Digital Twins And AI: How They Can Help With Defense Decision-Making

Forbes

2 days ago

William Bain is the Founder and CEO of ScaleOut Software.
In today's landscape, global threats continue to grow, with cyber threats, drone warfare and asymmetric conflicts creating complex challenges for military leaders. The military is under pressure to modernize faster than ever. Defense scenarios can require commanders to track and analyze thousands of both friendly and enemy assets every second as engagements unfold. How can new technology give commanders enhanced situational awareness and a tactical advantage?
One proven model for maintaining situational awareness is the 'OODA loop.' Originally developed by U.S. Air Force Colonel John Boyd and widely used by military leaders, pilots and operations managers, the OODA loop is highly useful for responding to real-time threats. It has four steps: orient, observe, decide and act. Those who can process these steps quickest can react more effectively.
While decisions ultimately rest in the hands of people, new technology can speed up the OODA loop. When defense scenarios involve thousands of dynamic assets, accelerating responses is essential. Military leaders need technology that can continuously analyze changing conditions and help them stay ahead of threats. This technology must evaluate changes in individual elements and then immediately combine the results so that personnel can process changes as quickly and effectively as possible.
As founder and CEO of ScaleOut Software, I have focused my career on developing software technologies that improve decision-making in complex, fast-moving environments. With a background in parallel computing and experience at Bell Labs, Intel and Microsoft, I have developed scalable computing software that uses in-memory digital twins to monitor large numbers of live assets and deliver continuous real-time insights, like those needed in military applications.
Unlocking A New Level Of Situational Awareness
Scalable, digital twin software technology, combined with both machine learning (ML) and generative AI, is emerging as a game changer for defense operations. They offer new tools for real-time analysis that give military leaders better insights and lead to more effective responses in time-critical situations. By integrating live sensor data with historical patterns, these technologies can enhance situational awareness, enabling commanders to respond to emerging threats with unprecedented speed and precision.
At the core of these advances is the digital twin: a software representation of a physical entity, such as a command post, an aircraft, a vehicle, artillery piece or troops. Using real-time data from satellites, drones or other sensors, digital twins can track assets on a battlefield by continuously analyzing incoming data. Assisted by AI, digital twins combine real-time data with past changes to create a new perspective for personnel and deeper insights into evolving scenarios.
Accelerating The OODA Loop
Timely response to enemy movements, cyber intrusions or other threats can mean the difference between success and failure. Digital twins combined with AI can quickly analyze the movement of enemy assets and accelerate the OODA loop for commanders.
Satellite images processed with AI only provide a snapshot of the current location and types of enemy assets. Digital twins can use multiple images to identify and track specific assets over time. To provide a tactical advantage, ML algorithms trained on a wide range of movement patterns can track both where the enemy is and how its assets are likely to be moving.
Enabled by new hardware technologies, digital twins can also track large numbers of friendly assets and assist in force protection. Portable GPS trackers can securely transmit a wide range of parameters for each asset to cloud-hosted digital twins, which maintain a comprehensive view of the battle space and immediately detect issues that need attention. They also track consumables, such as artillery ammunition, to help logistics personnel direct supplies where most urgently needed at any given moment.
Driving Readiness And Efficiency
Digital twins combined with AI are not just transforming combat operations. They are also helping logistics and maintenance teams maximize readiness and control costs. These software technologies can also model complex systems and workflows, enabling managers to streamline operations and detect emerging problems.
For example, digital twins can continuously analyze sensor data from aircraft using ML to detect potential failures before they occur. The U.S. Air Force is leveraging digital twin technology to improve the maintenance of its F-35 fighter jets, allowing engineers to predict component failures and reduce unplanned downtime. Similarly, the U.S. Air Force partnered with the National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR) to create digital twins of F-16 aircraft to help lower operational costs.
Digital twins also play a key role in managing ongoing supply chains, ensuring the timely delivery of fuel, ammunition and medical supplies. They can integrate real-time data from the complex web of components in a supply chain to provide military leaders with live insights into potential issues.
Leveraging Digital Twins And AI For Defense Playbooks
New software technologies that combine digital twins with AI have the potential to reshape modern defense strategy. Effective for both battlefield and logistical operations, these technologies can enable military leaders to make better decisions, even when they're confronted with complex challenges. Concurrently, they can help organizations maximize readiness and manage costs.
Integrating digital twins with AI into operational systems may require a change in mindset, and that starts with data management—specifically, analyzing incoming data efficiently. Today's systems typically confine real-time processing to the ingestion and display of live data, which they store in databases for later analysis. These systems often use multiple data silos that can further delay analysis.
Defense planners should ask whether their existing systems can meet the real-time needs of today's complex scenarios. Do they take advantage of newer software technologies that accelerate the OODA loop? Do they provide automatic alerting and analytics enhanced by AI? In both defense missions and other live operations, these technologies can provide the fast, unblinking analysis of incoming threats required to support decision-making on which lives may depend.
By continuously analyzing live data and simultaneously tracking every data source, memory-based digital twins with AI can provide fast results and avoid the inefficiencies of offline data silos. In both defense missions and other live operations, they can deliver timely insights that enhance decision-making.
Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?