Northrop Grumman AI Development Aligns with U.S. DoD Ethics Principles

The company is working with universities to develop new secure and ethical AI best practices, in addition to collaborating with leading commercial companies to advance AI technology By DA Staff / 15 Jul 2021

Discover Leading Defense Technology Solutions

Discover cutting-edge solutions from leading global suppliers
SUPPLIER SPOTLIGHT
Follow DA

Northrop Grumman is working to establish ‘justified confidence’ in Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems by aligning AI development with the U.S. Department of Defense’s five AI ethical principles to ensure that platforms are accountable, robust and reliable.

Northrop Grumman is taking a systems engineering approach to AI development and is a conduit for pulling in university research, commercial best practices and government expertise and oversight.

One of the company’s partners is a Silicon Valley startup, Credo AI. They are sharing their governance tools as Northrop Grumman apply comprehensive, relevant ethical AI policies to guide in its AI development. 

The company is also working with universities like Carnegie Mellon to develop new secure and ethical AI best practices, in addition to collaborating with leading commercial companies to advance AI technology.

Another step the company is taking is to extend its DevSecOps process to automate and document best practices with regard to AI software development, monitoring, testing and deployment.

Critical to success is Northrop Grumman’s AI workforce – because knowing how to develop AI technology is just one piece of the complex mosaic. Its AI engineers also understand the mission implications of the technology they develop to ensure operational effectiveness of AI systems in its intended mission space. That’s why the company continues to invest in a mission-focused AI workforce through formal training, mentoring and apprenticeship programs.

Northrop Grumman’s secure DevSecOps practices and mission-focused employee training helps to ensure appropriate use of judgment and care in responsible AI development.

The company strives for equitable algorithms and minimize the potential for unintended bias by leveraging a diverse engineering team and testing for data bias using commercial best practices, among other monitoring techniques.

Northrop Grumman developed tools to provide an immutable log of data provenance, ensuring traceable, transparent, and auditable development processes.

The company enables reliability through an emphasis on mission understanding to develop explicit, well-defined cases in which its AI systems will operate. Leveraging best practices, its work in AI governance enables robust risk assessment, algorithmic transparency and graceful termination when required.

This integrated approach from development to operation is essential to achieving justified confidence in AI-enabled systems.

Posted by DA Staff Connect & Contact

Latest Articles

Practical Methods for Balancing UAV Propellers Safely & Effectively

Tyto Robotics discusses the ways to add and remove materials from drone propellers, considering advantages and disadvantages of various products and techniques

Jul 11, 2025
Military-Grade Tethered Drone Systems for Surveillance & Security Missions

DPI UAV Systems (Dragonfly Pictures) is a developer of advanced tethered drone systems for military, government and security applications. As...

Jul 11, 2025
Modular Chassis Design Enhances Deployment Flexibility for Defense Systems

LCR Embedded Systems explains how modular chassis design supports rapid deployment and cost-effective packaging for rugged embedded systems using open standards like VPX and SOSA

Jul 10, 2025
MilDef to Supply Rugged IT Equipment for Norway’s Defense Digitization

MilDef has secured a major contract with Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace to supply rugged IT equipment supporting Norway’s defense digitization efforts

Jul 10, 2025
Tethered Drone Technologies for Mission-Critical Defense & Security Applications

Defense Advancement showcases Elistair's tethered drone solutions for mission-critical defense and security applications

Jul 10, 2025
New Oscilloquartz Optical Cesium Clocks Enhance Network Timing Precision

Adtran is expanding its Oscilloquartz portfolio with the new OSA 3200 SP and OSA 3250 ePRC optical cesium models, providing improved holdover and simplified maintenance for telecom, data center, utility, and defense networks

Jul 09, 2025

Featured Content

New Oscilloquartz Optical Cesium Clocks Enhance Network Timing Precision

Adtran is expanding its Oscilloquartz portfolio with the new OSA 3200 SP and OSA 3250 ePRC optical cesium models, providing improved holdover and simplified maintenance for telecom, data center, utility, and defense networks

Jul 09, 2025
Teledyne FLIR OEM Whitepaper: Synthetic Data Generation for AI Object Detection

Read Teledyne FLIR OEM’s whitepaper on AIMMGen™, a defense-oriented synthetic data and AI model generation pipeline tailored to Automatic Target Recognition (ATR) and object classification tasks

Jul 03, 2025
Galvion’s Production Hub in Poland Now Open & Operational

Galvion's new Production Hub in Poland has formally opened through a large ceremony held at the Gdansk facility with factory tours, demonstrations, and live models of helmets

Jun 30, 2025
Advancing Defense Capability Through Strategic Collaboration Defense Advancement works with major OEMs to foster collaboration and increase engagement with SMEs, to accelerate innovation and drive defense capabilities forward.