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BAE Systems, Inc. has received a contract from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to advance software that will enable semi-autonomous, multi-domain mission planning.
The $6.5 million Phase 2 contract was awarded as part of the Adapting Cross-Domain Kill-Webs (ACK) program following a successful Phase 1 demonstration.
As part of Phase 1, BAE Systems’ FAST Labs research and development organization, along with Carnegie Mellon University and Uncharted Software, created software called the Multi-domain Adaptive Request Service (MARS). A live demonstration highlighted the software’s ability to update a plan in real time by ingesting information feeds to track the state of planned tasks, and then generating options to adapt the plan to insert new tasks. The MARS software adapts a plan with 100s of missions to insert tasks against new targets, requiring only fractions of a second per target added.
Under Phase 2, BAE Systems will continue to advance the software to extend the capabilities designed to help operators make informed decisions by automatically identifying available assets across domains, and then assessing the costs and benefits of using those assets when adapting mission tasks.
Phase 2 aims to demonstrate the techniques in a full scale and operationally realistic scenario, which is the overall goal of the program.
“Autonomy is a critical enabler for multi-domain mission planning,” said Chris Eisenbies, product line director of the Autonomy, Controls, and Estimation group at BAE Systems.
“The Phase 2 award will focus on advancing the software designed for military operators to leverage battlespace resources from across various domains, including space, air, land, and sea, for more effective, efficient missions.”
Work on the ACK program is being performed at the company’s facilities in Burlington, Mass. and Arlington, Va.
