BAE Systems to develop advanced autonomy for SCEPTER
The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded BAE Systems an $8.3 million contract to develop an advanced autonomy system to speed operational planning under the Strategic Chaos Engine for Planning, Tactics, Experimentation and Resiliency (SCEPTER) programme.
Image courtesy BAE Systems
The SCEPTER programme is designed to develop machine-generated strategies to be evaluated within trusted simulation environments with thorough human review.
“Successful planning is about developing trusted, resilient operational plans for complex decision spaces,” said Marco Pravia, chief scientist at BAE Systems’ FAST Labs. “The SCEPTER system will push the state-of-the-art in the production of machine-generated strategies.”
SCEPTER is planned as a two-phase, three-year planning programme.
Under the terms of the Phase 1 contract, BAE Systems’ FAST Labs research and development organisation will provide the machine-learning backed system and execute tests to demonstrate the approach. In this programme, the BAE Systems team will collaborate with Professor Igor Mezic and AIMdyn, a small woman-owned business and with Professor Joao Hespanha, an expert in control and multi-agent systems.
The SCEPTER programme adds to the BAE Systems’ extensive autonomy portfolio, previous work combining games and simulations and a 20-year history of pioneering autonomy technology.
