The Navy destroyer USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62) became the first warship to deploy with a program-of-record artificial intelligence (AI) platform. Its creators say the system will help the fleet predict and tackle maintenance needs in a far less disruptive fashion. The system aims to reduce surprise equipment casualties while ensuring that more of the fleet is available should an all-out war break out, requiring a surge of forces.
Known as Enterprise Remote Monitoring Version 4 (ERM v4), the system is the shipboard aspect of a Pentagon program called Condition Based Maintenance Plus , which in part aims to leverage machine learning to help ship crews, ashore commands, logistical nodes, and other units keep more assets ready to fight, Zac Staples, a retired Navy officer whose Austin-based company, Fathom5, created the system, told TWZ Wednesday. Staples spoke at the annual WEST conference in San Diego this week, which TWZ attended, about his company’s innovation before chatting with TWZ . “Right now, you’ve got about a third of the Navy that is deployed, a third of the Navy that’s in some depot-level maintenance, very difficult for them to get put back together in surge, but that other third is in various stages of material and training readiness to deploy,” he said.
“Anything, particularly AI, that tells us exactly what we need to do to keep a ship ready before its readiness dips directly contributes to having a much larger battle fleet ready to defend the interests of.
