Artificial Intelligence engineers are pioneering a new military decision making tool that can provide intelligence analysts cues to potential areas of interest or anomalies before an incident occurs…

The ‘predictive cognitive control system’ is being developed by Gloucestershire-based Montvieux and funded by the MOD’s Defence Innovation Fund through the Defence and Security Accelerator’s (DASA) fast track ‘Revolutionise the human information relationship for Defence’ competition.

The system takes a broad range of incredibly complex data, beyond the ability of analysts to simultaneously comprehend, and through the use of Deep Learning based neural networks, is able to make confidence-based predictions of future events and outcomes of direct operational relevance to Defence Users.

As part of Phase 2 development, the system is being refined in the innovation environment at RAF Wyton, and is being deployed into the live operational network (as a Beta service).

Joe Hemming, Exploitation Lead, said: “This project is a great example of collaboration between DASA, Joint Force Command, and the front lines working hard to turn technology into true capability. It’s a clear demonstration of the cultural shift across all organisations to focus on capability integration and exploitation as well as technology development.”

Joint Force Command’s operational deployment of this technology will allow real users to test the technology in a representative environment which will also demonstrate the real value of the technology to defence.

Montvieux received over £600,000 in funding over both phases of the competition.

Lt Col Jon Kerr, Head CII, said: “The DASA has enabled the Centre for Intelligence Innovation to meaningfully engage with industry to understand their innovations and how they might apply to our work. It has then enabled us to shape the development of and deploy Montvieux’s application onto our operational system.

“This ability to engage early and partner with industry to deliver a solution has been invaluable to us. It has allowed us to put the front edge of innovation from UK industry through an accelerated development process and consequently fast-tracked the delivery of an appropriate solution for Defence.”

Peter Webb, Director of Montvieux, said: “The parallel focus of DASA on placing advanced capabilities in the hands of military users and developing wider exploitation opportunities, has given us the space to think differently about how we operationalise our research and innovation within the company. We have been able to plan-back from potential commercial outcomes, and identify the right industry partners to move this forward.”

See the video below for more from Peter Webb, Director of Montvieux: