Now that drones are used by most modern militaries, swarm attacks are a very real threat to the United States Navy. But not to worry — the The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has a solution for that: smart bullets.
DARPA recently announced an $8 million contract with Raytheon Missile Systems to enter phase two of its Multi Azimuth Defense Fast Intercept Round Engagement System (MAD-FIRES) program. As part of the deal, Raytheon will build and test MAD-FIRES bullets that are able to alter their path in real time, according to Military Aerospace. Additionally, they’ll be able to track and engage with multiple targets with serious precision from a variety of different directions.
Concepts and simulations of the technology were completed during the first phase, which also included Lockheed Martin Corp. Missiles and Fire Control. Lockheed will likely receive a contract to conduct their own prototyping rounds, too.
MAD-FIRES smart bullets are expected to be fast, powerful, and have the same accuracy as regular missiles, using 20 to 40 caliber ammunition. So even if attacks from drones, missiles, planes, or swarm boats are coming from all different directions, the MAD-FIRES bullets could potentially take all of them out.
The Navy is also working with the Office of Naval Research to develop unmanned swarm boats designed to patrol U.S. shores. As with its MAD-FIRES bullets, the swarm boat program is part of the Navy’s increased efforts to embrace technological advances. Unmanned swarm boats reduce risk, while MAD-FIRES bullets offer a new, low-cost solution for “guided, gun-launched projectiles.”
Raytheon’s phase two is scheduled to finish in March 2018. So while the concept of “smart bullets’ seems like something you’d only see in the movies, it seems that it’s not as far-fetched as you might think.
San Francisco startup Dimensional advertised for people to walk robot dogs through city streets. The New York Times reported that the job could include carrying a roughly 33-pound robot back to the office if it overheated. A lift home is an awkward requirement for a labor-saving machine.
Keeping the hardware running is only one challenge. Anthropic's robotics tests found that language models mostly failed when controlling joints directly, but did better when directing trained controllers. Giving an AI agent a body doesn't teach it to handle ordinary household objects.
Soon, a mattress protector may be more than a bed cover. Australian medtech company Sleeptite and researchers at RMIT University have received a US patent for FlexiSense, a smart bedding technology that tracks body position and posture to help caregivers identify when older residents may be at risk of falling.
The technology is being developed for Sleeptite’s in-bed monitoring system, REMi, and was recently on display at The MedTech Conference in Boston. A peer-reviewed study in Flexible and Printed Electronics says the sensors can also be made at scale without sacrificing performance or durability.
AI companies spend enormous amounts of time convincing us their technology is safe and secure. But what happens when those same companies become targets of increasingly sophisticated AI-powered attacks? Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is now facing that question. According to a Washington Post report, cybersecurity startup Cathedral discovered vulnerabilities that let its researchers access sensitive information in Anthropic's internal systems.
The researchers used AI agents to identify potential entry points in less than 12 hours. Interestingly, they didn't need to crack Claude itself. Instead, they exploited weaknesses in third-party business applications that Anthropic uses for everyday operations. Anthropic's security testing program disclosed the findings, which allows outside researchers to identify and report vulnerabilities.