The Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex (OC-ALC) at Tinker Air Force Base and the University of Oklahoma are working together to create innovative solutions for national defense sustainment and modernization challenges. OU and OC-ALC have now further strengthened their collaboration with the establishment of a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement. The agreement formalizes the exploration of artificial intelligence and machine learning for defense software applications.
OU Senior Associate Vice President for Research and Partnerships John Antonio said the focus of the agreement is to establish “end-to-end research and development, including the deployment of a software pipeline for the implementation of intelligent algorithms.”
The OC-ALC is one of the largest units in Air Force Materiel Command and is responsible for the development and sustainment of a diverse portfolio of aircraft, weapon systems and mission-critical software for the Air Force. The 76th Software Engineering Group is one of five groups within OC-ALC that work together to provide maintenance, sustainment and innovation support for the Air Force. The 76 SWEG delivers a wide spectrum of software and systems engineering solutions in a dynamic cyber environment.
“At Tinker Air Force Base, we employ around 1,500 computer scientists and software engineers drawn from across this region, and OU is really our primary partner for us as far as developing a strong pipeline of engineers to be able to do this portfolio of work,” said Michael Jennings, senior leader for weapon system software sustainment for the Air Force Sustainment Center at OC-ALC.
“When we talk about modern weapons systems, like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, it’s a really amazing piece of aerospace equipment, but it is also an extremely complex software system with millions of lines of code integrated into this complex system that is interacting with its environment to keep the pilot safe and flying faster and higher than anybody else,” Jennings said. “Our goal is to ensure that those pilots have the best capability possible…that our warfighters have the most capable systems with the best insight into the environment around them. The engineers and scientists within these software groups are the Air Force’s organic expertise to be able to do this work.”