Lockheed Martin Australia’s STELaRLab partners with Defence in LVC experiments

Martin Australia’s Melbourne-based R&D team, STELaRLab, in collaboration with the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and the Defence Science Technology Group (DSTG), has successfully tested Integrated Air and Missile Defence (IAMD) decision support capabilities using a live, virtual, constructive (LVC) training system.

During a virtual exercise conducted across several weeks, Lockheed Martin Australia partnered with the RAAF and DSTG to explore systems that leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to support rapid decision making at tactical levels of command and control across multiple domains.

A team of five STELaRLaB scientists deployed with the objective of testing and evaluating advanced resource allocation decision support systems that have been incorporated into a Next Generation Battle Management testbed. The system was exercised in conjunction with experienced Air Battle Managers (ABMs), who provided challenging and realistic mission needs spanning the mission cycle from mission planning through to execution and the debrief.  This comprehensive approach helped the R&D team understand how these systems can continue to be evolved to best meet ABM needs.

“Being deployed with Defence and having the benefit of deep operational experience providing context and feedback was invaluable, as it allowed our STELaRLab scientists to gain critical insights in real time,” said Kevin McDonald, STELaRLab’s Research Engineering Manager and the IAMD research leader.

“You get to see first-hand how the AI systems perform, what improvements are needed, which in turn allows our scientists to incorporate the feedback quickly and adjust the AI systems to better align with our customer’s mission. Working directly with the end user and receiving feedback in real time means we can develop new innovations, and transition-ready innovations, more rapidly.”

STELaRLaB’s Director, Dr. Tony Lindsay said, “Over the past five years, STELaRLab has developed a suite of decision support AI systems to support RAAF’s air battle management operators make faster data driven decisions to remain ahead of future threats.”

“During this collaboration we were able to demonstrate the art-of-the possible by putting dynamic decision support algorithms to the test in an LVC environment and demonstrate cutting-edge sovereign innovations that enhance Australia’s future Integrated Air and Missile Defence capabilities.”

As a result of the joint experimentation to further increase the quality of resource allocation decision aids, the IAMD AI technologies successfully demonstrated the benefits of providing tasking and tactical recommendations, helping ABMs think through the complexity of challenging environments.

Advanced simulation exercises of this calibre are pivotal to enhancing Australia’s interoperability with the US and other allied nations. Lockheed Martin Australia’s STELaRLab will continue to build upon the lessons learned to further evolve sovereign IAMD decision support capabilities, which will help Australia and its allies to always be ready for what’s ahead.