Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) and Red Hat have partnered to support national security missions using artificial intelligence and Kubernetes technologies.
Lockheed will use Red Hat Device Edge to equip unmanned aerial systems and other military platforms with updated software designed to enable such systems to manage large AI workloads and speed up the decision-making process for service personnel, the companies said in a joint statement released Tuesday.
The companies used the Red Hat Device Edge platform to improve the capability of the Stalker UAS to detect and classify a simulated military target during a demonstration.
During the demo, project engineers enabled Stalker to field AI-based target recognition capabilities by updating the drone’s software while in flight using Red Hat Device Edge.
Red Hat Device Edge is designed to field containerized or traditional workloads on internet-of-things gateways, drones and other edge devices.
The platform comes with an edge-optimized operating system developed using Red Hat Enterprise Linux and delivers lightweight Kubernetes container orchestrations using MicroShift, an open-source community project led by Red Hat. Lockheed contributes to the MicroShift project.
Justin Taylor, vice president of AI at Lockheed, said Red Hat Device Edge enables Lockheed to facilitate the integration of commercial technologies into military capabilities in support of customers.
“Unlocking these AI technologies can help national security decision-makers stay ahead of adversaries, enabling a safer and more secure world,” Taylor added.
