The HIS consortium consists of Helsing GmbH and Schönhofer Sales and Engineering GmbH (SSE), a 100% subsidiary of Rohde & Schwarz GmbH and Co. KG. As a software platform for the comprehensible and high-performance development of artificial intelligence (AI), the AI-backbone is a crucial component for the Future Combat Air System (FCAS). In the German initiative “National Research and Technology (R&T) Project NGWS,” the cross-sectional platform is already being used by over 50 pilot users from a total of ten organizations for the development of future-oriented technologies.
The AI-backbone is the first software platform that enables collaborative AI workflows across organizations in the military sector. As a customer-side solution, the platform ensures standardized procedures and open, interoperable architectures. In doing so, it overcomes the status quo, which consists of highly manual and fragmented processes with numerous interfaces. The AI-backbone now creates a standardized path to military AI through a centralized platform that ensures the data security and sovereignty of every user. Additionally, the software development kit’s open architecture and transparent deployment provide seamless integration that increases flexibility and efficiency across the MiLOps workflow.
“The use of AI will be critical to FCAS air superiority. AI accelerates the evaluation of sensor data, the planning of missions and the use of effectors,” explains Frank Schrudde, Managing Director of SSE. “As an innovative, long-standing partner of the Bundeswehr, we bring vigor to the research landscape. We are proud to have brought the agility of a medium-sized company to the project in collaboration with our partners. We were able to deploy the first demonstrator in an extremely short time of 9 months.”
“With the first release, an important milestone in the implementation of the AI-backbone has been reached,” says Stephanie Lingemann, program director and head of the air domain at Helsing. “We are proud to have advanced the AI-backbone from the initial idea to implementation. The development of AI is now being supported in the ongoing phase of the national R&T projects and a decisive cross-sectional contribution is being made to enabling the NGWS.”
The next stage of development will be reached with the second release, expected for November 2024: enabling standardized, collaborative AI workflows in highly sensitive environments while adding additional capability components.