Northrop Grumman Adds Cutting-Edge AI Capabilities to Forward Area Air Defense

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

Northrop Grumman Corporation announced a new artificial intelligence (AI) feature to help warfighters make real-time, informed decisions on the move. The Forward Area Air Defense (FAAD) Advanced Battle Manager (ABM) system addresses the growing complexity of threats in the counter-unmanned aerial systems (C-UAS) mission space.  

The new AI feature streamlines decision-making for optimal defeat of UAS swarms with a single button click on a mobile tablet. This enhances maneuverability for the U.S. military, allies and coalition partners. 

• Successfully tested in spring and late summer at the Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona, the ABM makes real-time weapon-target pairings across disparate kinetic and non-kinetic weapons by leveraging AI and years of live fire data.
• Designed for efficiency and growth, the ABM can plan for complex aerial swarm scenarios with numerous weapons against varying threats, and it supports real-time data processing with minimal delay, generating engagement plans in under a quarter of a second.
• The ABM continuously monitors the battlespace and replans engagements as necessary and currently supports multiple weapon types. Its open architecture design enables new weapons to be easily added in the future.

Expert:

Kenn Todorov, vice president and general manager, global battle management and readiness, Northrop Grumman: “As threats evolve, the need for operations to become simple and clear during high-stress multi-target engagements has increased. This critical AI enhancement will create a streamlined and intuitive engagement plan giving service members more time to save lives with a single click. Northrop Grumman and the U.S. Army’s collaboration in innovation ensures the combat-proven FAAD system remains at the forefront of C-UAS technology.”

Details on FAAD:

FAAD simultaneously integrates short-range air defense, counter-rocket, artillery, and mortar and C-UAS missions. As these missions evolve, the need for the warfighter’s user experience to be simple and clear during high-stress multi-target engagement scenarios has increased. FAAD is providing the United States, allied and coalition forces interoperability today by providing cutting-edge capabilities and enabling coordinated protection across the joint force with rapid, real-time defense against complex, maneuvering threats. By investing in and leveraging technologies like AI, Northrop Grumman ensures FAAD remains a leader in short-range air defense and C-UAS.

FAAD is a cyber-certified, real-time safety critical command and control software, providing a single integrated air picture, airspace coordination and deconfliction and fire control to support multi-domain missions. Its open, multi-domain architecture enables integration and interoperability across diverse platforms and systems. This facilitates rapid, cost-effective technology insertion and modernization at the speed of need. FAAD can be quickly deployed, providing command and control to areas limited in robust communication as well as permanent and reinforced support areas. FAAD is the centerpiece of the U.S. Army’s fixed site and maneuver forces and is actively employed worldwide.