Drones for drones, AFA, DSEI, and global resilience

The Nexus Newsletter?

Welcome back to The Nexus Newsletter. This week, we comment on drone swarms for Reapers, share information about recent and upcoming booths at major industry trade shows, tease updates about Nexus 23, and provide our takes on recent news from the nexus of autonomy and national security.

The Reaper UAV Is Getting Its Own Drone Swarm

By Patrick Tucker, Science and Technology Editor, Defense One

Key quote: The venerable Reaper UAV could become a mothership for a single-operator drone swarm, the head of Air Force Special Operations Command said recently.

AFSOC’s Adaptive Airborne Enterprise project aims to develop highly autonomous swarms of drones for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance—and perhaps even strike, Lt. Gen. Tony D. Bauernfeind told an audience at the Global SOF Special Air Warfare Symposium in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. The project also aims to reduce the number of humans needed to control such a swarm down to just one operator.

“A2E is a three-phase initiative to develop airborne human-machine teams commanding a family of uncrewed and optionally crewed” aircraft, Bauernfeind said.?

These swarms of Group 1 and 2 drones—essentially, ones weighing up to a few dozen pounds—would launch from MQ-9 Reapers and perhaps other medium-sized uncrewed aircraft, he said. [...]

“In contested or denied environments, AFSOC is shifting from multiple operators controlling a single MQ-9A to a single air commando directing a family of systems,” AFSOC spokeswoman Lt. Col. Rebecca Heyse said in a statement. “MQ-9 units will leverage multiple platforms and incorporate autonomy and eventually Artificial Intelligence technologies to deliver capabilities to SOF, the Air Force, and the joint force across the spectrum of operations. A2E will increase the number of platforms AFSOC operators can manage by an order of magnitude, and through those systems, cover more terrain and prosecute more target across the spectrum of operating environments.”

Our take: Leave it to AFSOC to think outside the box on use of enduring (or if HAF A8 has a say, “legacy”) platforms in an innovative manner; if only the rest of the Air Force could be so creative. We are a huge fan of this concept; it builds off of a proven airframe by delivering high TRL technologies, and extends the stand-off range with much more attritable ISR and weapons platforms. The AFSOC team should meet the CDAO Smart Sensor team, and merge concepts and technologies. Applied has experience working with the Smart Sensor program, which leads aerial ISR autonomy efforts in the DOD, and is a model for autonomous program design.

Nexus 23 update

Major speaker announcements for Nexus 23 are coming soon! We have several prominent current and former officials from the Department of Defense speaking at Nexus 23 - keep an eye on our social media accounts for the announcements.

Meet with us at DSEI Japan on March 15-17! Stop by our booth to learn how our software solutions are already accelerating the development and deployment of safe and effective autonomous systems for defense customers across domains, our growing work in the APAC region, and what we have in store for the future.

News we’re reading?

Autonomous systems are gaining momentum in the national security space. Below, we’ve pulled key quotes from recent articles of interest, plus brief commentary from Applied Intuition’s government team:?

War on the Rocks | Winning the Air Battle for Taiwan: Lessons from Ukraine’s Drone Operations

By Dr. Caitlin Lee, Senior Fellow for UAV and Autonomy Studies, The Mitchell Institute

Key quote: The Department of Defense and Air Force leaders should reject an air denial approach for U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific. There is little reason to suggest that a force built for air denial, centered around low-cost, short-range drones and air defenses, can deter a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. What the Air Force requires is a mix of crewed and uncrewed capabilities that can reach inside the range of Chinese weapon systems to rapidly attrit their invasion forces. Drones play a central role, but the drones that will make a war-winning difference for U.S. forces are not the drones of Ukraine. Air Force drones will need more range, survivability, autonomy and sophisticated sensors and payloads to bring real coercive leverage to the table.

Our take: It’s tempting to apply all of the lessons and concepts of operation that we have observed in Ukraine directly to a conflict in the Indopacific, but that is not necessarily the right approach. A conflict with China imposes distinct challenges, chief among them the longer ranges that forces would need to operate over. Additionally, the PRC’s higher-end air defenses and capabilities will require more capable and survivable systems than those that we’re seeing in Ukraine. What the Air Force really needs is a dose of reality; we will fight with the aerial platforms we have in inventory today, and those that we can manufacture rapidly at attritable costs.?

Breaking Defense | Rapid updates, flexible authorities key for modern combat, says Army acquisition chief?

By Sydney Freedberg Jr., Contributing Editor, Breaking Defense

Key quote: “The traditional way of doing software upgrades for aircraft or other things [was] every few years, roll out a big upgrade,” Bush said Thursday morning at an Association of the US Army “Hot Topic” mini-conference on aviation. “The new approach is trying to do a minimum one [upgrade] a year.”

“That will be absolutely critical,” Bush said. “In particular in aviation, one thing that comes to mind is aviation survivability.” While Bush didn’t give specifics, “survivability” typically includes defensive countermeasures like flares and chaff to decoy away incoming anti-aircraft missiles, or jammers and lasers to blind their guidance systems. [...]

“Equipment has to spin on threats,” Bush said, not on ponderous traditional cycles. “That Software Pathway will enable us to make that work because … all of these platforms really across the Army, our large platforms, are increasing really software programs.”

Our take: Unlike hardware, software is not “done” when it is first delivered - constant iterations and updates are needed to ensure that it remains relevant, effective, and tailored to use cases as they evolve. “Equipment has to spin on threats” is right on the money. The software acquisition pathway allows that to happen, and we are major proponents of its use in the Department. Separating rapid iterations in software from slower hardware upgrade timelines - something that we’re supporting as part of the Army’s RCV program - is the only way to ensure that technology that supports both survivability and lethality remain operationally relevant. In the Army, PEO GCS continues to break new ground on coordinating software procurement in a way that is positive and innovative within the constraints of the defense procurement process.?

War on the Rocks | Breaking the Cycle of Incremental Acquisition Reform

By Eric Chase, Managing Director, CSP Associates

Key quote: The Defense Department is still the largest single-actor investor in U.S. research and development. However, its $800+ billion defense budget pales in comparison to a U.S. gross domestic product of more than $26 trillion. In today’s environment, defense research and development should first baseline commercial technologies and development wherever possible, then focus government research and development on unique performance requirements or high-risk, pre-commercial research. The technology sourcing for Department of Defense systems should be 80 percent commercial and 20 percent military development, but the current “big A” acquisition ecosystem effectively functions in the reverse. Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution and its adjacent acquisition processes must be able to synchronize with and operate at the speed of private sector investment cycles. Policies and procedures that function as if the defense acquisition system is somehow separate from the larger U.S. (and allied) industrial base are antiquated, costly, and dangerous.?

Our take: Leveraging the innovation engine of the private sector for defense use cases is a much more efficient approach to developing and deploying cutting-edge technologies to the warfighter than relying exclusively on DOD R&D. Reforming the PPBE process to allow the DOD to operate at the speed of the private sector will ultimately result in faster delivery of essential capabilities to their end users, making them safer and more effective at achieving military objectives.?

General Catalyst | Building Globally Resilient Systems for a New World Order: Investing in Modern Defense & Intelligence

By Hemant Taneja and Paul Kwan, General Catalyst

Key quote: Global resilience is about investing in the systems that form the bedrock of society.? A renewed area of focus for us within the global resilience thesis is modern defense and intelligence where we see a pressing need to invest in modern and more resilient systems for the benefit of our nation and our allies. [...]

1. Investing in modern defense and intelligence is urgently needed, and long overdue.? We are returning to an era of great power competition, with the rise of China and the return of Russia.? Against this backdrop, the US finds itself woefully behind on investment, modernization and innovation, with many of our signature defense and intelligence assets celebrating their half-century birthdays. [...] To compound matters, we believe the nature of modern defense is changing.? As we see it, modern conflict takes place not just on the physical battlefield but across multiple domains.? This new global battlefield extends to cyber and information security, economic warfare, industrial manufacturing and energy, politics and culture, and outer space.? We believe there is a need for new, multifaceted technologies for integrated deterrence, the ability to defend against attacks across multiple-domains, all of which will require the most advanced software and hardware-enabled innovation.
2. There are proven (and more accelerated) playbooks for how to build and scale impactful companies in this space.? From our perspective, it wasn’t very long ago that investing in defense tech was seen as the least interesting market for a venture capitalist due to perceived challenges in scaling.? At General Catalyst, we’ve been fortunate to partner at the earliest stages with companies like Anduril, Applied Intuition, and Vannevar Labs, which have all become impactful companies selling to the DoD at scale.? Each of them has created their own “playbook” for how to engage and scale in this market, namely, having an incredibly deep understanding of the user’s mission needs, building both product and go-to-market capabilities in parallel, and being able to prototype / show value fast while simultaneously being long-term patient and skilled in navigating the idiosyncrasies of the DoD procurement process.? What’s most exciting to us is that these companies have been able to quickly build solutions that deliver critical impact for our nation, in different ways.?

Our take: We are proud to be part of the vision for global resilience and are thankful for the support from our investors, including General Catalyst. Startups are developing the cutting edge capabilities needed to deter and, if necessary, prevail in a future conflict with a near-peer adversary, and the venture capital community has an essential role to play in supporting that mission.?

Thank you for reading?The Nexus Newsletter. Stay tuned for more announcements from Applied Intuition, additional information about?Nexus 23, and other important news from the nexus of national security and autonomy.