The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous systems is reshaping defense, security, aviation, and military operations. Driven by geopolitical instability, cyber conflict, and emerging hybrid threats, nations are increasingly investing in AI to enhance decision-making, operational efficiency, and situational awareness across all domains. Technologies such as autonomous systems, UAVs, intelligent surveillance, advanced sensing, and large-scale data-processing models are becoming central to modern military capabilities. However, their adoption raises critical challenges related to trust, explainability, accountability, uncertainty, and human oversight, highlighting the need for interdisciplinary research.

The book Military Technology and Artificial Intelligence: Real-World Applications and Innovations provides a comprehensive overview of current developments and future directions in AI-enabled defense systems. It brings together global contributions from researchers and practitioners, presenting new methodologies, experimental results, and critical perspectives on AI in military contexts.

The volume is structured into three parts. The first examines foundational concepts, including trustworthy autonomous systems, AI-driven camouflage, hyperspectral sensing, and the use of foundation models such as large language models for intelligence and decision support. The second focuses on intelligent sensing, aviation, and simulation, covering topics such as facial recognition in degraded conditions, AI in aviation safety, pilot training simulations, neuromorphic vision, and data-driven performance analysis. The third explores applications in contested environments, including UAV navigation without GNSS, AI in materials science, cyber and space defense integration, and advanced cybersecurity challenges such as adversarial AI and deepfake threats.

Overall, the book highlights the transformative impact of AI on defense while emphasizing the technical, ethical, and strategic challenges that accompany its deployment.

Panagiotis Karampelas  is an Associate Professor in the Department of Informatics and Computers at the Hellenic Air Force Academy in Greece. He holds a Ph.D. in Electronic Engineering from the University of Kent, an M.Sc. in Informatics with specialization in High Performance Algorithms, and a B.Sc. in Mathematics with specialization in Applied Mathematics from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. His career combines research, teaching, and professional experience in software engineering and defense-oriented information systems. He has worked as an associate researcher at the Foundation for Research and Technology–Hellas (FORTH), Institute of Computer Science, contributing to European-funded projects in Information Society Technologies, focusing on user interface design, usability evaluation, and programming. He has also participated in major public and private sector projects as a user interface designer, usability expert, and senior developer, including collaborations with the Hellenic Army General Staff. Dr. Karampelas has extensive teaching experience at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, having taught at Hellenic American University and the School of Pedagogical and Technological Education, and currently serves as an Adjunct Faculty Member at the Open University of Cyprus. His research interests include human-computer interaction, information visualization, data mining, social network analysis, cybersecurity and cyberwarfare, simulation and training systems, open-source intelligence, artificial intelligence, and intelligent energy systems. He has authored and edited books, book chapters, and numerous research papers in international journals and conferences, and serves as Associate Editor of Social Network Analysis and Mining journal, in the Advisory Board of Advanced Sciences and Technologies for Security Applications book series, and as a program committee member for leading international conferences.  

Dr. Thirimachos Bourlai is a Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Georgia (UGA). He is the recipient of the 2026 UGA Trailblazer Award, a Distinguished Faculty Fellow in the College of Engineering, and serves as the Innovation Fellow for the College of Engineering (2025–2027). He also holds a joint appointment with Savannah River National Laboratory, is Courtesy Faculty in the School of Computing, and Adjunct Faculty at the Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Dr. Bourlai is the Founder and Director of the Multi-Spectral Imagery Lab. Dr. Bourlai holds several editorial and leadership positions within the international research community. He serves as an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems and as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing (JSTSP) Special Series on Artificial Intelligence for Smart Agriculture (2025). He is a member of the ASTM Advisory Board for the Certification Facial Examination (CFE) (2025–2026), serves on the Board of Directors of the Document Security Alliance, is the Executive Secretary of the NIST Face Identification Committee, and is a member of the Academic Research and Innovation Expert Group of the Biometrics Institute. He previously served as Vice President for Education of the IEEE Biometrics Council. Dr. Bourlai's research spans computer vision, artificial intelligence, biometrics, and multispectral imaging. He is the author and editor of six Springer books, including Face Recognition Across the Imaging Spectrum (1st ed., 2016; 2nd ed., 2024), Surveillance in Action (2018), Securing Social Identity in Mobile Platforms (2020), Disease Control through Social Network Surveillance (2022), and Military Artificial Intelligence (2026). His scholarly contributions also include three patents and more than 150 peer-reviewed publications in journals, conferences, book chapters, and magazines.