Supporting the work of the UK’s new Cyber and Electromagnetic Command, the Digital Targeting Web being delivered by Dstl will feature various strands, encompassing sensors and ‘deciders’ using artificial intelligence

The Ministry of Defence has begun testing exercises for a new £1bn technology system intended to provide the military with greater “choice and speed in deciding how to degrade or destroy an identified target” in the cyber realm and other domains of conflict.

Earlier this year, the Ministry of Defence announced the creation of a new Cyber and Electromagnetic Command with a remit to lead the cyber operations of the UK military and wider defence sector. A key remit of the command is to create the £1bn Digital Targeting Web (DTW) which, building on developments made by Ukrainian forces in their war with Russia, aims “to better connect Armed Forces weapons systems and allow battlefield decisions for targeting enemy threats to be made and executed faster”.

 A recently published update from the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) – an executive agency of the MoD dedicated to military innovation research – reveals that the R&D unit has already “tested prototypes for elements of the DTW in military exercises”.

The case study adds that the billion-pound project will connect ‘sensors’, ‘deciders’, and ‘effectors’, [which] creates choice and speed in deciding how to degrade or destroy an identified target across domains and in a contested cyber and electromagnetic domain”.

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The sensors built by Dstl are “the fundamental algorithms and architecture of a next-generation intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance enterprise”. The deciders, meanwhile, comprise “a prototype human Agent collective… in partnership with numerous innovative AI agents”.

Finally, the effectors are described as “a range of novel-directed energy, cyber, and electromagnetic weapons systems for forward deployment to protect sensitive sites and assets”. This includes “laser-directed energy weapons [which] are offering the potential to be long-term, low-cost alternatives to some classes of missile systems”.

Tests of prototypes that have been undertaken so far include an exercise featuring “the deployment of a series of AI-enabled uncrewed aerial vehicles that allow a human operator to locate, disable and destroy targets on the ground”.

As it progress the targeting web platform in the coming months, Dstl “will be working with military and industry partners to extend the concept as part of the Army’s growing contribution to the DTW”.

“Dstl research, collaborating with industry, academic and international partners, is prototyping the building blocks needed to make DTW real,” the case study adds. “We’re leveraging advances in commercial sector capabilities in computing, sensing and networks and integrating with defence expertise to create machine-speed operational decision making and increased lethality. Dstl has the critical knowledge of technology and the evolving threat and operational context to develop resilient capabilities for contested environments that are fit for the future.”