WASHINGTON \u2014 The U.S. military command charged with watching and protecting North American airspace is now using artificial intelligence to detect the threats that previously slipped its notice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The new capability, named Pathfinder, fuses data from military, commercial and government sensors to create a common operating picture for North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt essentially takes and ingests \u2014 aggregates \u2014 data from multiple systems, data that would in the past have been … left on the cutting room floor and not analyzed or assessed in a timely manner,\u201d said Gen. Glen VanHerck, who commands NORAD and USNORTHCOM, during the Air Force Association\u2019s virtual Air Warfare Symposium last week. \u201cThe Pathfinder program uses machine learning to help us analyze that data from multiple systems \u2014 not only military systems, but commercial systems, other government agency systems.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Previously that data stayed in separate systems, preventing NORAD from seeing the whole picture and allowing potential threats to slip through unnoticed. VanHerck pointed to a 2015 incident when a gyrocopter landed on the White House lawn as an example of how stovepiped systems prevented NORAD from seeing a potential threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen you go back and look at that scenario, when you look at those systems that monitor the national Capitol region individually, no single system had full awareness or saw that gyrocopter,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pathfinder solves that problem by taking the data from each of those systems and fusing it into a common operating picture. In developing Pathfinder, NORAD virtually recreated the 2015 event by plugging the data from that day into its new AI-machine learning capability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe took Pathfinder and applied it to the available systems, the actual data, and used Pathfinder capabilities to assess that data,\u201d said VanHerck. \u201cAnd sure enough, there that gyrocopter was and he was easily detected by that point.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To prototype pathfinder, NORAD partnered with the Defense Innovation Unit, a Pentagon organization that specializes in using emerging commercial technologies for military purposes. DIU Director Mike Brown said in December that Pathfinder was completed in record time \u2014 just a few months over a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In February, Kinetica announced it received a $100 million, five-year contract from the U.S. Air Force to use the Kinetica Streaming Data Warehouse for Pathfinder. The company\u2019s service \u201cingests, analyzes and visualizes massive data sets \u2026 in order to model possible outcomes and assess risk,\u201d according to Kinetica\u2019s description.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re using it today,\u201d said VanHerck. \u201cIt\u2019s out in our fields and our sectors right now. Historically our sectors were very manually driven \u2014 phone calls to pass data, etc. Today we fuse all that data together, and we\u2019re seeing the picture much more real-time and much more in an automatic type of digital environment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pathfinder can fuse data from more than 300 sensors to build its common operating picture, Brown noted. Beyond helping NORAD find more potential threats, Pathfinder also enables operators to move faster to assess those threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe dramatically reduced their decision time \u2014 they have about 12 minutes to make a decision if they really thought there was an attack coming in over North American airspace \u2014 and we\u2019ve cut minutes off that by giving them this common operating picture,\u201d said Brown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In many ways, Pathfinder is a microcosm of the Pentagon\u2019s Joint All Domain Command and Control concept, which seeks to use AI and emerging technologies to connect every sensor to the best shooter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019ve been able to do with NORAD in this fusing of sensor data and providing a common operating picture for better decision making, if you think about it, that\u2019s the guts of what\u2019s in JADC2,\u201d said Brown. \u201cThat technology is going to continue to have broad applicability. And I won\u2019t be surprised at all as we work on some other projects to see other applications of that basic technology be delivered.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI absolutely believe it can be a model for the Department of Defense,\u201d said VanHerck. \u201cIt lays the foundation for improved data-driven decision-making and enhanced capability.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Defense News Deputy Editor and Senior Pentagon Correspondent Aaron Mehta contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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