A big data analytics platform is being deployed by the Ministry of Defence as it looks to take the weight of military analysts and improve threat identification.
The analytics platform, which incorporates machine learning technology, will be used for operational support and comes from a recently signed contract by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory’s Centre for Defence Enterprise (CDE) and Massive Analytic, a London based company.
The idea behind the platform from Massive Analytic is that it will help make it possible to examine outcomes of decisions before they are put into effect, effectively acting as a trusted advisor.
Under the deployment the MoD will use the system to bring together surveillance data from static and dynamic sources which will feed an interactive dashboard. The dashboard will be capable of providing insights that will help to identify threats in advance and can be used for planning different scenarios.
Military analysts are currently the main source for sifting through large volumes of data, it is hoped that this platform will help to remove some of that burden.
The platform developed by Massive Analytic was released for beta testing last year and has been used by the Association of Train Operating Companies before it was picked up by the MoD.
Jim Pennycook, Head of Operations at CDE, says: "In the CDE-run Defence Growth Partnership Innovation Challenge competitions, we worked with the UK Defence Solutions Centre to identify themes where significant challenges exist for defence and there are attractive future export markets."
According to the company, it will help to mitigate the risks that arise in peace keeping and humanitarian operations.
The CDE recently ran a competition called the Growth Partnership Innovation Challenge, in this it sought out proof of concept research proposals. The competition was framed to cover the acquisition, analysis and visualisation of data to support decision-making in defence, both by humans and autonomous systems.
Included in the platform is video precognition, which is a type of deep learning that is based on the platform’s evolving artificial precognition, also included is multi-stream data synthesis.
According to the company this results in the platform being able to predict outcomes dynamically through deterministic and heuristic models.
Massive Analytic is a privately funded company that is a Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services partner. It provides its analytics software as a service through both of these cloud platforms.
The MoD isn’t the only adopter of deep learning methods, for example Google is using it to improve the accuracy of its Google Translate application.
Aside from tech companies having an interest in the technology, Netflix for example is using deep learning technology to help better forecast what users want to watch.
The technology is increasingly being used in the areas of cybersecurity to help better understand potential areas of attack, it is also being used in retail and finance as businesses they also look for better understanding, this time they are trying to find out how to better connect with customers.
Deep learning, sometimes known as machine learning, has recently been in the spotlight due to Google’s AI software defeating a Go world champion in a five match series.
