The Future of EW: Cognitive Electronic Warfare (CEW), Human-Autonomous Teams (HATs) and AI-enabled EW Impact to AOC Communities

The application of artificial intelligence (AI) represents the next major advancement in electronic warfare (EW). With the field of AI, as well as EW, constantly evolving, it is critical to form a baseline understanding of the impact of cognitive EW (CEW). This session seeks to first provide a framework for CEW test and evaluation (T&E) planning and production to prepare the T&E and supporting modeling & simulation, academic, and intelligence communities for CEW. Next, an evaluation of Human-Autonomous teams (HATs), or humans and AI with agency working together will be evaluated. This session will cover a diverse set of topics to include the Superteams impact on CEW, including explorations of current AI and machine learning (ML) research within EW, investigation into possible test methodologies for neural networks, HATs, Superteams, and AI-enabled systems, and considerations for AI risk and ethics assessments within T&E. Conclusions were reached through academic, industry, and government analysis, expert interviews with existing EW laboratories and test facilities, and collaboration with AI, HATs, and Superteams experts to determine the capacity for CEW, demonstrations of CEW concepts in hardware-in-the-loop (HWIL) modeling and machine learning operations (MLOps) pipelines, and assessment of electronic attack (EA) research through physical execution of principles. The rapidly changing field of AI coupled with the nuance of EW functions presents sophisticated problems only able to be tackled through community collaborative efforts.