DOD's "Sentient" World Simulation

Apparently the US military is looking into developing a massive simulation of the entire geopolitical canvas of the Earth, with a node representing "every man, woman and child." Although I'm sure it involves lots of data and some serious computation, I sincerely doubt the predictions made by this system will be any better than that of a seasoned human analyst.

I suppose you could turn over strategic nuclear decisions to this thing and just wait for Judgment Day...

While articles of this type are often titillating, I know from first-hand experience that most far-out projects involving the military don't live up to the hype. For one thing, the military plays fast & loose with commonly used terminology. The word "sentient" actually means something; it shouldn't be used as a vacuous buzzword designed to woo congressional funding.

Maybe they should call it WOPR 2.0?

(Sometimes I just can't help myself with the cultural reference one-liners!)

On the Frontline

Slashdot points to a roundup of some DARPA technology on display. I've seen the robotic surgeon before, which is designed to extract and treat wounded soldiers in combat environments. Really nothing new among the rest either, just the same small walking robots and hovering recon UAVs from the DARPA website.

I’m looking forward to robotic surgeons designed to repair robotic super-soldiers...

What’s Next in Defense Tech

Government Computer News has a good round-up of ongoing defense research, some of which (as we all know) is related in one way or another to AI. Nothing too Earth-shattering, but a nice collection of news for the casual reader (GCN is not known for hard-hitting technical content). The coverage includes the DARPA Urban Challenge, machine translation and cognitive computing initiatives.

via AAAI.org News

Robots on the Highways

The LA Times has a nice fit-for-mass-consumption profile of the upcoming DARPA Urban Challenge, highlighting the potential civilian benefits from this military R&D program.

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em

Apparently unable to replicate insect flight using ultra-small micro uavs, DARPA is now funding research that seeks to control moths using implanted computer chips. The chips will be implanted in the larva while still in the cocoon, and once the moth has matured, should allow a pilot to control the flight of the creature, beaming back photos and video. These cyber moths will be designed to infiltrate terrorist training camps and other enemy strongholds to gather intelligence without detection.

I suppose they’re building on the success of the remote-controlled pigeon and are seeking to miniaturize the technology.

Son of Stanley

Stanford has unveiled their successor to Stanley, the driverless car that won the DARPA Grand Challenge two years back. Junior is an upgraded version of the champion autonomous vehicle, sporting several new enhancements. These include many additional sensors, optical trackers designed to follow road markers, and a 360-degree camera system--all controlled by seemingly COTS computer equipment. The software powering Junior has been upgraded as well, allowing it to tackle a much more complex urban environment, unlike its desert-bound forbearer. Junior’s 500 probabilistic algorithms take less than 300 milliseconds to make critical navigation decisions.

Junior is currently undergoing tests to qualify for the DARPA Urban Challenge on November 3.

Autonomous Cars by 2030.

Only 23 more years until we can sleep while driving to work. That's the prediction of scientists working on this year's DARPA Urban Challenge, the third annual Grand Challenge featuring a 60-mile course for driverless vehicles through a simulated city.

The Stanford researcher also predicts battlefield use of this technology by 2015--conveniently just in time to meet the Congressional deadline to make a third of all military vehicles autonomous. So not only will the technology drastically reduce drunk driving accidents, it will hopefully reduce deaths by roadside bomb as well.

Boeing Brings the Magic

Major defense contractor Boeing displayed several very impressive advanced technologies at the annual Airlift/Tanker Association convention in Orlando last fall...

Following on the (eventual) success of the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft, Boeing is currently developing a quad-tiltrotor design--that is, a VTOL aircraft with four rotating turboprop engines that convert from helicopter to airplane mode. The Boeing QuadTiltRotor was recently awarded a contract for the US military's Joint Heavy Airlift study. Replace those turboprops with turbofans and we're getting close to the flying "Hunter-Killer" design from T2...

Perhaps the most impressive technology showcased by Boeing was its work in pulse jet lift thrusters. This system groups together a number of very small, simple & highly efficient pulse jet engines to provide powerful, controllable & fault-tolerant VTOL ability. Boeing claims to have overcome the poor fuel economy issues that have plagued pulse jets since their first principal use in the V-1 rocket. Future applications include the Light Aerial Multi-purpose Vehicle (LAMV) concept, in which a (patented) pulsejet ejector thrust augmentor provides VTOL capability, while traditional jet engines allow for standard flight like an ordinary fixed-wing aircraft. Scale it down a bit, and perhaps we'll all be riding hoverboards someday...

Not shown at the A/TA Convention but prominent on the Boeing Integrated Defense Systems website is the A160 Hummingbird helicopter UAV. The Hummingbird's first test flight was in 2002 and is currently in development under contract with DARPA.

Inside the Walls of DARPA

Computerworld offers A Peek Inside DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency responsible for inventing the Internet and other advanced technologies.

Projects of note include Global Autonomous Language Exploitation (GALE), which is designed to "transcribe, translate & distill" data collected from English and foreign language sources into actionable information for human decision makers. Another, the Personalized Assistant that Learns (PAL), is hoped will one day "automatically watch a conversation between two people and, using natural-language processing, figure out what are the tasks they agreed upon."

GALE in particular seems to be a promising endeavor. Researchers at Penn's Linguistic Data Consortium (LDC) are working to provide resources and tools for the project. Possibly the most interesting and impactful component is the Distillation engine, which seems to be the segment focused on "understanding" the information at hand. LDC has posted a thorough background & analysis of this function on their website.

No More DARPA Prize $$$

Citing a defense spending bill signed by President Bush this month, DARPA will not award any prize money at this year’s Grand Challenge.

DARPA’s interpretation of the new law prohibits the agency from conferring the anticipated $2.7 million award. Instead, the top three teams will each receive a trophy purchased out-of-pocket by DARPA director Tony Tether. This development has raised concerns that some teams will be forced to drop out of the competition and will reduce media coverage of the event.

After last year’s race where Stanford triumphed by successfully navigating a 132-mile desert course, the third Grand Challenge to be held in November 2007 will test the unmanned vehicles’ ability to traverse congested city traffic, avoiding other cars and complying with the rules of the road. Dubbed “The DARPA Urban Challenge,” this race will simulate a military supply mission in an urban environment, pushing the vehicles’ autonomous control systems to their limit. As with the two previous Grand Challenge events, the overall goal is meeting the congressional mandate to make one-third of all military ground vehicles unmanned by 2015.

via AAAI.org News

More Details about the UAV COS

Larry pointed out some good info to me about the UAV Common Operating System on the DARPA J-UCAS website.

There is a COS FAQ (which unfortunately seems to be more focused on answering Boeing & Northrop's questions about protecting intellectual property than explaining what COS is!) and a Common Systems & Technology presentation which includes a very interesting section on the COS.

Some items of note from the 15.2MB PPT slideshow:

- The COS is more of a POSIX-compliant middleware than an 'operating system,' as it resides on top of an embedded OS.

- Integrates sensors, weapons, communications & control systems to generate decisions and provide a real-time understanding of the operating environment

- Allows autonomous operations, eliminating need for human operators

- Enables accelerated software development... 'best of breed' algorithms shared between platforms (survival of the fittest?)

- Automatic determination of flight path based on mission parameters and threat environment

- Open architecture, non-proprietary source code can be freely used, copied, modified and redistributed

- Initial development timeframe begins Dec 05 and ends Dec 08, with 4 builds planned using a spiral approach

The most significant COS component, in my opinion, would have to be the Discovery/Mediation functionality...

The discovery component provides a set of services that enables the formulation and execution of search activities to locate data assets (files, databases, directories, web pages, streams) by exploitation metadata descriptions stored in and or generated by Information Technology (IT) repositories (directories, registries, catalogs, etc). This also includes the ability to search for metadata semantics to support mediation.

This mediation component provides a set of services that enable transformation processing (adaptation, aggregation, transformation, and orchestration), situational awareness support (correlation and fusion), negotiation (brokering, trading, and auctioning services), and publishing.

What this sounds like to me is a method for storage and retrieval of shared memory resources (by way of metadata [xml?] and semantic analysis), and using those memories to enable adaptation to dynamic situations. That bears a striking resemblance to the way a conscious being uses personal and communal experiences to deal with real-world environments and react to change in real-time. The more I think about it, the more I see the possibility for something truly intelligent to emerge from this architecture. I'm definitely going to have to keep tabs on this project, and if it ends up being open source (as the presentation claims), taking a look under the hood. Now do you understand why I want to work for these people?

Inside the Mind of a UAV

DARPA is currently developing a common operating system that will serve as the 'brains' for the military's next generation of autonomous systems.

This common platform will allow UAVs to share information and work together more efficiently, and port new advances from platform to platform. Additionally, it will merge inputs from all of the sensor systems to create a single integrated picture of the environment, and interface with the on-board weapons array as well. Could this internal model of the outside world eventually be the seat of consciousness for an intelligent machine? DARPA's own report is not surprisingly vague...

More Coverage of DARPA Grand Challenge

As was brought to my attention by Slashdot, Tom's Hardware has a nice article about some of the nuts & bolts inside a few of the competitors for the 2006 DARPA Grand Challenge coming this October. The article seems a little awkward (translated from the original German?), but has a good collection of interesting info and cool photos.

Stanford's 'Robo-Taureg' Making Progress

C|Net News has another update about another DARPA Grand Challenge participant.

Stanford University's driverless car 'Stanley' recently managed to navigate 25 miles before a human driver was forced to take control. That is certainly an improvement over previous attempts, but 'Stanley' still has a way to go in order to complete the 175-mile DARPA course and score the $2 million prize.

Pink Slip for NASCAR Drivers?

C|Net News reports a Carnegie Mellon Robotic Vehicle successfully completed a 200 mile, seven hour drive, completely autonomously.

Although the course was merely 131 laps around a 1.5 mile racetrack, the duration of this event represents a significant milestone in the development of driverless vehicles. The next step will be the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge. The Carnegie Mellon team led all participants in last year's contest, completeing 7.3 miles of the 142 mile course before getting stuck.