The U.S. Army has partnered with the Clemson University for a research initiative focused on virtual prototyping of ground vehicles that will be equipped with autonomy technology and next generation propulsion and energy systems.

Clemson said Tuesday the new $18M Virtual Prototyping of Ground Systems Center established within the CU-International Center for Automotive Research will be used to support testing of new concepts and algorithms for the autonomous vehicles.

Manned and unmanned teaming in off-road environments, digital engineering and autonomy for multi-scale vehicle fleets are some of the initiative's focus areas.

Following the effort, a physical mock-up of a non-combat ground vehicle with autonomous system will be developed to assess tools resulting from the research.

"Autonomous systems and connected vehicles are some of the most significant factors shaping the mobility industry today, and the work being done in off-road autonomy is truly the next frontier," said Clemson President Jim Clements. "CU-ICAR was designed to foster research and partnerships to benefit our future."

The research initiative is in support of next generation combat vehicle development, one of the Army's Big Six Modernization Priorities.

Deloitte Digital, in partnership with Salesforce, has introduced a new offering that will combine its experience in large scale contact center transformations and human-centered design to enhance customer experience for contact centers, Deloitte Digital reported on Thursday.

"Deloitte Digital is focused on elevating the human experience for customers, members, citizens and agents – and with Salesforce, we can enhance the way service is performed at every touchpoint," said Dave Couture, technology strategy and partnerships principal at Deloitte Consulting.

Deloitte Digital's solution will integrate Salesforce Service Cloud Voice, a cloud-based with AI, analytics, natural language understanding (NLU) to advance the contact center infrastructure. Deloitte Digital will also leverage a design-led approach, contact center strategy and innovative technology to deliver Service Cloud Voice solutions to its customers.

"Deloitte Digital can help companies apply this innovative new service model to enable the contact center to be much more personalized, operated from anywhere, easily scalable and omni-channel," Couture added. 

Deloitte Digital will offer a unified service console, including customer interactions and integration with broader telephony functionality, to improve customer experience. The company’s AI-driven features will enhance self-service, and reduce costs and wait times. 

"Service Cloud Voice leverages Salesforce Service Cloud's 360-degree view to put the focus on the customer, while enabling better speed to market and TCO," said Patrick Beyries, VP of product management at Salesforce. "Service will be inextricably linked to loyalty and business value like never before."  

President Trump has signed a new space policy directive establishing a national strategy to support the development and use of space nuclear power and propulsion (SNPP) systems.

A White House memorandum published Wednesday says SPD-6 includes goals for SNPP development and use, including the development of uranium fuel processing capabilities by mid-2020s, demonstration of a fission power system on the lunar surface by mid- to late-2020s and development of radioisotope power system capabilities by 2030.

Under the directive, the U.S. should adhere to safety, sustainability and security principles when it comes to SNPP systems development and use.

The document also outlines responsibilities for heads of some cabinet agencies. For instance, the secretary of the Department of Defense should conduct and support efforts related to SNPP tech development and utilization to achieve national security objectives, while the NASA administrator should come up with performance requirements for SNPP capabilities.

A group of six senators has called on leaders of the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to respond to several questions with regard to a cyber vulnerability involving SolarWinds’ Orion Network Management products. 

In a Tuesday letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Acting CISA Director Brandon Wales, the lawmakers asked the two agencies to provide a list of federal entities that reported using the products cited in the cyber incident, describe the quantities and categories of data that were vulnerable to unauthorized access and share how their offices organized coordination with federal agencies to support investigative and forensic analysis efforts.

The letter came days after CISA issued an emergency directive directing all agencies to immediately disconnect SolarWinds Orion products versions 2019.4 to 2020.2.1 HF1 from their networks to mitigate the vulnerability.

The senators also want to know about the support SolarWinds has offered to agencies to address data security concerns, whether the investigation identified any lapses in the implementation of the Federal Information Security Modernization Act and how the investigation will assist SolarWinds’ customers in the private sector.

The letter was signed by Sens. Jerry Moran, R-Kan.; Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H.; John Thune, R-S.D.; Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.; Roger Wicker, R-Miss.; and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.

The FBI, CISA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint statement Wednesday announcing the formation of a cyber unified coordination group to facilitate a “whole-of-government response” to the cyber attack.

The U.S. Army has applied machine learning to develop a new method for detecting cyber threats that evade a system's security mechanisms.

Army Research Laboratory (ARL) worked with Samsung and the University of Southern California, Riverside to develop the fully automated Context Learning-based Adversarial Protection system, the Army said Tuesday.

“Our machine learning based method is principled and based on the observation that prior evasion attacks exhibit themselves in sequences of packets that are uncommon in benign traffic," said Zhiyun Qian, a professor at the University of California, Riverside. 

Qian added the method uses a context-based learning approach to gather data on a cyber attack's inherent features.

Kevin Chan, a researcher at ARL, said these stealthy cyber-attacks would manipulate packets to instigate a variety of behaviors that camouflage malicious activities. The research will run for two more years through ARL's Cybersecurity Collaborative Research Alliance.