality'. The US military has 2,500 uncrewed systems deployed in conflicts around the world. But is it Star Wars or I, Robot that the US is bringing to reality? By 2035, the plan is for the first completely autonomous robot soldiers to stride on to the battlefield. The US is not alone. Around the globe, 32 countries are now working on the development of uncrewed systems. ... But if this is the beginning of the end of humanity's presence on the battlefield, it merits an ethical debate that the military and its weapons designers are shying away from." [Also see this related article.]

Robotic Warfare - part of The 2nd Annual Year in Ideas. By William Speed Weed. The New York Times Magazine (December 15, 2002; registration req'd). "This year at Edwards Air Force Base in California, the biggest advance yet in robotic warfare took its first flight: the UCAV, or Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle. Like the Predator, the UCAV has no human on board. Unlike the Predator, the kite-shaped UCAV is an autonomous plane that flies itself without constant direction from any human being. Its ground-based controller (notably not called a pilot) programs missions with a computer, but he does not direct the aircraft moment by moment. ... The Army is developing the Unmanned Ground Combat Vehicle, a tank that can autonomously negotiate landscapes and fire weapons. And the Navy plans to build a robotic killer submarine. ... Beyond the obvious advantage of keeping Americans out of harm's way, robotic systems have other advantages. Robotic planes and subs don't have to accommodate human safety needs, so they're cheaper to build. Not only can computers think faster than humans, they'll also never suffer from the emotional stress of battle. Moreover, computers can communicate with each other at lightning speed. ... The Air Force's [Col. Michael] Leahy insists that, though total autonomy is technologically feasible, it is not morally allowable. 'A human must always be in the loop to authorize weapons release,' he says."

Researchers set their sights on artificial intelligence to coordinate battlefield sensors. By J.R. Wilson. Military & Aerospace Electronics Magazine (January 2002; Vol. 13, Issue 1). "From one perspective, it might be called a dynamic database; from another, artificial intelligence (AI). The latter term is somewhat ironic, in that it involves two distinct -- yet here closely intertwined -- definitions of 'intelligence'. One is the plethora of information now available in the digitized battlespace — human intelligence, signals intelligence, sensor intelligence, space intelligence, data transmitted to and from aircraft (manned and unmanned), satellites, land and sea systems. The other is how those data are sifted, sorted, fused, and distributed in a way that makes them useful."

Spy Satellites Enter New Dimension. By Robert Windrem of NBC News / available from MSNBC.com ( Aug. 8, 1998). "For more than 35 years, spy satellites have roamed the skies 100 miles above the Earth. They've become increasingly powerful over the years -- but intelligence experts say the real revolution in satellite imagery today is taking place on the ground, not in the skies. ... The CIA can now use artificial intelligence along with modeling to match a known building to an unknown location. The analyst and computer scientist can take a covertly obtained blueprint, create a digital model of the facility, then 'ask' a computer to scan the available imagery and find the completed facility."

Related Resources

ARO, the U.S. Army Research Office.

• Mathematical and Computer Sciences Division
• Computer & Information Science Division

Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (AIL), a division of Lockheed Martin's Advanced Technology Laboratories (ATL), "develops and applies artificial intelligence technology to distributed, real-time, and autonomous systems for military platforms. The laboratory's ability to embed artificial-intelligence systems into larger software systems allows human decision-markers to increase efficiency and deal with complex, time-sensitive environments. ... Our laboratory focuses on four business areas: Autonomy and Teaming; Net-Centric Operations Technologies; Situation Understanding;User-Centered Interfaces."

CommandTalk. Developed by SRI International. "Battlefield simulation is an area of growing importance for all military services. Giving commanders a natural way to control simulated forces remains a challenge, however. SRI International is addressing this problem by developing CommandTalk, a spoken-language interface that will allow commanders to use natural, spoken English commands to control simulated forces. This technology will reduce costs by providing more efficient training and will improve readiness by providing more realistic training".

"INSPECT takes an air campaign plan that has been manually developed and looks for possible problems that a user may have overlooked, such as inconsistencies or unrealistic use of resources. An important part of the work on INSPECT was the development of structured representations (or grammars) for air campaign plans." From the Information Sciences Institute at the The University of Southern California.

Institute for Creative Technologies. "In August 1999, the U.S. Army awarded a five-year contract to the University of Southern California to create the Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT). The ICT's mandate is to enlist the resources and talents of the entertainment and game development industries and to work collaboratively with computer scientists to advance the state of immersive training simulation. The goal of the ICT is the creation of the Experience Learning System (ELS), which provides the ability to learn through active, as opposed to passive, systems. ... The entertainment industry brings expertise in story, character, visual effects, gaming and production to the ELS. In addition the computer science community brings innovation in networking, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality technology."

Intelligent Coordination and Logistics Laboratory (ICLL) at the Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute. One of the projects you'll find there is Integrated Planning and Scheduling: "Goal-oriented activity in complex domains typically requires a combination of planning and scheduling. Military planners must select courses of actions that achieve strategic objectives, while making the most of available assets. ... In collaboration with the researchers at SRI, we are investigating the development of techniques for tighter integration of planning and scheduling processes. Starting from pre-existing planning and scheduling technologies (SRI's CHIP HTN Planner and CMU's ACS scheduler), we have developed a joint planner/scheduler for air operations planning."

Intelligent Tutoring and Artificial Intelligence Resources: Applications and related Artificial Intelligence links. From the Human Performance Center's HPC SPIDER, "the Navy's premier online resource for human performance and training technology for lifelong learning."

Intelligent Tutoring Systems for the Military developed by SHAI.

• To learn more about intelligent tutoring systems and AI, see our ITS page.

Military Training Technology Online. Browse through their archive where'll you'll find several articles about AI at work.

The RETSINA Demining System. From The Software Agents Group at Carnegie Mellon University. "We have developed a robotic demining system as part of an multiagent application (AgentStorm) for assisting human commanders in command and control scenarios run in the ModSAF (Modular Semi-Automated Forces) simulation environment. The robotic demining agents cooperatively clear paths, enabling simulated forces to breach minefields."

Video Surveillance and Monitoring (VSAM) Technology home page. "There are immediate needs for automated surveillance systems in commercial, law enforcement and military applications. Mounting video cameras is cheap, but finding available human resources to observe the output is expensive. Although surveillance cameras are already prevalent in banks, stores, and parking lots, video data currently is used only 'after the fact' as a forensic tool, thus losing its primary benefit as an active, real-time medium. What is needed is continuous 24-hour monitoring of surveillance video to alert security officers to a burglary in progress, or to a suspicious individual loitering in the parking lot, while there is still time to prevent the crime. ... The numerous military applications include patrolling national borders, measuring the flow of refugees in troubled areas, monitoring peace treaties, and providing secure perimeters around bases and embassies." Clicking on the "Research" button will lead you to links to several VSAM project sites.

Other References Offline

Branley, William, Jr., Earnest D. Harris, and U.S. Army Artificial Intelligence Center. 1995. Sabre. In Proceedings of the Seventh Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference, 24-28. Menlo Park, CA: AAAI Press.

Cohen, Philip R., Michael Johnston, David McGee, et al. 1997. Multimodal Interaction for Distributed Interactive Simulation. In Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Conference on Innovative applications of Artificial Intelligence, ed. Senator, Ted and Bruce Buchanan, 978-985. Menlo Park, CA: AAAI. To reduce exercise generation time and effort, yet maximize training effectiveness, the QuickSet prototype has been developed. It's a pen/voice system running on a hand-held PC, communicating via wireless LAN through an agent architecture to NRaD's LeatherNet system, a distributed interactive training simulator built for the US Marine Corps.

de Landa, Manuel. 1991. War in the Age of Intelligent Machines. New York: Zone Books.

Helfman, Richard, Ed Baur, John Dumer, Tim Hanratty, and Holly Ingham. Turbine Engine Diagnostics (TED). AI Magazine 20(1): Spring 1999, 69-76. "Turbine engine diagnostics (TED) is a diagnostic expert system to aid the M1 Abrams tank mechanic find-and-fix problems in the AGT-1500 turbine engine. TED was designed to provide the apprentice mechanic with the ability to diagnose and repair the turbine engine like an expert mechanic. The expert system was designed and built by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory and the U.S. Army Ordnance Center and School. This article discusses the relevant background, development issues, reasoning method, system overview, test results, return on investment, and fielding history of the project. Limited fielding began in 1994 to select U.S. Army National Guard units and complete fielding to all M1 Abrams tank maintenance units started in 1997 and will finish by the end of 1998. The Army estimates that TED will save roughly $10 million a year through improved diagnostic accuracy and reduced waste. The development and fielding of the TED program represents the Army’s first successful fielded maintenance system in the area of AI. Several reasons can be given for the success of the TED program: an appropriate domain with proper scope, a close relationship with the expert, extensive user involvement, and others that are discussed in this article."

Hill Randall, Jr, Johnny Chen, Jonathan Gratch, et al. 1997. Intelligent Agents for the Synthetic Battlefield: A Company of Rotary Wing Aircraft. In Proceedings of the Ninth Annual Conference on Innovative applications of Artificial Intelligence, ed. Senator, Ted and Bruce Buchanan, 1006-1012. Menlo Park, CA: AAAI. Describes a team of intelligent agents that perform the tasks of an attack helicopter company for a synthetic battlefield environment used for running large-scale military exercises. Soar integrated architecture was used to develop: (1) pilot agents for a company of helicopters, (2) a command agent that makes decisions and plans for the helicopter company, and (3) an approach to teamwork that enables the pilot agents to coordinate their activities in accomplishing the goals of the company.

Holtzman, Peter, Inference Corporation, Ray Fischer, et al. (1993). GCESS: A Sympton Driven Diagnostic Shell and Related Applications. In Proceedings of the Fifth Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference, 61-74. Menlo Park, CA: AAAI.

Miller, William. 2000. Virtual Reality: STRICOM'S [Army's Simulation, Training and Instrumentation Command] Training Revolution. Military Training Technology Online. Volume 5, Issue 6. "Clearly, the merging of Hollywood talent, computer gaming, and artificial intelligence with Army doctrine and training will be worth watching."

Mitchell, Steven W., and Inc. Lockheed Martin Federal Systems 1997. A Hybrid Architecture for Real-Time Mixed-Initiative Planning and Control. In Proceedings of the Ninth Annual Conference on Innovative applications of Artificial Intelligence, ed. Senator, Ted and Bruce Buchanan, 1032-1037. Menlo Park, CA: AAAI. Many mission critical applications lie at the brittle edge of human capabilities, leading to serious incidents such as those involving the USS Stark and the USS Vincennes in the Persian Gulf. In domains where full automation is unacceptable to society and purely human operation is inadequate, a promising approach combines the strengths of humans and computers. This paper describes one architecture, interacting with human domain experts in a mixed initiative mode and combining elements of case-based and model-based reasoning in a hierarchical task network decomposition planner to generate plans, and using multivariate utility theory to evaluate the plans. The architecture includes real-time monitoring of plan execution, and automatic replanning for plan failure or significant changes in the environment. The planner has been implemented in C and C++, and used as the Tactical Response Planner for the DARPA Ship Systems Automation (SSA) program.

Senator, Ted E., T.M. Witte, and Ted Krat. 1989. Naval Battle Management Decision Aiding. In Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence, ed. Schorr, Herbert and Alain Rappaport, 287-302. Menlo Park, CA: AAAI.

Sherman, Karen O. 2000. Intelligent Tutor for Today's Army. Military Training Technology Online. Volume 5, Issue 5. "Research on prototype intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) shows consistent and dramatic results: Students using these systems learn faster and demonstrate better performance than students in traditional classroom settings."

Sloane, Stephen B. 1991. The Use of Artificial Intelligence by the U.S. Navy: Case Study of a Failure. AI Magazine 12 (1): 80-92. What happened when a new technology was introduced into a large tradition-driven organization.

Sullivan, James, Jr., and John W. Bruno. 1991. The Inventory Asset Analyzer: A Tool for Reasoning about Force Modernization Planning. In Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence 2, ed. Rappaport, Alain and Reid Smith, 147-158. Menlo Park, CA: AAAI.

Veloso, Manuela M., Alice M. Mulvehill, and Michael T. Cox. 1997. Rationale-Supported Mixed-Initiative Case-Based Planning. In Proceedings of the Ninth Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence, ed. Senator, Ted and Bruce Buchanan, 1072+. Menlo Park, CA: AAAI Press. Mixed-initiative planning envisions a framework in which automated and human planners jointly construct plans that satisfy specific objectives. This paper reports on work engineering a robust mixed-initiative planning system. Human planners rely strongly on past planning experience to generate new plans. ForMAT is a case-based system that supports human planning through the accumulation of user-built plans, query-driven browsing of past plans, and several plan functionality analysis primitives. Prodigy/Analogy is an automated AI planner that combines generative and case-based planning. Stored plans are annotated with plan rationale and reuse involves adaptation driven by this rationale. The authors' system, MI-CBP integrates FORMAT and Prodigy/Analogy into a real-time message-passing mixed-initiative planning system.The main technical approach consists of allowing the user to specify and link objectives that enable the system to capture and reuse plan rationale. MI-CBP has concrete application to the domain of military force deployment planning. This synergistic system increases human efficiency through automated suggestion of similar past plans and plausible modifications.