Army Technologies

The U.S. Army is enhancing its premier intelligence distribution system in Afghanistan and around the world so that vast amounts of data are more accessible through cloud computing, laptops and handheld devices. It once took analysts days or weeks to sort through millions of files, but with the enhancements, they can do the same work in real time, which increases situational awareness and allows warfighters to make more informed decisions much faster.

The wind-down of U.S. Army combat operations, along with the re-balance in national military priority toward the Asia-Pacific region, is forcing a shift as well as a surge in Army networking. The service must continue to modernize the network to meet growing capability demands, but it also must adapt its architecture to accommodate major changes in force deployments and missions.

In the coming months, the U.S. Army will begin fielding components of its first integrated mobile network to units headed to Afghanistan. The equipment package known as Capability Set 13 will provide integrated voice and data throughout the brigade combat team. It also will offer on-the-move and beyond-line-of-sight communications, which could transform combat operations.

The multiyear evolutionary program that weaves a web of information around soldiers is entering the on-the-move communications phase. With at-the-quick-halt networking firmly in place, the latest capabilities extend communications to the brigade combat team and division levels. More importantly, they have been created with both legacy and not-yet-known future technologies in mind.

U.S. Army communicators are focusing on providing key enabling technologies to warfighters who already are exploiting new networking capabilities. The urgencies of warfare, coupled with emerging communications requirements, have mandated that engineers concentrate on the user end of connectivity.

The future of U.S. Army networks is evolving at Fort Bliss, Texas, through the development, testing and exercising of technologies that range from apps to cognitive networks. Though the initiatives are separate efforts, combined field events and close physical proximity are creating synergy between developers. As the work moves forward, successful outcomes will change how soldiers communicate at home and in the field.

Whether it is floods in the Midwest United States, earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan, blizzard conditions in Washington, D.C., or hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, one does not have to go far these days to see that natural disasters are becoming a bigger part of life. Nowhere does that reality come into focus more than at the nation’s military bases, where troops face the triple challenge of maintaining a state of readiness prior to disasters, working to serve as recovery resources, and being good neighbors where possible to the local communities they call home.

The U.S. Army is launching a new acquisition review aimed at a complete overhaul of organization, policies, work force and processes. Instead of focusing on individual characteristics of acquisition processes, this review is examining the full range of acquisition activities from rapid deployment to the warfighter to congressional rules and regulations. It will tap expertise from across the spectrum of the government and military acquisition professionals.

Developers are testing the many pieces that plug into the U.S. Army’s communications networks during the military branch’s annual system-of-systems event. The four-month exercise gives leaders a look at the network of the future. It also offers developers the opportunity to study many of soldiers’ critical assets in an operational venue, enabling experimentation outside of a laboratory. Understanding the real-world interoperability capabilities through these evaluations will help the Army ensure that predictions on paper become reality in the field.