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ACI RESEARCH

   

The ACI focuses on exploring the challenges facing the Army (and likewise the Nation) within the cyber domain in the next 3-10 years.



Using our multi-disciplinary, mission focused team of professionals as well as leveraging the United States Military Academy faculty and our various partners, we expand the body of knowledge and advise senior military and government officials.

 

ACI RESEARCH INITIATIVES

Critical Infrastructure Resilience

Focus on improving cyber resiliency for critical infrastructure and their communities through understanding and researching the interdependencies between critical infrastructure sectors at all levels; improving public-private partnerships; informing DOD, DA, and other agencies of the impacts of cyber incidents on critical infrastructure and how those impacts influence Army operations; and providing an opportunity for local municipalities to exercise cyber incident response.

The Jack Voltaic Cyber Research Project is an innovative, bottom-up approach to developing critical infrastructure resilience. Developed by the Army Cyber Institute at West Point, this research assembles critical infrastructure partners to study cybersecurity and protection gaps.

Digital Force Protection

Serve as the integrator of civilian and military research in the information warfare space, specifically focused on the intersection between the social and the psychological domains. Seek to leverage partnerships with military, civilian researchers, lawmakers, and practitioners in the IW space and synthesize interdisciplinary research in order to shape Army leadership and influence emerging policy/doctrine for a whole of nation approach in the Information Warfare environment.

Narrative Warfare - Understanding what culturally significant stories are important to Americans that foreign adversaries may use to elicit an emotional response and behavioral change. Mementic Warfare - The use of images and text have become synonymous with online social media culture. These simple images can be weaponized to add humor to serious political themes to make them more palatable to a general audience. Social Network Analysis - How are groups connected online to pass information and ideas, cause certain items to become viral, and jump from platform to platform? Algorithmic Confounding - How are social media recommendation systems being used to target specific members of a populace to relay ideas both organically and through manipulation of those systems? Legal Aspects of Information Warfare - The intersection of social media and the Law of War and the extent to which misinformation/disinformation amounts to an unlawful intervention into the affairs of another State (nation) in violation of international law.

Cyber Operations Research (CORE)

The Cyber Operations research team focuses is on advancing the Army’s understanding of the Cyber domain and its role in military operations through operations support, original research, education, and organizational partnerships.

This is accomplished through:

  • Support to units across the Army and DoD
  • Exploration and research into electromagnetic manipulation and sensing
  • Analysis of platform and sensor quality and trust
  • Drawing attention to new avenues of development and operation through publication and discussion

 

D2S LogoData and Decision Sciences 

The Data and Decision Sciences research and analysis portfolio aims to research, develop, test, evaluate, analyze and assess innovative, assured, intelligent, human-aware, data-centric and decision-driven capabilities for cyberspace operations with greater reliability, performance and scalability in complex, contested, congested and continually evolving battlefield environments. We seek to create holistic and integrated solutions leveraging novel approaches for data engineering, fusion and processing, data science and advanced analytics, and decision modeling for data-driven decision making.

Our goal is to develop and apply novel computational, mathematical, statistical and cognitive methods, algorithms, software and decision-support tools to analyze large and heterogeneous collections of data to generate actionable insights that enable information advantage and decision dominance. Our research explores new ways of conceiving of and executing Army, other Services, Department of Defense, Intelligence Community, and Nation data and decision science capabilities with greater reliability, performance, and scalability. As such, the research and analysis portfolio comprises the following six thrust areas: 

  1. Battlefield, data-efficient sense-making to deliver decision speed
  2. Integrated human-centered computing with machine intelligence
  3. Artificial intelligence for autonomous cyber defense operations
  4. Secure, assured, robust, intelligent, and evolving C5ISR systems
  5. Information advantage via cognitive and societal computing
  6. Data security and emerging technologies for alternative computing

 

Law & Policy

 
The Law and Policy research team focuses on developing legal, policy and ethical frameworks that guide and assist cyber operators in carrying out their missions. As authorities continues to be one of the primary issues raised by cyber leadership, the research team seeks to help improve the policies, legal authorities and ethical frameworks in order to improve timely and effective cyber operations that are guided by appropriate legal, policy and ethical constraints.