Brazil and USA to develop joint defense technology

Three Brazilian cutting-edge defense technology projects are attracting the attention of the U.S. Armed Forces. They compete for funding under the Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E) agreement between the two nations.

The projects, which involve technologies such as mind mapping, bioprinting, and artificial intelligence, are being developed by the Center for Defense and Security (CDS) of the Integrated Manufacturing and Technology Center (CIMATEC) of the National Industrial Learning Service (SENAI).

SENAI, located in Salvador, Brazil’s Bahia state, is a network of professional schools offering technical education to promote industrial innovation. If the projects are approved, it will be the first time that SENAI CIMATEC has received financial support from the U.S. Armed Forces.

BRAIN MAPPING

One of the projects consists of using an electroencephalogram to identify patterns of military decisions. The proposal is to use the equipment to map the brain functioning of military personnel with advanced leadership and decision-making profile to determine what stands out.

“That’s the first part of the project. The second will be to study the possibilities of transferring this experience to the brains of military personnel in the training process,” Milton Deiró Neto, CDS senior consultant, told Diálogo.

In addition to Defense and Security, SENAI CIMATEC has 42 other areas of competence, from food to biomedical engineering. Some 900 employees work in these areas, including technicians, professors, and researchers. Psychologists, doctors, and engineers are currently involved in the project on the use of the encephalogram.

BIOPRINTING

The second project that caught the attention of the U.S. Armed Forces was the bioprinting of cartilage tissue. “The approach is dual, with application in the civilian field, as in the case of an athlete who needs to remake a certain part of his body, as well as in the military, if we think, for example, of a combat wounded person, who needs to heal some cartilaginous part of his body,” detailed consultant Deiró.

Bioprinting is an existing technique inspired by 3D printing and uses biomaterials as raw material, such as a composition with cells and water-based gel, for example. This way, the bioprinter can create structures such as organs and tissues. In the case of the CIMATEC project, the tissue to be printed is cartilaginous.

“Who came up with the idea and is developing the initial research is a professor of biomaterials at CIMATEC, in collaboration with the University of California, San Diego [UCSD], which has a bioprinter,” said Deiró.

According to Deiró, the intention is for CIMATEC researchers to develop the biomaterial in Brazil for subsequent printing tests at UCSD. “We always seek to do our research in collaboration with U.S.-based institutions, which are always great partners for Brazil,” the expert added.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

The third idea CIMATEC is working on is using artificial intelligence to increase the reliability of welding in nuclear structures.

Deiró explains that, although nuclear structures already have high safety standards, CIMATEC proposes to improve welding procedures and the subsequent maintenance of welded structures through artificial intelligence, “as in other areas that show a lower error rate than processing by humans,” the consultant explained.

STRENGTHENING THE PARTNERSHIP

The exchange between Brazilian and U.S. institutions in the military area was reinforced with the approval of the Brazilian Senate in April 2022, with the RDT&E agreement, signed in 2020, during President Jair Bolsonaro’s visit to the U.S. Southern Command in Miami, Florida.

The RDT&E agreement allows for closer collaboration in defense technology and attests to the mutual trust in the relationship between the two nations.

With information from Dialogo Americas