U.S. Army Contracts With Digital Twin Simulation Company

Duality AI, the company behind the Falcon digital twin simulation platform, announced a contract award from the XM30 Program Office, the U.S. Army’s team building the next-generation successor to the M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle. In response to the threat of drone warfare, the XM30 Advanced Capabilities team is developing a counter-drone AI Target Detection and Recognition (AiTDR) system to safeguard personnel and troops aboard the vehicle.

To achieve this goal, the Army’s Project Linchpin team for AI and Machine Learning capabilities, in coordination with the Army Research Lab (ARL), will leverage synthetic data generated in simulation from virtual sensors in Falcon. Working with Duality in a digital-first approach will streamline the development and tuning of the critical AiTDR model well in advance of the physical system coming online.

Employing digital twin simulation at the earliest stages of the AiTDR project will enable the XM30 team to address major development challenges, leading to shorter timelines and lower costs of field deployment, Duality AI reports. With Falcon, the team will generate varieties of training data, determine optimal sensor configurations, and test model performance in high-fidelity simulated scenarios.

Awarding this contract to Duality AI continues the digital-first approach announced at the program’s outset, and builds on the strategy of opening the door for industry teams that are not traditional U.S. combat vehicle prime contractors.

“Accomplishing these critical early steps with digital twins is vital for a viable future of field deployable AI systems,” says Michael Taylor, co-founder and chief product officer of Duality AI. “Falcon’s complete control over simulation environments gives the Army ability to train and test the AiTDR model in complex conditions, explore varied drone detection scenarios, and validate potential solutions in simulation before the physical hardware is even ready for field testing.”

With Falcon, the ARL team will be able to compose and simulate any scenarios they require—any drone, any environment, any visual conditions—and generate the needed data with any of Falcon’s virtual sensors. Using this data, the team will first deliver an AI model that functions while communicating with the Falcon simulator, and then continue to refine the performance of this first-generation algorithm by both improving the model and refining the simulation approach in collaboration with Duality’s AI engineering team.

In the latter stages of the project, the team will assess broader applications of digital twin simulation in Falcon for addressing their expanding roster of AI/ML training data needs, Duality AI reports.

“We are thrilled to work with the Project Linchpin and ARL teams to push the possibilities of AI defense systems for the U.S. Army,” says Duality CEO and co-founder, Apurva Shah. “The XM30 digital-first approach to AI model deployment is farsighted and precisely the type of system development approach for which Falcon’s digital twin workflows have been designed."

To learn more about Duality AI and the full suite of Falcon products for digital twin simulation visit duality.ai, or sign up for FalconCloud to directly experience digital twin simulation from the web at falcon.duality.ai.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.