Air Force seeks to use artificial intelligence (AI) to sift through courses of action in battle planning

Nov. 15, 2021
This capability will enable combat planners to reason about plausible outcomes quickly to increase the planners’ confidence in their decisions.

ROME, N.Y. – U.S. Air Force battle planning experts will brief industry next month on an upcoming project to revolutionize air operations planning by using artificial intelligence (AI) to help commanders formulate the best plan possible against strong enemy forces.

Officials of the Air Force Research Laboratory Information Directorate in Rome, N.Y., issued a special notice on Wednesday (BAA FA8750-22-S-7001) for the Fight Tonight project.

Air Force experts will brief industry on this program in hybrid virtual and in-person events from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on 8 and 9 Dec. 2021. In-person briefings will be at the Innovare Advancement Center, 592 Hangar Road, in Rome, N.Y. Experts will follow the same agenda each day.

The Fight Tonight program seeks to revolutionize air operations battle planning using AI in an interactive game engine for building, rehearsing, and assessing combat plans.

Related: Military researchers to use gaming concepts and artificial intelligence (AI) for nuanced communications

This capability will enable combat planners to reason about plausible outcomes quickly to increase the planners’ confidence that they have crafted the best plan possible against peer adversaries.

The goal is to provide a revolutionary capability to enable planners to explore and access plausible futures rapidly to select the best plans. This will accelerate planning and explore potential courses of action with enhanced by tools that can generate and assess the feasibility of more plans than humans are capable of formulating on their own.

Goals of the briefings are to promote teaming and provide an opportunity for government and industry to gather more information prior to expected submission of white papers 10 10 Jan. 2022.

Related: Air Force eyes inexpensive Skyborg unmanned combat aircraft that pushes bounds of artificial intelligence (AI)

Companies should register online no later than 1 Dec. 2021 at https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/0fa591c32af04371be5a3966e0033782.

For questions or concerns contact the Air Force's Jeff Hudack by email at [email protected], or by phone at 315-330-4877.

More information is online at https://sam.gov/opp/23aaa38e1a9d458991ab51eb54b5ec05/view.

About the Author

John Keller | Editor-in-Chief

John Keller is the Editor-in-Chief, Military & Aerospace Electronics Magazine--provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronics and optoelectronic technologies in military, space and commercial aviation applications. John has been a member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since 1989 and chief editor since 1995.

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