The Army Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Ground Vehicle Systems Center and Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, or C5ISR, Center both recently signed contracts with SandboxAQ to use the company’s quantitative AI platform to help improve the traditional processes for developing advanced alloys and battery chemistries.

National Defense Magazine reported on this with reference to a press release of the company SandboxAQ.

The Ground Vehicle Systems Center will use the AI platform to develop new advanced alloys for armored vehicles. The goal is to “enhance performance, safety, and integration with existing infrastructure while addressing cost, material, supply chain, and environmental challenges,” according to the SandboxAQ press release.

Similarly, the C5ISR Center’s goal is to develop advanced battery chemistries for applications like electric vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles and portable power. The service and SandboxAQ seek to “improve battery performance, range, safety, fast-charging capabilities and integration with existing infrastructure while mitigating costs and environmental impact,” the press release stated.

Katie Sebeck, specialist research materials engineer at the Ground Vehicle Systems Center, said these contracts differ from traditional partnerships between the military and defense contractors. It’s not about developing a particular product or capability but rather learning how to use AI as a tool.

“Part of our goal right now is to really assess the current tools as they exist and understand … the potential applicability of the tools that have been developed,” she said. “There’s a lot of activity going on in the artificial intelligence space, and it’s important for us to be able to benchmark a variety of tools so that then we have realistic expectations that we can go up to leadership with.”

Development of new materials

Artificial intelligence can significantly accelerate the development of new chemical compounds through advanced chemical process modeling. However, it requires specialized databases to train artificial intelligence and create a quantitative model.

The materials will be developed in two stages. First, SandboxAQ will model chemicals that meet the parameters and requirements of the army. After that, military scientists will physically synthesize them in the laboratory and conduct tests.

“What is unique about this is that typically the Army starts with laboratory experimentation. They take two different molecules, they try to put them together and then they see how they interact in the laboratory,” Sebeck said.

However, “you can’t do that very quickly,” she said, noting that it takes around 10 to 15 years to develop a new material. “It takes you a long time to determine the feasibility of those molecular compounds, so we’re speeding that process up now and hoping to cut out, possibly … five to seven to 10 years of development time for these new platforms.”

An additional complication is that the characteristics of metallic materials depend not only on their chemical composition. But from the entire process of mechanical and heat treatment.

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