Grâce à l’intelligence artificielle, Thales va décupler les performances de la nacelle TALIOS du Rafale
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
Thanks to artificial intelligence, Thales will increase the performance of the Rafale's TALIOS nacelle tenfold
BY LAURENT LAGNEAU - 30 MARCH 2024
On 28 March, French defence electronics specialist Thales Group announced the creation of a new entity which, called "cortAIx", will bring together all of its skills dedicated to artificial intelligence [AI] in order to provide "armed forces, armed forces, aircraft manufacturers and all operators of critical infrastructures with highly secure solutions for more effective data analysis and decision-making, while taking into account the specific constraints, such as cybersecurity, embeddability and frugality, associated with critical environments".
"For the past decade, Thales has been a major player in trusted, transparent, explainable and ethical AI. The Group is the leading patent filer in Europe in the field of AI for mission-critical systems. It incorporates AI into more than a hundred of its products and services", added the company.
In detail, the cortAIx structure will be organised into three centres. Based in Saclay, cortAIx Lab will be the "most powerful integrated laboratory in the field of critical AI in Europe". Its research work will be exploited by cortAIx Factory, Thales's 'technology' factory dedicated to artificial intelligence. It will be tasked with accelerating "the qualification and industrialisation of AI development tools and use cases for system data".
"Thales is already equipping its systems with AI and is continuing to identify new use cases to accelerate performance, such as mission planning, air traffic management and the piloting of drones and robots", said the group.
Finally, the third division, called cortAIx Sensors, will focus on integrating AI algorithms into the sensors developed by Thales (sonar, radar, optronics, etc.). The aim is to increase their capabilities tenfold, both in terms of threat perception and target identification.
To illustrate what AI can do in this area, Thales used the example of the Talios (Targeting long-range Identification Optronic System) pod, which can 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 French Defence Procurement Agency [DGA] indicated that it had just delivered a TALIOS pod to the French Air Force, enhanced with "two new capabilities", including a "wide field visible colour sensor" and a new data link enabling "video and metadata to be transmitted to ground troops to improve coordination of operations".
However, according to Thales, the artificial intelligence that will be integrated into the TALIOS nacelle will go even further by speeding up the "search for targets in the context of air support missions, thus saving precious crew time".
"The AI built into the sensor analyses images in real time and provides the position of detected targets 100 times faster than by manual search. The display of detected targets enables the crew to confirm their identification and decide whether to engage in combat. The AI acts as an assistant to the pilot, who makes the final decision to open fire", explains the manufacturer.
He added: "The AI on board the Talios pod meets the requirements of frugality in terms of computing power. It is the fruit of research work by the Thales AI laboratory, which has developed the Thales Neural Processor", i.e. a man-machine interface "adapted to the cockpit".
These advances in AI will be incorporated into the Rafale's F4.3 standard.
It should be noted that for the Rafale F5, the development of which is provided for in the 2024-30 Military Planning Law (LPM), 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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