New Approach Aims to Accelerate Delivery of Autonomous Capabilities to Soldiers
The Army’s autonomy characteristics of need (CoN) statement, designed to involve industry early in the requirements process and expedite the delivery of autonomous capabilities to soldiers, is „basically complete” pending final approvals, according to an Army Futures Command official.
Engaging Industry Early for Rapid Innovation
CoNs are intended to engage vendors from the outset, enabling the Army to keep pace with industry, which often leads in technological innovation, David Meyer, director of futures integration for the Futures and Concepts Center within AFC, told reporters at the NDIA Emerging Technologies Conference.
The concept involves commanders providing continuous feedback to industry and acquisition leaders on the effectiveness of technologies in the field, allowing the CoN to be a „living document” that is updated periodically. The service’s first CoN was for its Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2) initiative, which is updated approximately every 90 days.
„The whole idea is [to] simplify the way you describe your problem to industry to allow them to innovate alongside of you,” Meyer said. He noted that the traditional approach to requirements was both rigid and slow.
Addressing Acquisition Delays
„The complaint about the Army, and it’s appropriate, is we take a long time to figure out what we want. Then we take an even longer time to buy it. By the time we actually deliver it, it’s technologically irrelevant. So how do we acquire at the speed of industry, smaller buys, more often, constantly innovating, constantly iterating with industry?”
Opening Doors to Non-Traditional Vendors
Importantly, Meyer emphasized that the CoN model not only brings in industry early but also has the potential to attract more non-traditional vendors.
„We want industry to see themselves in the problem. So instead of us having to go to a guy and saying, ‘build this for me,’…. We don’t, we don’t know who does what. We can’t know, especially with the amazing number of small businesses that are popping up who do really, really great work in a narrow field. We can never keep track of that,” Meyer said. „So the idea of a characteristics of need statement is that industry can see themselves in it and come to us and say, ‘you’ve never heard of me, but I can help with this.'”
Focus Areas for Autonomy
The autonomy CoN will focus on four critical areas: heavy companies operating with tanks, light companies with dismounted infantry soldiers, autonomy capable of breaching minefields and removing obstacles, and autonomy for sustainment, Meyer said.
„Autonomy itself is sort of an enormous endeavor. So we’ve broken it down in our four big chunks of [what] we think we need, or the four big places we think autonomy will be most relevant,” Meyer said. „Then we’ll start to talk to industry.”
Cautious Approach to Release
Although Meyer stated that the autonomy CoN is „basically complete,” he later added that the service does not want to „rush” its release.
„We also don’t want to rush to failure and put this document out there too soon and then realize we made a mistake, we got to pull it right back, and then we just look foolish,” Meyer said. „I would never presume to say when we’ll be ready to hand that out, but the idea of it is really solid, so we’re preparing ourselves so that as soon as it’s approved for release, we’re ready to answer the questions that we know people are going to have.”
Future CoNs Under Consideration
Regarding other CoNs, Meyer said the Army is currently determining additional areas where they would be appropriate throughout the service.
„If they’re meant to be broad and overarching, then you probably don’t need 100 of them,” Meyer said. „So a CoN needs to be broad enough to where it can get at a holistic battlefield problem, but still focused enough to where there’s a finite number of problems we’re trying to solve,” Meyer said.
Meyer’s comments come a day after the Army announced three prototype contracts to explore the potential for turning Infantry Support Vehicles (ISVs) into autonomous vehicles.
