The Navy Fast Tracks Innovation

The Science and Technology department within the U.S. Navy’s Naval Information Warfare Center Atlantic division is embracing the concept of “good enough” when it comes to rapidly fielding advanced technologies.

The goal is to enable rapid prototyping of relevant technologies and foster their quick transition to existing program of records, or in some cases to new programs. Naval Information Warfare Center Atlantic’s Rapid Prototyping, Experimentation and Demonstrations office, which is supporting the fast development, testing, fielding and sustainment of artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, information technology hardware and software, autonomous systems, naval communications, command and control, mobility, big data management and analytics, spectrum management, electromagnetic warfare and other advanced technologies, is also working to shift the mindset of naval leaders to spur faster technology adoption.

Greg Hays, the senior scientific technology manager for rapid prototyping and exercise lead at Naval Information Warfare Center Atlantic division, or NIWC Atlantic, argues that in the race to ensure technological superiority for the Navy, Marine Corps and joint warfighters, it is sometimes more important to quickly field effective capabilities rather than pursue perfect solutions.

“Today’s warfighters have this incredible tolerance and encouragement for emerging technology,” he shares. “They are adamant about understanding that it doesn’t have to be perfect. It is a little tough at the warfare center level to really have to hammer this [concept] in, but we have to start thinking about, understanding and appreciating that ‘good enough’ can be our asymmetric advantage. Speed to market is what drives the commercial sector, and we need to embrace that in the military sector.”

Also known as RPED, the Rapid Prototyping, Experimentation and Fleet Force Demonstrations office—which was formalized in early 2020 at NIWC Atlantic—is coordinating technology insertion; providing technical expertise for rapid prototyping; curating partnerships with industry and academia; and facilitating naval technology demonstrations during fleet activities and exercises, among other efforts.

Foremost, Hays and the NIWC Atlantic RPED team are focusing on shifting the culture. “It is much more than just trying to find a cool technology and then a sponsor to resource it,” he emphasizes. “It’s about establishing this culture that encompasses our entire ecosystem, which includes our legal folks, our contracting personnel, human resources, our facilities, our security—essentially the whole command, coming together to learn how to adapt and transform to this future where we move faster, are more flexible and accept taking more risks.”

To achieve this placement of emerging technologies, the NIWC Atlantic RPED team works closely with the Naval Information Warfare Systems Command (NAVWAR), as well as with Joan Johnson, deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, Test and Engineering (DASN RDT&E), and Capt. Bruce Schuette, USN, director, Advanced Capabilities and Technology, DASN RDT&E. Hays noted that there are seven other similar RPED teams across the service.

The officials are placing special attention on technology insertion events that have a relatively low barrier of entry for companies. “Our initial, less formal events are called ANTXs, or Advanced Naval Technology Experimentation, and we’ve had a lot of success doing these,” Hays states.

For this construct, the officials commonly rely on commercial solutions openings (CSOs), soliciting industry responses and white papers describing technologies or solutions—“a little bit less rigorous than a traditional RFI [request for information] or BAA [broad agency announcement] process,” Hays shares. “We basically say, ‘These are our technology objectives,’ and ‘These are the things we’re looking for and we wanted to know if you all have any solutions.’ It is a really simple process for companies. It is a one-page quad chart and it’s a short white paper.”

Interested industry parties typically participate on a “pay to play” basis through a beginning phase, covering their own travel costs and initial development. In subsequent phases, the military can then issue Federal Acquisition Regulation- (FAR-) or non-FAR-based contracts, other transaction authority (OTA) agreements, cooperative research and development agreements (CRADAs) or other agreements to the companies for prototype development. For all participants, the military evaluates the technology submissions, a useful feedback step for companies or organizations that can then be used to make changes to the technologies, shift their capability focus or guide future corporate investment decisions, Hays suggests.

Last April, the officials held an ANTX to solicit technology integration in support of Naval and Marine Corps operations in a contested environment. “We went to the industry via a CSO and cast a wide net,” Hays remembers. “We had over 150 industry and government entries, and this was in a COVID environment. We down selected to a little over 100 vendors and conducted the ANTX experiment at Camp Lejeune with 50 industry solutions and 15 government-funded capabilities. They had 10 days at Camp Lejeune. They interfaced with the soldiers, they went on ships and they went in the field to run through missions. At the end of the day, they got two assessments: one by the technical workforce and another from the operational perspective. We got the sailors and Marines to give their open and honest feedback. Everybody left with a ranking of how they stacked up against each other and a detailed assessment on the technical findings of their solution.”

In November, NIWC Atlantic and the RPED office supported NIWC Pacific in hosting another ANTX in San Diego for Project Overmatch. The event solicited emerging artificial intelligence and networking technologies, and instead of a CSO involved two prize competitions. “In both challenges, the primary winners got $75,000 and the secondary winners got $25,000,” Hays states. “It was interesting because not everybody that was chosen was a traditional defense provider. These were folks that had some great ideas coming from other [private sector] verticals and it was a great exchange.”

For the first time, the event was digitally based, which made it simpler to set up and saved the Navy money. “For both challenges, we provided the digital environment, we took ideas, we down selected the ones that we thought had the best approaches, and we provided them the virtual links, and we gave them a data set for the AI [artificial intelligence], access to a virtual network environment and they sort of plugged in their solution in our environment,” he cites. “It was a true digital ANTX. I think we’ll see more of those going forward as well. [It’s] obviously cheaper because we’re not setting up camp at a base for two weeks and it’s also quick and easy for assessments.”

In another recent ANTX-like effort, RPED supported the Office of Naval Research’s SCOUT prototyping and experimentation effort to find advanced detection and monitoring technologies for the U.S. Southern Command and the Joint Interagency Task Force-South. The associated CSO, hosted by the Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division, closed for industry input in mid-January. If selected for Phase 2 based on evaluation criteria, companies will participate in short technology sprints over the next three to five months with prototyping and experimentation activities that represent the complex operating environment faced by the command and task force. Selected participants, from both industry and government, will also will engage in an exercise in the command’s associated operating area in the summer of 2022.

“The SCOUT Experimentation campaign will be a series of innovation sprint events, exercises and experimentation to foment learning and innovation to rapidly develop technologies and techniques to improve warfighting capability and assist in quicker leadership decision making,” the CSO document on SAM.gov indicates.

In addition to the NIWC’s ANTXs, the other Navy warfare centers host their own ANTX events, “and everyone sort of cross-pollinates, giving them assessors to conduct the evaluations or even insert the technology,” Hays states. “We are gearing up for more this coming year. I’ll be working with the seven other RPEDs and together we will coordinate across all of the warfare centers.”

To help support the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT), RPED is engaging with Task Force 59, created last September to rapidly integrate artificial intelligence and unmanned systems, including unmanned aerial systems, unmanned sea vessels and unmanned underwater vehicles in NAVCENT’s maritime operations.

RPED also is supporting warfighter-driven challenges, in which the military pairs a dozen or so government experts with a handful of warfighters for a week or two-week period. The focused challenges, which join operational and technical aspects, have been successful. “They have resulted in potential prototypes by the end of the week,” Hays says. “They could be 3D-printed gadgets, or it could be a piece of developed software.”

The Navy’s more formal fleet experiments, or FLEXs—such as Trident Warrior or other experiments coordinated by the Fleet Forces Command in Norfolk—bring in more mature emerging technologies. “These are usually more rigorous,” Hays notes. “The battle groups get together, and they do a certain mission or theme and then technologies are inserted, but the technologies have to go through a lot of rigor because of the operational nature of the ships. You have to make sure that you’re not bringing down the network or you’re not causing any frequency conflicts or anything like that, so it’s very complex.”

Planning has already started for several technology inserts during Trident Warrior 2022 in Hawaii this summer. “We also participate in the Marine Corps’ Isla Marauder event,” he adds.

Furthermore, RPED harnesses the Navy’s industry consortiums, such as the Information Warfare Research Project (IWRP), which is pursuing its second round of transitioning technology. “NAVWAR’s IWRP was the first prototyping OTA for the Navy,” he says. “But now there’s five other consortiums across the Navy in other technology areas.”

So-called tech bridges help pair private companies with the military in certain regions, Hays continues. “These are geographically dispersed venues to sort of create these innovation ecosystems,” he offers. “They are typically surrounded by a warfare center as an anchor, but they also connect to other federal labs and academia, nonprofits and state agencies, and typically have a thriving commercial sector around it, not to mention a traditional industry base. When the Navy first stood up NavalX, it really focused on going after dual use tech and other sectors, like Silicon Valley. Now, I think there are about 15 designated tech bridges.”

The NIWC Atlantic Palmetto Tech Bridge, created in 2019 and based in Charleston, South Carolina, conducted its first technology challenge last summer, soliciting network, data center intelligent assistant, artificial intelligence-based and machine learning-enabled decision aid technology. The organization completed its second challenge effort in December and is preparing for more solicitations, Hays says.

The Palmetto Tech Bridge is also working on growing its relationships with the South Carolina Department of Commerce, University of South Carolina, Clemson University, historically Black colleges and universities, and private colleges, especially in software development. In addition, given its Atlantic Ocean proximity, Hays is exploring relationships with the nongovernmental maritime industry in the area.

He emphasizes that as a warfare center, NIWC Atlantic fits in a little bit differently than the labs of the other services and can insert technology solutions at any point in the life cycle. “We have the entire life-cycle support, so we not only do the insertion, the acquisition and the fielding, but also the supporting of technologies,” Hays notes.

Since NIWC Atlantic has a working capital fund model, it can “accept anyone’s dollars.” RPED can and does work with a plethora of stakeholders—and even can support crowdfunding for a capability, where multiple customers can come in and share the cost of contributing to a solution for everyone’s benefit.

With industry being the major driver of innovation, RPED sees the private sector as both technology providers as well as partners, and it is that second aspect on which the team is focusing. “The other perspective is them as a partner,” he suggests. “This is the area that I am really focused on right now, looking for ways we can touch these large, small, traditional, nontraditional industries, nonprofits and academia. We are looking to help shape their internal R&D investments, trying to develop a relationship around a shared future where we can benefit and understand and promote each other’s skill sets to develop trust and investments going forward.”

The key in these industry partnerships is to foster “military-unique” technology options versus exquisitely built, custom products and vendor lock. “One of our focuses is to promote partnerships with early-stage technology developers and find ways where we can motivate both sides to develop a lasting relationship, where we can help guide the technology and not constrain it,” Hays states.