General Atomics is reshaping its software enterprise for the future by merging efforts from across business lines into a single technology grid -- leveraging areas such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and advanced autonomy – to bond GA’s large software workforce and extensive suite of systems under a unified network.
The new cross-functional collaboration is known as Quadratix. General Atomics Aeronautical Systems CEO Linden Blue said in a company announcement that this effort will transform how GA-ASI approaches technology in the 21st century.
“We’ve transcended a one-for-one software build and arrived at an integrated suite of software solutions for our aircraft and our customers,” said GA-ASI CEO Linden Blue. “We’re moving out fast to meet our users’ toughest challenges by grouping these solutions together under the Quadratix umbrella.”
Here are five things to know about General Atomics’ Quadratix technology collaboration:
1. What is Quadratix?
Quadratix is an integrated company collaboration that incorporates advancements in command and control, artificial intelligence and machine learning. By harnessing expertise from across the enterprise, Quadratix brings to bear GA’s full suite of advanced software products, capabilities, and people, the company says.
Quadratix will streamline software efforts across the whole company, to include Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI); Electromagnetics Systems Group (GA-EMS); Integrated Intelligence, Inc. (GA-III); and other General Atomics holdings.
2. Evolution not revolution.
Quadratix is the cross-collaboration of several concurrent development projects into a single environment. GA employs more than 1,000 software engineers and developers, and Quadratix came about as an outgrowth of this large investment.
The Quadratix environment evolved from General Atomics’ efforts to use AI, machine learning and advanced autonomy to create a streamlined user experience between flight controls, sensor operations and data synthesis for its unmanned aircraft systems and other hardware.
Creating a streamlined user experience and generating a clear operational picture from mounds of data has applications far beyond ISR. Every product General Atomics builds and supports can benefit from better, faster data collection and synthesis.
3. Is Quadratix in use today?
Quadratix is already a foundational part of General Atomics’ uncrewed aerial systems, including MQ-9B SkyGuardian and SeaGuardian aircraft operations and our new Gambit Series.
For MQ-9B, Quadratix synthesizes inputs from multiple sensors into a unified operational picture. In practice, this means that instead of each payload requiring its own specialist operator, a single operator can operate an entire ISR sensor suite.
Quadratix incorporates advanced target correlation and autonomy features that reduce the time wasted on sifting through stacks of non-critical ISR data to find mission-relevant information. It also gives a single user the ability to control multiple heterogenous aircraft simultaneously, maximizing the economy and efficiency of each mission.
Leveraging AI and machine learning, Quadratix will then turn data into actionable intelligence, helping commanders make informed decisions faster than their adversaries. Rather than relying on old-fashioned chains of communication, including Post-It notes or phone calls, the system pushes insights where they’re needed automatically so that workgroups, decision-makers and operators can get what they need to decide and act.
4. More than just UAVs.
The Quadratix software environment is platform agnostic. It is just as relevant for crewed systems as it is for uncrewed systems.
Quadratix is likewise not confined to the air domain. As maritime and ground forces increasingly connect to the joint intelligence picture, there is universal recognition that success on the 21st Century battlefield depends on the autonomy, target correlation/machine learning, and sensor-data synthesis functions resident in Quadratix.
5. Flexible for the future.
Internal cross-collaboration has always been a part of the General Atomics approach to delivering for warfighters around the globe. Quadratix streamlines and centralizes those efforts, providing a fast path to action for current and future programs.
Quadratix also provides an integration path for future, large-scale multi-domain efforts, such as U.S. missile defense and border security. Such efforts, involving massive geographic areas and real-time global tracking, require proven hardware with interoperability and integration of systems and subsystems that can harvest and fuse data into actionable intelligence and response.