2024-03-30 14:09:03
On March 28, the Thales group, a French specialist in defense electronics, announced the creation of a new entity which, called “cortAIx”, will bring together all of its skills dedicated to artificial intelligence. [IA] in order to provide “the armed forces, aircraft manufacturers and all operators of critical infrastructures with highly secure solutions providing them with more efficiency in data analysis and decision-making, while taking into account specific constraints, such as cybersecurity, embedding and frugality, linked to critical environments”.
“Thales has been, for a decade, a major player in trustworthy, transparent, explainable and ethical AI. The Group is at the top in Europe in the ranking of patent applicants in AI for critical systems. It integrates AI into more than a hundred of its products and services,” the industrialist further recalled.
In detail, the cortAIx structure will be organized according to three poles. Thus, located in Saclay, cortAIx Lab will be the “most powerful integrated laboratory in the field of critical AI in Europe”. Its research work will be used by cortAIx Factory, the Thales “technology” factory dedicated to artificial intelligence. This will have the task of accelerating “the qualification and industrialization of AI development tools as well as use cases for system data”.
“Thales is already equipping its systems with AI and continues to identify new use cases to accelerate performance, such as mission planning, air traffic management, piloting drones and robots,” said the group.
Finally, the third division, called cortAIx Sensors, will focus on the integration of AI algorithms into sensors developed by Thales. [sonars, radars, optronique, etc]. The objective is to “increase” their capabilities, whether in terms of perception and identification of the threat and targets.
To illustrate what AI can do in this area, Thales took the example of the Talios nacelle [pour Targeting long-range Identification Optronic System / Système optronique d’identification et de ciblage à longue distance]which makes it possible to identify and track moving targets of any size, day or night, thanks to its high-resolution electro-optical and infrared sensors.
In November 2022, the General Directorate of Armaments [DGA] had indicated that it had just delivered to the Air & Space Force a TALIOS pod enriched with “two new capabilities”, including a “wide field visible color sensor” and a new data link allowing “to “transmit video and metadata to troops on the ground in order to improve the coordination of operations.”
However, according to Thales, the artificial intelligence that will be integrated into the TALIOS nacelle will make it possible to go even further by accelerating the “search for targets in the context of air support missions, thus saving valuable time for the crew. »
“The AI integrated into the sensor analyzes images in real time and provides the position of detected targets 100 times faster than by manual search. The display of detected targets allows the crew to confirm their identification and decide to engage in combat. The AI acts as an assistant for the pilot, who has the final decision to open fire,” explains the industrialist.
And added: “The AI embedded in the Talios pod meets the requirements of frugality in terms of computing power. It is the result of research work by the Thales AI laboratory, which
developed the Thales Neural Processor”, i.e. a man-machine interface “adapted to the cockpit”.
These advances in AI will be integrated into the Rafale F4.3 standard.
Note that, for the Rafale F5, the development of which is provided for by the Military Programming Law [LPM] 2024-30, there is talk of merging the TALIOS and RECO NG nacelles, studies having been entrusted to Thales LAS as part of the “Pod TR” project.
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