The Ministry of the Armed Forces is increasingly interested in artificial intelligence, with the ONADAP project for the fight against COVID-19 and issues related to the integration ofautonomyin lethal weapons systems. In line with the progress of the Ministry’s Artificial Intelligence roadmap, the Military Intelligence Directorate wanted to continue its collaboration with the French company Preligens. A new order has been issued so that the army can use its tool to help monitor activities on strategic sites.
Preligens to support the army in its artificial intelligence strategy
Preligens was created in 2016 by two French engineers, Arnaud Guérin and Renaud Allioux. Their idea is the following: to exploit AI to automate the analysis of multisource data dedicated to intelligence professionals and direct analysts to unusual events requiring their expertise. An application of AI that is of particular interest to the Ministry of the Armed Forces, especially for image-based intelligence.
Arnaud Guérin, co-founder, and CEO of Preligens, talks about the continued partnership between his company and the ministry:
“We are very proud to see our solution once again acclaimed by the Ministry of the Armed Forces and to thus concretize our four years of work for the benefit of the DRM. This support is also very important in the context of our export development, which is supported by the DGA (Direction générale de l’armement), notably through initiatives launched with certain allies. Indeed, the international market remains one of our main relays to pursue our hyper growth in order to become a European technological giant.”
The fruit of a long cooperation with the image-based intelligence specialists of the French Ministry of the Armed Forces, the tools developed with this company implement processing based on AI specifically trained for the detection of materials of military interest (armored vehicles, aircraft, ships, etc.). The functionalities deployed enable the analysis of the continuous flow of images from the French CSO constellation of sovereign observation satellites, including those from the CSO-2 satellite.
A well-honed artificial intelligence strategy
With this new order, the services previously deployed in one of the Military Intelligence Directorate’s centers will gradually be extended to all of the ministry’s entities that need to analyze satellite images. This tool should enable the armed forces to increase their surveillance and intelligence capabilities by processing the growing volume of data coming from the new sensors and by relieving experts of repetitive tasks. France and its armed forces will thus have greater efficiency in situation assessment and decision-making.
Air Force General Jean-François Ferlet, director of military intelligence, explains the strategy implemented by the army in terms of AI exploitation:
“For the past 30 years, the effort has been mainly put on the acquisition of new intelligence sensors. To fulfill our mission at the DRM, I have chosen to direct our new computing capabilities to make the most of the information at our disposal. AI is one of the ways to significantly increase our performance and the feedback from the use of Preligens tools clearly validates this choice. The challenge now is to make this service available to the entire ministry.”
Translated from Le ministère des Armées accentue son partenariat technologique avec Preligens et son adoption de l’IA
