Northrop Grumman has introduced a new artificial intelligence (AI) feature to help warfighters make real-time, informed decisions on the move, the company announced on 7 October 2024.
The Forward Area Air Defense (FAAD) Advanced Battle Manager (ABM) system addresses the growing complexity of threats in the counter-unmanned aerial system (C-UAS) mission space. The ABM’s AI feature streamlines decision making for optimal defeat of swarming unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with a single button click on a mobile tablet, according to the company, enhancing manoeuvrability for the US military and its allies and coalition partners.
Successfully tested in the spring and late summer of this year at the Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona, the ABM makes real-time weapon-target pairings across disparate kinetic and non-kinetic weapons by leveraging AI and years of live-fire data.
Designed for efficiency and growth, the ABM can plan for complex aerial swarm scenarios with numerous weapons against varying threats. It also supports real-time data processing with minimal delay, generating engagement plans in under a quarter of a second.
The ABM continuously monitors the battlespace and replans engagements as necessary and currently supports multiple weapon types, with Northrop Grumman noting that its open-architecture design enables new weapons to be easily added in the future.
“As threats evolve, the need for operations to become simple and clear during high-stress multi-target engagements has increased,” noted Kenn Todorov, vice president and general manager for global battle management and readiness at Northrop Grumman, in a company press release. “This critical AI enhancement will create a streamlined and intuitive engagement plan giving service members more time to save lives with a single click. Northrop Grumman and the US Army’s collaboration in innovation ensures the combat-proven FAAD system remains at the forefront of C-UAS technology.”
FAAD is a cyber-certified, real-time safety critical command-and-control (C2) software package that simultaneously integrates short-range air defence, counter-rocket, artillery, mortar and C-UAS missions, enabling co-ordinated protection across the joint force with rapid, real-time defence against complex, manoeuvring threats.
