Thomas Modly, acting secretary of the Navy, is commissioning a task force to carry out a study to look at the future role of carrier-based naval aviation in the global security environment for 2030 and beyond.

The Future Carrier 2030 task force will examine how best to modernize and use the existing fleet of aircraft carriers to address the challenges posed by advanced long-range weapons, determine possible limitations of means in future defense budgets and provide an opportunity to consider future technologies for carrier-based naval aviation as part of the six-month study, the Navy said Monday.

“Because we have four new Ford carriers under contract, we have some time to reimagine what comes next,” Modly said. "Any assessment we do must consider cost, survivability, and the critical national requirement to sustain an industrial base that can produce the ships we need—ships that will contribute to a superior, integrated naval force for the 2030s and far beyond.”

An assessment of U.S. shipbuilding requirements led by David Norquist, deputy secretary of defense and a 2020 Wash100 award winner, will inform the task force.

An executive director selected from within the Department of the Navy will lead the task force. Representatives from the Office of Naval Research and the deputy chief of naval operations for warfighting development will provide assistance to FC-2030.

John Warner, former senator of Virginia, has agreed to serve as honorary chairman of the FC-2030 executive panel. The panel’s executive members will include John Lehman, former secretary of the Navy; Christine Fox, former acting deputy secretary of defense; Seth Cropsey, former deputy undersecretary of the Navy; and Randy Forbes, former congressman from Virginia.

The U.S. Government Publishing Office has deployed digital print platforms for the first time to publish the Congressional Record that details House and Senate legislative proceedings.

GPO said Thursday that it used the digital inkjet presses in a move to automate workflow, reduce paper-based waste to 2 percent and provide data in real-time to ensure accountability.

According to GPO, it acquired six of the digital printing systems in November to support its goal of deploying faster and more reliable printing equipment.

“These presses are an investment in GPO’s future and our ability to provide exceptional customer service,” said Hugh Nathanial Halpern, director of GPO. “They vastly enhance our flexibility to meet our customers’ needs for both large and small jobs.”

GPO handles the publication and dissemination of federal government documentation, including official Congress and White House publications. The office also publishes U.S. passports for the State Department.

The Australian government will prepare decommissioned F/A-18 Classic Hornet aircraft over a maximum of four years for U.S. Air Force training services.

Australia's defense department said Sunday it will reservice 46 retired F/A-18 units that Air USA, an air combat training provider, will buy and use to deliver services.

The reservicing work would also create jobs for those residing in New South Wales' Hunter region.

Melissa Price, Australia's defense industry minister, said preparation work would generate 24 industry jobs as the Royal Australian Air Force transitions to the F‑35 aircraft. Australia has ordered a total of 72 F-35 units.

“Apart from the jobs directly supported by the work at RAAF Base Williamtown, more defense industry jobs are expected to be created across Australia through repair and overhaul work on aircraft servicing components," she added.

Scientific and technical personnel from Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division have created technology designed to identify and track unmanned aerial systems autonomously.

The autonomous UAS detection system, known as the Threat Tracker, uses sensors, 3D radars, machine learning algorithms and unique features to function, Naval Sea Systems Command said Sunday.

Threat Tracker works to spot and classify enemy UAS operating on both land and sea domains. The user may choose the command and control system that receives the tracker's information.

“What makes the Threat Tracker unique is that it incorporates machine learning algorithms to autonomously process radar detections, analyze thermal images to assist in video-based tracking, and classify tracked targets to determine if the object is a UAS,” said Marvin Peardon, Threat Tracker program manager at NSWC PCD.

The detection tool also features a Gyro-stabilized Marine Platform that addresses the issue of imagery distortion.

“The Gyro-stabilized Marine Platform will prevent the imagery from being distorted and possibly misclassified," said Jeremy Johnson, systems manager for the effort.

Both Johnson and Peardon want to pursue operational testing within the year.

The intelligence community is working on establishing its own set of principles on the ethical use of artificial intelligence, C4ISRnet reported Saturday.

Ben Huebner, chief of the Civil Liberties, Privacy, and Transparency Office within the Office of Director of National Intelligence, told attendees at an Intelligence and National Security Alliance event that ODNI intends to make the principles public and the IC has been working on the effort for “quite a bit of time”.

“Bluntly, there’s a bit of hype,” he said. “There’s a lot of things that the intelligence community has been doing for quite a bit of time. Automation isn’t new. We’ve been doing automation for decades. The amount of data that we’re processing worldwide has grown exponentially, but having a process for handling data sets by the intelligence community is not new either.”

According to Huebner, ODNI also plans to create an ethical framework that will guide employees seeking to implement the AI principles in day-to-day duties.

The Defense Innovation Board has recommended the implementation of a software acquisition category system as well as the creation of a talent recruitment role for Department of Defense digital operations, FedScoop reported Friday.

DIB announced during its pubic meeting in Austin, Texas, that it wants the DoD to appoint a “chief digital engineering recruitment and management officer” as outlined in the fiscal year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act. 

The role entails recruiting personnel with sufficient technical background and consolidating the disparate human resources requirements across agencies.

“I just don’t think that we are going to get enough software people without having them have a more traditional pipeline,” said Eric Schmidt, a DIB member and former Google CEO.

The board also seeks a software procurement approach based on “colors of money” to enable the purchase of products and services without having to shift between purchasing categories.

“When you split things into multiple pots, that is not how software works,” noted Richard Murray, a professor at the California Institute of Technology.