JON HARPER
The Army is moving forward with Palantir as the prime contractor for the next phase of its Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node (TITAN) ground station program, which aims to provide soldiers with next-generation data fusion and deep-sensing capabilities via artificial intelligence and other tools.
Palantir’s USG subsidiary was awarded a $178.4 million other transaction agreement, which calls for the delivery of 10 prototypes, the company announced Wednesday.
TITAN is considered a critical modernization component for the Army’s multi-domain operations (MDO) concept because it will integrate various types of data from numerous platforms to help commanders make sense of a fast-moving and complex battlefield.
Under the new agreement, which has a 24-month period of performance, Palantir will deliver five “basic” and five “advanced” variants of the ground station.
“Overall, it’s a software-defined solution, so it’s designed to be modular, flexible, adaptable, configurable. But currently, as envisioned, there’s two different variants — the advanced variant that is at higher echelon, and a more tactical version, which is the basic variant,” Bryant Choung, Palantir’s senior vice president for defense technology, told DefenseScoop.
The advanced variant has a Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles (FMTV) form factor. “It’s a larger truck-based platform, incorporates a data center, more or less on the back, as well as a shelter that allows soldiers to be in there operating on multiple classified networks,” he explained.
The basic variant has a Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) form factor that’s “designed to be more tactically suited, more on the move, that allows them to do more of the capabilities from their seats within the JLTV,” Choung said.
In a statement, Palantir USG President Akash Jain described the TITAN system as the Army’s “first AI-defined vehicle.”
Choung noted that it’s a software-centric program.
“We’ve designed the software and the hardware solution for this. And we’ve also designed this to be modular. So we’re incorporating the best of breed from both our software capability and our AI capability, as well as incorporating government/GOTS, open source and other commercial software technologies into the platform, as well, too. And so overall, we’re going to be providing that integrated technology solution that’s both hardware and software. But really, we’re defining the AI and the software workflows that will be the part of the TITAN vehicle,” he told DefenseScoop.
TITAN is intended to fuse data from space-, air- and terrestrial-based sensors, and integrate systems and technologies from Northrop Grumman, Anduril Industries, L3Harris Technologies, Pacific Defense, Sierra Nevada Corporation, Strategic Technology Consulting, and World Wide Technology, according to a release.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities are expected to help process that information and provide “real-time actionable intelligence.”
“I think it really is going to be demonstrating for the first time what it means to incorporate AI into the decision-making in a platform like this for the Army. Specifically, we’re hoping that the software and the AI is going to be increasing the capability, allowing the soldiers to see farther and shoot farther. And while we’re increasing that capability, also reducing the complexity. So making it so that there’s less swivel chair integration, making it so that the soldiers can get to a decision faster, ultimately affecting the timeline. Right? So in the next fight, really where timelines are going to be key, allowing the soldiers to be more modular in their workflows, allowing them to reconfigure their systems, and then ultimately making allowing them to operate more quickly on the battlefield. These are the key differentiators that AI and software are going to help define for this and any other future platform that’s out there,” Choung said.
Palantir is working with its partners on the program to provide the appropriate compute, power, shelter, assembly, and capabilities, in addition to the AI and the software functions, he noted.
“We are thrilled to move into the next phase to deliver these revolutionary capabilities to our warfighters,” Col. Chris Anderson, the Army’s project manager for intelligence systems and analytics at program executive office for intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors, said in an Army release about the award. “TITAN provides game changing technologies on how we collect, process and disseminate intelligence across the battlefield, providing us a decisive edge in supporting Multi-Domain Operations.”
Palantir won the downselect for TITAN after a competitive prototyping process that also included Raytheon Technologies (which is now RTX). Both companies were awarded $36 million deals for the previous phase of the program, which included various soldier touch points, or test events in which companies put their system through its paces in operational scenarios while users get to offer their feedback on how it works and what tweaks need to be made.
Additional soldier touch points will also be part of the next phase of evaluation of Palantir’s systems, which is being dubbed a “prototype maturation” effort.
“Going forward in the next 24 months … the five basic and the five advanced units will be delivered to soldiers. They will be getting [them], they will be providing feedback to us — the Army and the vendor. And we will continue to iterate with them to understand how we can continue to upgrade, enhance and make these platforms better as we look towards the final production contract,” Choung said.
The capability will be issued to designated units to allow them to refine the tactics, techniques and procedures for employing these tools, Brig. Gen. Wayne “Ed” Barker, the Army’s program executive officer for intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors, told reporters during a media call in December.
“What the Army has to do at this point is we’re going to a lot of different exercises from a network standpoint and understanding where things are going to go at echelon and what that means for our existing modernization efforts,” Barker said. “You can see an instance where capabilities are pushed up, so you might need fewer of an advanced or fewer of a basic” variant.
Choung told DefenseScoop that he would defer to the Army with regard to when particular units will get their hands on the systems for the prototype maturation phase.
“I defer to the Army specifically on, again, all the wickets that they’ll have to do from a statutory perspective for the program of record, and all the milestone decisions that they’ll have to make. But specifically as envisioned, you know, the Army is taking a rapid prototyping, iterative approach to first designing the systems, prototyping them, getting feedback from the soldiers. And then after this next phase, they are contemplating the production ramp-up for the TITAN systems,” he said.
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