Pentagon taps BAE to make battlefield computing more efficient

The Pentagon’s venture capital wing awarded $10.9 million to BAE Systems to develop more efficient computing technology that could be used in weapons systems, contract databases indicate.

The money came out of a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency funding initiative called Power Efficiency Revolution For Embedded Computing Technologies, which aims to “provide more effective embedded computing per watt of electrical power,” government documents state. The algorithms and hardware created under the program would address the limited computational capabilities that hamper military systems when there is a limited amount of electrical power available.

“Many intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems today have sensors that collect far more information than can be processed onboard in real time; as a result, what could be invaluable real‐time intelligence data in the hands of our warfighters is simply discarded, or perhaps recorded and processed hours or days after it was collected,” when its value has diminished, the documents said.

DARPA this month pushed out $6.3 million to Silicon Valley-based SRI International and $8.7 million to New York-based Reservoir Labs to develop energy-efficient embedded systems under the initiative.