Four Technologies that Can Sharpen U.S. Competitiveness

By Keoki Jackson, CTO, Lockheed Martin — As an undergraduate at MIT studying aeronautics and astronautics, I little expected that I would one day lead technology development at the world’s premier aerospace and defense company. However, I did know that my passion for space flight and exploring the farthest realms of the universe could also lead me to a career tackling some of this nation’s greatest technical challenges.

I’ve enjoyed an exceptionally varied and deeply rewarding career at Lockheed Martin, starting out with designing, producing and operating advanced communications, GPS and sensing satellites, and from there to several leadership roles at our Space Systems division. Today in my experience as Lockheed Martin’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO), I often marvel at how on an almost daily basis, the men and women of this company solve complex challenges that support our nation’s ability to compete on a global scale.

America’s future prospects — our prosperity, the hopes of our children, our democratic ideals, our nation’s security — rest on our competitive advantage. This fundamental truth fuels the U.S. Council on Competitiveness to convene industries, top academics, senior leaders from labor and government to propose, and deliver better approaches to competing on the world stage.

National security is a cornerstone, and as co-chair of the Council’s Technology Leadership Strategy Initiative, I am pleased to offer my view on key technologies that can buttress our future competitiveness.

I have had the opportunity to travel the world and speak with senior business leaders, government officials and technology thought leaders — some of the smartest minds around. In these discussions, one narrative comes through loud and clear — that we live in one of the most dynamic and complex global security environments ever.

Advanced technology for security is no longer the exclusive domain of governments or government contractors. And proliferating emerging threats are not contained to a single adversary or monolithic strategy. In today’s world of rapidly engineered commercial technologies, speed is as much of an advantage as strength.

Our customers are looking to Lockheed Martin to address current and future security challenges with the technologies of tomorrow. Through this lens, Lockheed Martin is advancing dozens of technologies with great potential, but there are key areas that will help strengthen America’s national and economic security and future competitiveness.

1. AUTONOMY

In its simplest form, autonomy is the ability of a machine to perform a task with limited human input. Thus, an autonomous system is a machine, that once activated, performs a task or function largely on its own — augmenting human capabilities and creating safer, more cost-effective ways to perform “dull, dirty and dangerous” missions.

But beyond defense applications, autonomous technology allows for the execution of new missions creating competitive advantage in almost any realm imaginable, from transportation and finance to precision agriculture, disaster relief and even cyber defense, where decision speed is critical to success.

2. CYBERSECURITY

Cybersecurity focuses on protecting computers, networks, programs and data from unintended or unauthorized access, change or destruction.

Right now, we live in a wired world. We rely on cyberspace for everything from the movement of military forces to financial transactions. However, the openness that led to the Internet’s expansion has its own risks.

With new cyber adversaries surfacing every day, Lockheed Martin is creating technological solutions that effectively and continuously “harden” networks, sensors, platforms and systems from crippling attacks.

This past spring, Lockheed Martin renewed its agreement for the Defense Cyber Crime Center (DC3) to support the Department of Defense’s efforts against cyber criminals under a new contract overseeing the world’s largest accredited digital forensics lab.

3. SENSOR TECHNOLOGY

Sensor technology measures and records everything from temperature, light and motion to physical and operational parameters. And advanced sensors are deployed on multiple platforms and systems, gathering zattabytes of data.

Digital camera sensors

The military is increasingly relying on smart distributed sensors for surveillance and intelligence. For instance, if an operational commander needs to know about activities in a contested area, one way to keep a squad out of danger is to use sensor technology that monitors for visible indicators, electromagnetic emissions or even acoustic vibrations.

But the same proliferated sensor technologies underlie the future of smart cities and sustainable urbanization — a source of measurable advantage in a world populated by megacities. To further the adoption of this technology, Lockheed Martin is looking at ways to make sensors more durable to perform reliable, worry-free data collection, while integrating multiple sensor data sources through big data analytics to give decision makers ubiquitous situational awareness and cross-domain common operating pictures.

4. SIGNALS, PROCESSING AND COMMUNICATIONS

Signal processing is taking real-world signals like voice, audio or video and mathematically manipulating them to extract meaning and create and distribute actionable information. For example, Lockheed Martin is preparing for launch of our next-generation GPS III satellites, which have three times better accuracy, eight times better jam resistance in an increasingly crowded electromagnetic environment, and improved reliability This capability powers a world that relies on space-based navigation and timing for everything from automobile and aircraft transportation to financial transactions and smartphone communications — truly the foundational infrastructure of a competitive economy.

Given the breadth of technologies that Lockheed Martin invents, these four areas comprise a very short list; but they are central to the future of innovation. These categories define “what’s next” and we are leveraging emerging technologies to deliver new capabilities and missions across the domains of land, air, sea and space.

With these technologies, we sharpen our nation’s security posture and our global competitiveness. My conviction is that future generations of Americans will compete in the world arena with little concern about the security and sustainability of their environment, and confidence in their future prosperity. Technology will be core to making this possible.

Dr. Jackson is the CTO of Lockheed Martin. His previous roles include vice president for Navigation Systems and program manager for Global Positioning System (GPS) III at Lockheed Martin’s Space Systems business. In this role, he was responsible for GPS III development and production, on-orbit operations and sustainment support for the GPS IIR and IIR-M constellation, and capture of future Navigation Systems business. He also served as program manager for Space Based Infrared Systems (SBIRS) Geosynchronous Space Vehicle 2 (GEO-2).

Before joining Lockheed Martin, Dr. Jackson was a NASA research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), conducting Space Shuttle flight experiments in the field of human adaptation to the space environment. He graduated from MIT with bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics, and he is a graduate of the Stanford Executive Program at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.