Ryan Vega, executive director of the Veterans Health Administration Innovation Ecosystem, said the Department of Veterans Affairs harnessed artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge technologies in 2019 to improve the delivery of health services to military retirees, Nextgov reported Thursday.

One of the AI-focused efforts of VA this year was the appointment of Gil Alterovitz, a biomedical informatics professor at Harvard Medical School, as the department’s first AI director in July. “The importance of [hiring Alterovitz] and what having a director means is that it’s the recognition that the organization is going to embrace this—and not run away from it,” Vega said. 

Other AI initiatives VA launched in 2019 are the establishment of the National Artificial Intelligence Institute and introduction of an AI-based mobile application with IBM to help veterans easily navigate the internet to access the department’s resources.

Vega cited VA’s involvement in partnerships to advance innovations. “I think what’s really important about innovation is that it’s a team sport and what hackathons do is bring people together with a common purpose to solve a problem,” he said. VA also collaborated with Walmart, Philips, the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars on the Accessing Telehealth through Local Area Stations project.

Vega said he expects VA to leverage advancements in other emerging tech areas in 2020, such as bioprinting and 5G-enabled tech.

The U.S. Air Force held a workshop earlier this month to foster collaboration with the use of modeling-based development methods.

The Weapons Digital Enterprise Workshop commenced Dec. 9 at Eglin Air Force Base and aimed to fortify the relationship between the service branch and digital defense organizations, USAF said Monday.

Experts from the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center and the Air Force Research Laboratory formed the Eglin AFB Modeling and Simulation Consortium, a group that advocates for the use of digital twins in systems testing.

Digital twins are virtual representations of weapon systems. Operators model digital twins to virtually test the performance and outcomes of systems.

Consortium members highlighted strategies to apply digital engineering to weapons development, with a focus on autonomous technologies.

“This was a very productive forum, and I look forward to reviewing the team’s detailed plans and recommendations as we move to transform the future of weapons acquisitions and further integrate our Team Eglin enterprise,” said Col. Garry Haase, who leads AFRL’s Munitions Directorate.

The U.S. Army plans to field-test new technologies as part of an effort to update the service’s network of tactical communications systems, National Defense Magazine reported Friday.

Col. Rob Ryan, deputy director of the service’s network cross-functional team, said the effort will deliver on a phased, frequentative process over time. The Army will add new technologies every two years.

“There’s no shot clock in how we do this because what is your iPhone going to look like in 2030? You don’t know how [you are] going to communicate in 2030,” he told defense news.

The network CFT leads this modernization effort, which according to another official, aims to field technologies across six brigade combat teams yearly starting fiscal 2023.

Col. Garth Winterle, who manages projects on tactical radios and integrated tactical network, said the Army will begin with four BCTs in fiscal 2021 and add one team per year until fiscal 2023.

Winterle added that the effort would use indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contracts to pursue the initial fielding phase.

Soldiers have submitted input to help leadership determine and shape communications systems of the future.

The Department of Defense’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center is working to leverage AI for immediate applications such as emergency response and health-related activities, C4ISRnet reported Tuesday.

Nathaniel Bastian, an AI engineer and senior data scientist at JAIC, said at an Association of the U.S. Army event that the center plans to integrate full-motion video features to drones that will predict the spread of fire and help firefighter teams detect their personnel.

JAIC is also developing AI-driven medical imaging technology that will predict impacts to the overall wellness of soldiers, according to Bastian. The tool will be used to support pre-disability and disability evaluation and assess the medical readiness of users.

“It’s one thing to talk about upskilling our current workforce with the skills needed to build AI tools and to use them,” said Bastian. “We’re also looking ahead 10 and 15 years from now, when we reached and achieved our vision of a DoD transformed by AI, what does that look like? What do we need? Are there going to be AI crew chiefs that maintain and deploy it?”

The U.S. Air Force has earmarked $38M to integrate modernized avionics systems into its C-21 transport jets in 2020, Defense News reported Wednesday.

The service branch currently operates 19 of the twin turbofan-engine aircraft and plans to install an updated avionics suite including a flight management system, weather radar and an air traffic control system like ADS-B that meets Federal Aviation Administration standards.

Modernization efforts may also cover the refurbishment of the cockpit into a digital version and the installation of other features that will allow flight at higher altitudes and various landing options.

According to Maj. Kirk Schlueter, chief of standards and evaluations at the 375th Operations Group, 11 of the C-21s have begun modernization activities while eight remain slated for refurbishment by July 2020.

“Our airplane is small and nimble and can go into contested environments — degraded GPS, for example,” noted  Lt. Col. Brooke Matson, commander of the 458th Airlift Squadron. “We have equipment on our aircraft that the average commercial airplane does not have, like military GPS.”

The White House has asked the U.S. Navy to propose the inclusion of unmanned surface vessels and unmanned underwater vehicles in its planned 355-ship Battle Force fleet, the War Zone reported Friday.

An Office of Management and Budget memo calls for a “legislative proposal to redefine a battleforce [sic] ship to include unmanned ships” with “clearly defined capability and performance thresholds.”

Thomas Modly, acting secretary of the Navy, said in a Dec. 6 memo that one of his top five immediate goals is coming up with an integrated plan to have 355 or more ships within 10 years for “greater global naval power.” That goal includes USVs and UUVs.

The White House’s call reflects that the Navy is looking at UUVs and USVs as a way to broaden its force structure, according to the report. The service has approximately 290 ships in its fleet and expects the number to increase to 301 by the end of fiscal 2020.