BRAD D. WILLIAMS
WASHINGTON: The Army is inviting partners to submit white papers for new tech to be potentially adopted as part of its Capability Set 25.
Capability sets are intended to enhance the Army’s tech and prepare the service for All Domain Operations. The Army’s tactical network is viewed as the bedrock of this initiative. Beginning in 2021, sets are scheduled to be released every two years, with the goal of incrementally adding new tech that builds upon, expands, and improves existing capabilities.
Capability sets entail a range of tech, but focus broadly on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, data management, advanced waveforms, and mission command applications. For Capability Set 25, the Army is seeking white papers for new tech in three areas:
C4ISR Modular Open Suite of Standards Radio Technologies — The goal is continued development of radios that meet open standards, while providing new and enhanced capabilities, such as multi-wave software-defined radio cards, crypto cards, and the ability to host multiple waveforms on a single card.
SATCOM Modernization — The goal is to “streamline” the Army’s tactical satellite modem product line while shrinking its logistical footprint through the use of less hardware, virtualization, or both.
Predicted Combat Power Using Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning — The goal is to develop data sets and analytics capability to support supply chain logistics and predictive combat power.
The Army’s Cross-Functional Network team and the U.S. Army Program Executive Office for Command, Control, and Communications-Tactical (PEO C3T) will be reviewing white papers. Papers are due by July 20 and can be submitted via the Joint Communications Marketplace.
Army leaders view modernizing the service’s tactical network as fundamental to achieving an envisioned sensor-to-shooter kill chain, enabled by efficient transmission of data from a variety of sources, including satellites, to forward-deployed joint forces operating in contested environments.
Army Maj. Gen. Peter Gallagher, who heads the service’s network modernization effort for Futures Command, said this spring, “We’ve got to be able to win in the information decision domain, and we are winning right now. Without the network, all the other modernization efforts are just stovepipe dreams.”
Ultimately, Gallagher said the Army’s goal is to improve Joint All Domain Command and Control’s “speed, range, convergence, and dominance,” stressing what the Army has taken to calling “decision dominance” — the ability to outthink and outmaneuver the enemy so thoroughly it cannot prevail.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville this spring also emphasized the Army’s need to accelerate the cycle between identifying needed new tech and fielding operational versions of that tech. McConville said this cycle must take a few years and no longer.
More quickly, efficiently, and effectively getting soldiers the working tech they need is a big goal of the capability sets. The Army carries out this work using a developmental operations, or DevOps, model, which the service says entails experimenting, demonstrating, and gathering direct feedback from soldiers through an iterative cycle. Integrating the Army’s tech with other services for All Domain Operations is a goal of Project Convergences.
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