Lockheed Martin partners with Red Hat to bring AI to military platforms

American aerospace arms and defence firm has announced that it will be partnering with software company Red Hat to incorporate AI into military platforms. Lockheed will be using the new Red Hat Device Edge to add advanced capabilities to the existing military platforms which were previously unable to run large and complex software.

Red Hat Device Edge which runs on an edge-optimised OS built from Red Hat Enterprise Linux and supports a lightweight distribution of Kubernetes named MicroShift will enable the military platforms to handle large AI workloads and rely on data-backed decision-making to make autonomous decisions in the field.

“With Red Hat Device Edge Lockheed Martin is leading the infusion of cutting-edge commercial technology into military capabilities that deliver advanced solutions to our customers. Unlocking these AI technologies can help national security decision-makers stay ahead of adversaries, enabling a safer and more secure world,” said Justin Taylor, vice president of AI at Lockheed Martin.

For demonstration purposes, Lockheed Martin used Red Hat Device Edge on their Stalker drone and added AI on top of onboard sensors to show how the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) adapted in real-time to a threat environment.

Thanks to Red Hat Device Edge, the Stalker drone was able to deploy updated AI-based computer vision capabilities, also known as automated target recognition capabilities. Consequently, the Stalker UAV was able to classify the military target more accurately, provide more useful ISR data and enhance the situational awareness of the threat environment for US military decision-makers.

Lockheed Martin says this is just the first step towards the broader application of the technology across different domains such as land, sea, air, space and cyber.