Thanks to artificial intelligence, Thales will increase the performance of Rafale’s TALIOS nacelle tenfold

On March 28, the Thales group, a French specialist in defense electronics, announced the creation of a new entity, called “CourtAIx”, that will bring together all its expertise dedicated to artificial intelligence (AI). Armed forces, aircraft manufacturers and operators of critical infrastructure all need highly secure solutions that provide them with greater efficiency in data analysis and decision-making, while addressing specific constraints associated with cybersecurity, embedding and lean, critical environments.

“Thales, for over a decade, has been a key player in trustworthy, transparent, explainable and ethical AI. The group tops Europe in the ranking of patent applicants in AI for complex systems. It integrates AI into more than a hundred of its products and services,” the businessman further recalled.

In detail, the cortical structure will be organized according to three poles. Thus, located in Saclay, the cortAIx lab will be “the most powerful integrated laboratory in the field of complex AI in Europe”. His research work will be used by Cortex Factory, a Thales “technology” factory dedicated to artificial intelligence. This will have the task of accelerating “qualification and industrialization of AI development tools as well as use cases for system data”.

“Thales is already equipping its systems with AI and continues to identify new use cases to boost performance such as mission planning, air traffic management, piloting drones and robots,” the group said.

Finally, the third section, called cortAIx Sensors, will focus on the integration of AI algorithms in sensors developed by Thales (sonars, radars, optronics, etc.). The objective is to “enhance” their capabilities, whether in terms of threat and target perception and identification.

To illustrate what AI can do in this area, Thales gave the example of the Talios nacelle (long-range identification optronic system for targeting), which makes it possible to 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 Directorate General of Armaments (DGA) indicated that it had just delivered a TALIOS pod enriched with “two new capabilities” to the Air and Space Force, including a “sensor wide visible color field” and a new data link that would allow happens “Transmitting video as well as metadata to troops on the ground to improve coordination of operations”.

However, according to Thales, the artificial intelligence to be integrated into the TALIOS nacelle “will make it possible to go further by accelerating the search for targets in the context of air support missions, thus saving valuable time for the crew. »

“The AI ​​integrated into the sensor analyzes images in real time and provides the position of detected targets 100 times faster than manual detection. The display of detected targets allows the crew to confirm their identity and decide to engage in combat. AI acts as an assistant to the pilot, who has the final decision to fire,” explains the businessman.

And added: “The AI ​​embedded in the Talios pod meets the requirements of frugality in terms of computing power. It is the result of research work by Thales AI Laboratory, which
Thales has developed a neural processor, meaning the man-machine interface is “cockpit friendly”.

These advances in AI will be integrated into the Rafale F4.3 standard.

Note that for the Rafale F5, whose development is planned by the Military Programming Law (LPM) 2024-30, there is talk of merging the TALIOS and RECO NG nacelles, part of which the studies have been assigned to Thales LAS. Pod TR” project.