“This progress moves us closer to bi-directional, real-time data flow between the tactical edge and operational and strategic decision-makers,” CDAO officials wrote.

In response to questions about the document’s contents, a defense official confirmed on Wednesday that the office, in partnership with the joint force, recently closed out the thirteenth iteration of its Global Information Dominance Experiment (GIDE) series, which unfolded in conjunction with the Army’s Project Convergence Capstone 5 (PC-C5) event.

GIDE is rooted in the Defense Department’s aims to get new technologies and equipment into the hands of warfighters for iterative testing and refinement through distributed, digital experiments, sprints and military service-led exercises like PC-C5.

Early versions of the GIDE series launched in 2020 and were facilitated by U.S. Northern Command. But in 2022, Pentagon leadership under the Biden administration tasked the CDAO with revamping the effort to strategically enable capabilities that could help realize the U.S. military’s Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control warfighting construct. 

Since then, GIDE experiments have generally run approximately every 90 days.

In the CDAO document summarizing multiple takeaways from GIDE 13, officials wrote that PC-C5 “served as the first major exercise venue to demonstrate” the EDM line of effort, which the office awarded a production other transaction agreement for in fall 2024.

“EDM is a government-owned technology stack that enables tactical-level data distribution in disadvantaged, disconnected, intermittent and limited — or DDIL — communications environments through a resilient nodal architecture,” they wrote.

A defense official told DefenseScoop that the CDAO is deploying EDM nodes to tactical users and other key locations to ultimately assess the fusion of operational and tactical data and C2 capabilities.

In the EDM context, nodes essentially refer to physical points within the network that are typically near end users or information sources, where data is captured, processed, or stored. This allows for distributed, decentralized data transmission that could underpin future edge computing missions.

“Edge Data Mesh enables data integration and exchange across multiple networks and data formats, including in denied and degraded communications environments,” the defense official said.

“Core to this effort is the commitment to interoperability using Open DAGIR principles and deployed architectures. The government-owned software development kit allows rapid integration of mature and emerging systems and applications with the EDM architecture,” they added. 

Project Convergence is an Army-led experimentation venue that enables personnel from across the U.S. military services and key allies to train together and collaboratively work out various concepts for integration. Army officials have been transparent about their aims to see new capabilities stay with commands for continued use after Capstone 5. 

In the CDAO document, officials stated that the “Scenario B” portion of PC-C5 provided participants with “a critical opportunity to test and develop EDM interoperability with other mission command platforms in field conditions — which remained behind following the exercise’s completion and will continue to provide resilient tactical data transport in the [area of responsibility].”

Activities associated with that scenario were conducted in the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command area of responsibility. They involved tech experiments with all of the service components at the combatant command level.

“We continue to demonstrate that one of the most effective ways to advance modern [command and control, or C2] capability is to exercise and experiment how we fight — on live networks, with live data, with daily users — and leaving behind capability after every exercise,” CDAO officials wrote.

Some of the other “wins” from GIDE 13 listed in the document include demonstrating the integration of third-party software into DOD’s data infrastructure, and integrating multiple third-party generative AI capabilities into existing operational contexts. 

“This significantly accelerates warfighters’ ability to process complex information, especially across maneuver, intelligence, fires, and logistics workflows, shortening decision-loops and ensuring we achieve decision advantage,” the document states.

The defense official did not answer DefenseScoop’s questions regarding the makers and use cases of those genAI assets that were tested in the GIDE 13 and PC-C5 experiments last month.

“GIDE events have incorporated GenAI capabilities supporting a variety of workflows. These capabilities are a subset of GIDE’s mission command software suite, supporting [combatant commands] outside GIDE experimentation, so operators can continue to refine how they use them without waiting for the next experiment,” the defense official said.

They confirmed that GIDE 14 will take place during the upcoming iteration of Pacific Sentry and “Joint Exercise SoCal in Indo-Pacom.”

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Although the Army’s main fighting formation was brigades for the last 20 years of the global war on terror, it’s now shifting to division as the unit of action, and corps will also be a critical echelon that must relearn old lessons regarding how to mobilize in a new era where counterterrorism and counterinsurgency are no longer the service’s main focus.

Corps is an important echelon as many authorities are held at this level and it acts as the bridge between tactical Army forces and joint task forces across an assigned theater with other services.

As officials seeks to determine how to deploy, corps leaders understand that much like subordinate units, they must have mobile and survivable command posts. As part of that, they must figure out what’s needed for the right mix of cloud-based access and edge computing.

“How do we build resilient, survivable, adaptable command posts? Some of that involves things like, do we build out an edge capability? We have our first edge nodes that we’re playing with out at [Project Convergence] Capstone,” Col. Edwin Mathias, the corps’ chief of staff, said in an interview.  

The Army as a whole is looking at the mix of edge and cloud. Forces are beginning to understand that the complex operating environment of the future will present communications and network challenges by adversaries, what the military calls DDIL or “denied, degraded, intermittent and limited.”

Access to the cloud could be limited or disrupted, necessitating a local edge capability until those connections can be reestablished.

At XVIII Airborne Corps’ warfighter exercise last August, a large command post exercise, one of the biggest lessons was the need for an edge capability when cloud access was lost.

“Everything that we do now is cloud-based at the corps level. When we lost communications for the network — and that was basically because we had so much data going out that the network was not in a position to handle it — we didn’t have any connectivity to the systems that we needed to have connection to, which drove our focus to really get after the edge capability,” Col. Nicole Vinson, the corps’ chief communications officer, said in an interview. “The edge capability, technically, we’re looking at, is how do you do it? But then once we get something at the edge, which we have now at PC, you can start driving the conversation of what information do you need to have access to at the edge, what applications do you need to continue to operate at the edge? We can change the conversation from the technology knowing that we need it, but now starting to figure out what capabilities and what mission sets do you need to be able to continue to operate when in any kind of disconnected environment?”

The XVIII Airborne Corps is looking to test two different edge node versions, with one being a cloud-to-edge capability that will be tested for the first time. The corps created a tactical cloud to take capabilities from the cloud and deploy what they need at the edge, which will allow them to change depending on the mission set.

The goal is to try to get away from the stovepiped edge capabilities of the past and move to a more dynamic and flexible environment.

“We’ve always fought against different stovepipes. What we’re really trying to get after with our command post is to be lighter, faster, more mobile. The more we deliver these stovepiped edge capabilities, we’re not really accomplishing what we set out to achieve,” Vinson said. “The way we want to be able to operate is to be able to come together as a command post but then push the different groups out.”

The corps wants to look at four different groups to operate independent of each other and then determine what edge capability needs to be with each group.

This goes back to the need for survivable, adaptable and resilient command posts, based on observations from Ukraine and the recognition that larger and static command posts are juicy targets.

“Our ability to disaggregate the staffs into multiple nodes and reduce our signature is important,” Mathias said. “Those edge nodes, those independent transport capabilities would allow us to operate our current operations for one location, our fusion cell with our intel and fires team in another location, our administrative logistics component in another location, and then our network and G-6 team in yet another.”

Moreover, Project Convergence is allowing the corps to determine what mission sets need to come up to that level, now that the Army is shifting to division as the unit of action instead of brigade.

As division has become the main fighting unit, the Army has sought to move much of the network complexity out of brigades to the division level to enable those smaller units to focus on their fights as opposed to grappling with the network.

“One of the key elements that we have to be very cautious of is with the brigades and the division going to [secure but unclassified-encrypted] is how do we as a corps continue to be able to tie into those organizations without having so much burden on the division? There’s a lot of work going on at Project Convergence with the cross-domain solutions until we can get to a true zero-trust capability,” Vinson said.

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The report, “Navigating the Intelligence Community IT Roadmap,” analyzes key challenges facing the IC and outlines how existing and tested technology capabilities can help IC components gain a strategic advantage over adversaries.

The report’s timely release aligns with the IC’s five-year IT roadmap, which seeks to advance intelligence operations by promoting seamless collaboration, enhanced data sharing and management and the ability to deploy the newest tech innovations rapidly.

The report highlights a variety of currently available technical capabilities developed by GDIT as part of its long-standing work to support the U.S. defense and intelligence agencies, including:

• DeepSky — a private, multi-cloud, on-prem data center environment developed and maintained by GDIT that facilitates the testing of emerging technology and security capabilities from multiple providers in collaboration with government agencies and their partners. “It’s really difficult to ingest massive amounts of data from a bunch of tools and make it usable for an engineer, an analyst or an executive. So DeepSky helps make those tools work together,” says Ryan Deslauriers, director of cybersecurity at GDIT.

• Mission Partner Environments — a new generation of interoperable networking and data exchange environments. Originally designed to allow military units to exchange data with specific partners, these expanded information-sharing environments enable the selective yet secure sharing of sensitive and classified information with trusted military and coalition partners. MPEs make it possible to take a “full report, break out what can and can’t be released, and push it to the appropriate network virtually and automatically so that information gets to relevant users where they are in a timely fashion,” explains Jennifer Krischer, a former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer who now serves as vice president for defense intelligence at GDIT.

• Raven — a mobile command center tech suite developed by GDIT that fits in the back of a truck. It extends and deploys the data mesh concept to mobile environments. It can be utilized for disaster relief, special forces operations, or disconnected environments, enabling operators to collect and disseminate data from the tactical edge directly to users on the ground and back to the enterprise. Raven is an example of how GDIT “enables teams to conduct their mission without having to develop, build, maintain, and operate the services internally,” notes Nicholas Townsend, senior director at GDIT.

• Federated Data Fabric — creates a unified data environment through a centralized service platform designed to streamline data curation, management, and dissemination and enable seamless access to data independent of its source or security level. It allows users on the network’s edge to discover, request, publish and subscribe to information within a federated network environment.

Workforce commitment

The report also highlights GDIT’s distinctive approach to hiring and training professionals with extensive defense, IC, and technical experience who uniquely understand the needs of the government’s mission.

“Our workforce two to five years from now will need to be different from what it is today and prepared to take advantage of new technology,” notes Chaz Mason, mission engineering and delivery lead at GDIT. Recognizing this, GDIT doubled its investment in tuition and technical training programs in 2023. More than 20,000 employees have taken at least one of our cyber, AI, and cloud upskilling programs, he said.

GDIT’s staff currently numbers 30,000 professionals supporting customers in over 400 locations across 30 countries; 25%+ of the workforce are veterans.

Read more about how GDIT’s vendor-agnostic technology and decades of government customer experience can help achieve the Intelligence Community’s data-sharing vision.

This article was produced by Scoop News Group for FedScoop and DefenseScoop and sponsored by GDIT.

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The broad agency announcement, released Wednesday on Sam.gov, comes about a month after AFRL’s information directorate opened a new Extreme Computing Facility in Rome, New York.

The lab is looking for vendors for research, development, integration, test and evaluation of “technologies/techniques to support research in the focus areas computational diversity and efficient computing architectures, machine learning and artificial intelligence in embedded system and architectures, computing at the edge, nanocomputing, space computing, and robust algorithms and applications,” per the BAA.

Nearly $500 million in total funding is anticipated for the initiative in fiscal 2024-2028.

AFRL wants to explore and develop computational capabilities “with greater sophistication, autonomy, intelligence, and assurance for addressing dynamic mission requirements imposed by Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) and Cyber applications and size, weight, and power (SWaP) constrained Air Force Platforms,” according to the call for white papers.

Of particular interest is emerging tech that offers “revolutionary computational capabilities which enable greater system adaptability, autonomy, and intelligence while improving information availability throughout the C4ISR enterprise. This includes high performance embedded computing that supports on-board processing using advanced machine learning applications, robust and secure machine learning technology to strengthen and defend military applications of artificial intelligence and machine learning, non-conventional neuromorphic systems and applications, tools to increase the productivity of developing applications, methods and architectures that can provide dramatic improvements in the performance/cost of systems,” the BAA states.

For nanocomputing, the lab is looking for ways to overcome the limitations of today’s semiconductor tech.

“Currently, the competitive advantages of nanocomputing cannot be realized with current CMOS technologies and novel architectures. Only with new, CMOS compatible materials and devices that enhance and/or complement existing nanoelectronics will acceleration of nanocomputing occur. The objective of this research is to explore current and emerging nanoelectronics for information processing towards novel bio-inspired computing architectures that utilize ultra-low consumed power,” according to the solicitation.

Potential applications of the technology could include autonomous systems and neuron-electronic bio-interfaces, according to AFRL.

Efforts related to neuromorphic computing and machine learning are geared toward enhancing knowledge and development of “computationally intelligent systems towards increased perception, adaptability, resiliency, and autonomy for energy efficient, agile” Air and Space Forces platforms.

In this regard, AFRL is interested in the utilization of advancements in computational neuroscience, nanoelectronics, nanophotonics, high-performance computing, and material science.

Another area of focus for the anticipated work is “embedded deep learning and the trade space of accuracy vs. computing resources as typical deep neural networks are pushed to low size, weight, and power embedded devices.”

R&D for “trusted and robust” machine learning capabilities that are resilient to “perturbations” in input data and secured against digital attacks from potential enemies, is also expected to be part of the initiative.

Additional applications for the tech could include pattern recognition and signature analysis, autonomous adaptive operations, human-machine collaboration, neural control of complex systems, in situ training of neuromorphic hardware, and online learning in neural networks, per the BAA.

AFRL recommends vendors submit white papers by Oct. 4 for opportunities aligned with funding for fiscal 2024.

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What often gets lost in the spotlight is the hard but essential work of integrating these breakthrough developments into the fabric of existing technologies — and reimagining entirely new ways of creating and delivering value for the federal government and businesses.

We’ve seen that firsthand with 5G. There are many reasons why the commercial release of 5G represents a significant breakthrough over the wireless protocols that came before it.  5G made it possible to deliver data faster, with higher bandwidth and lower latency between devices and servers for edge computing services. Such breakthroughs enable next-generation technologies such as smart mobility, autonomous vehicles, and AR/VR training to the advancement of operations for smart manufacturing, facilities, military bases, ports, the continual growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) and more.

While 5G is now familiar to most of us, its promise, as some people see it, is still taking shape. It was easy to explain how 5G would allow users to download their favorite movie in seconds — or up to 100 times faster than 4G. What’s been harder to appreciate is not only the massive infrastructure investment required to make 5G a reality but also the fact that the 5G device ecosystem is continually evolving and being developed. The same is true for applications that must be developed and integrated with existing systems before 5G becomes genuinely transformational.

The real value of 5G isn’t just about high-capacity data downloads, though that’s a great benefit. Instead, it’s in the power and potential of real-time remote data capture, analysis and decision-making that organizations are on the threshold of achieving that wasn’t possible before 5G.

Among the many organizations that understand that, and are investing accordingly, is the Department of Defense. Thomas Rondeau, the principal director for FutureG and 5G in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, articulated better than most what 5G represents at a recent Defense Talks summit, where he said:

“One thing we want to make clear when it comes to 5G — and everything that’s going to be based off of where we are with 5G — is that it’s not just another transport layer,” he told an audience of government and defense IT leaders. “It is that edge computing. It’s the local compute. It’s computing through the network. It’s not just tying things together; it’s part of the entire compute fabric.”

Rondeau made two critical points in that regard: One was recognizing the need to integrate 5G into DOD’s existing infrastructure. 5G isn’t simply about having a more efficient pipeline for delivering data. It’s about what 5G can accomplish by expanding the capabilities of the military’s many existing systems.

The other point was, “How do we actually bring our infrastructure to the field?” And the key to that objective is taking advantage of software-defined Radio Access Network (RAN) technology and software-defined networking in ways that can ultimately create interoperable connections among 5G networking components.

Consider the data streaming to command-and-control centers from sensors and surveillance devices worn by warfighters moving toward a target or from transponders attached to materials and parts moving through supply lines. DOD sees 5G and the power of mobile edge computing (MEC) as the glue that can hold — and link — its communications networking and situational awareness together. That capability, and the ability to communicate across all domains and with allied partners, is central to DOD’s Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) strategy.

There are still a lot of questions and development work that need to be considered as DOD looks at harnessing 5G and future-G technologies: Questions like, how do we enable innovation by leveraging existing infrastructures and radio spectrum? And how do we do it securely in CONUS and across the globe?

We’re working diligently with DOD and other federal agencies, as well as all of the standards bodies and other vendors, to address these critical questions, not only to support DOD’s mission but to protect consumers as well.

So yes, the promise of 5G is on a continual growth path from when it became part of the mainstream conversation, but the promise is unfolding in ways that are already revolutionizing enterprises as large as the Department of Defense.

Learn more about how Verizon can help the DOD capitalize on the power of 5G and mobile edge computing.

The post How 5G and mobile computing-at-the-edge are revolutionizing DOD’s future appeared first on DefenseScoop.

Defense Department platforms that underpin multi-domain operations rely on sensors that capture huge volumes of data about equipment and their operating environments. While edge computing solutions enable real-time sensor data processing near the source and the ability to generate insights from what’s captured at various connectivity levels, fog computing assets mediate between data and the cloud where it is processed for different purposes, like for data filtering or management. 

Both types of computing capabilities are of particular interest to the DOD — especially as the department moves to implement its nascent concept for Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2), which aims to better connect the U.S. military’s sensors, shooters and networks to enable faster and more effective decision-making.

“The DOD needs transformational computing technologies to increase on-board data analytics, limit communications latency and cost, increase human situational awareness and enable adaptive decisions, and provide energy efficient computing and architectures for data collection and processing,” officials wrote in a recently published Fog and Edge Computing Needs Statement. “Additionally, the DOD needs collaborative computing and cutting-edge networking for fusion of multi-spatial, multi-signal, and multi-reports.”

This fall, the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Capability Prototypes Office and Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Transformational Capabilities Office will jointly host a virtual meeting explicitly focused on fog and edge computing, officials announced in the document. Representatives from select companies will get a chance to make short technical presentations during that meeting to inform DOD officials about existing or in-development products that could bolster defense computing efforts or fill existing gaps. 

“There is a potential for companies to be selected for pilot projects or experimentation if their technology [matches] DOD’s needs,” according to the needs statement.

Businesses interested in participating in the meeting must submit applications digitally to the Pentagon by Aug. 10 for consideration.

In the needs statement, Defense officials offered details about the specific areas they are investigating to potentially apply fog and edge computing in new ways. 

They noted that fog and edge technologies present both “opportunities and challenges” to Human Computer Interface, a category of interest that focuses on the design of computer technology to facilitate interaction between computers and human users — in ways that result in enhanced performance. Officials are eyeing solutions that “sense and adapt” to users’ cognitive, physiological and physical states, tasks and local environments. Among other features, officials want to look into assets that can provide automatic and interpretable explanations of certain data.

Other capabilities highlighted in the needs statement include “energy efficient computing and architectures for data collection/processing,” and “collaborative computing, fusion and networking” that “focuses on combining signals, features, data, and information across the network to enable decision-making across all echelons at the speed of conflict.”

Additionally, officials want to explore advances in networking, approaches, equipment, artificial intelligence and machine learning to drive “sensing and sense-making at the edge.”

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The company was selected for a Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project to help the Space Force fully unleash machine learning within its OSAM-aligned production environments, according to an announcement published Tuesday.

OSAM enables the building or repair of systems and components at the operational edge, on orbit. While predictive algorithms to support such processes can be built virtually anywhere on Earth, operationalizing those machine learning models in space is necessary to maximize their value.

“The whole point of this for them is to get to outcomes faster across a whole range of use cases,” Wallaroo CEO and founder Vid Jain told FedScoop in an interview on Monday prior to the announcement.

He explained that the enterprise platform his company has developed “facilitates the last mile of the machine learning journey.” In transportation, the last mile typically refers to the last leg of a process that moves people or goods from a specific hub to a final destination. 

“There’s all this incredible potential [for AI], but only in around 10% of use cases or examples do people realize it — and one of the big stumbling blocks is exactly that last mile,” Jain said. 

Most “machine learning journeys,” as he referred to them, begin with capturing, aggregating and cleaning data from multiple sources. Once that data is in good shape and usable, the next step is developing algorithms and models that identify patterns in it, assign probabilities, and then predict something based on that information. From there, the model needs to be integrated into existing product workflows.

“That turns out to be much harder than people expect — and then once you get that working, the reality of it is your data changes” over time, Jain noted. For that reason and others, adjustments need to be made continuously to keep up with altering patterns of data as they and the network evolve. 

“We’re focused on that. We’re focused on helping the machine learning and AI teams get their models into production, get them running very efficiently, giving them the tools to monitor the models and understand how effective they are, and giving them tools to quickly change and update the models as they need changing,” he added. 

The Air Force and several Fortune 500 companies already lean on the company’s platform, but this is the first time Wallaroo is working directly with SpaceWERX and its parent organization.

“The mission of the [Space Force] is to organize, train and equip Guardians to conduct global space operations that enhance the way our joint and coalition forces fight, while also offering decision-makers military options to achieve national objectives,” SpaceWERX Director for Science, Technology and Research Joel Mozer said in a statement. “To do this effectively, we must invest in AI and ML capabilities that can be deployed in the cloud at the edge. Wallaroo has demonstrated their AI/ML Enterprise Platform, and I believe this platform — with its uniquely modern, interoperable, and integrated architecture — is positioned exceptionally well to deliver game-changing capabilities” to the Space Force.

Executed in collaboration with Catalyst Campus (CCTI), the project could involve use cases spanning satellite life extension, on-orbit refueling, active debris removal, predictive maintenance, and the reuse of materials to underpin manufacturing in space, according to Jain.

“It’s an enabling technology that allows you to be bolder, allows you to do things you couldn’t do before,” he said. 

Wallaroo was launched in 2017 with support from investors that aimed to accelerate dual-use technologies for both the government and commercial sectors. In working with the Air Force and others more recently, Jain said he’s witnessed federal agencies increasingly become more strategically data-driven. 

“I think when we were looking at the topics that we were interested in about two years ago, machine learning was not as prominent. It was basically more data foundation-level. I think what’s changed in the last six months is we’re seeing a lot more requests — whether it’s Space Force, the U.S. military or even other parts of the government — we’re seeing a lot more around, ‘Hey, I’ve got some data scientists and I’ve got data, now what do I do?’” he said. “Which is where we come in. And so I think that’s only going to accelerate and I think there’s so many different use cases that we can help.”

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Artificial intelligence and space technology are critical for enabling the Pentagon’s vision of Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2), among other modernization efforts.

“Fundamentally, I would like to use edge-based devices to do most of our AI compute,” Lisa Costa, chief technology and innovation officer for the Space Force, said Monday during a panel at the virtual Space Innovation Summit.

“Now you have to remember that most assets that we’ve put up into space don’t have the storage nor the compute power [to do that], so you still have to move that data to algorithms. But I would like to not have to do it on the ground and then have to, you know, move everything up” into space, she said.

Lindsay Millard, principal director for space in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, said AI and machine learning are a “huge priority” for the R&E directorate.

“What we’re looking at is … how do we balance compute on the ground versus compute at the edge. And what I mean by that is what do we [do to] leverage our incredible cloud architectures that we have on the ground to inform what is a relatively miniscule amount of compute power that we have right now on orbit,” she said.

“Trusting our ability to flash an FPGA [field programmable gate array] on orbit and not have that bricked … is also something that we’re looking at,” she added. “What is the balance between what we do on the ground versus on orbit, and how do we make sure that we can accurately update that on orbit if our mission changes for particular satellites?”

Costa said more work needs to be done to figure out the right balance.

Tackling that problem will help the Department of the Air Force as it pursues an Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS), which is the Air Force and Space Force’s contribution to Joint All-Domain Command and Control.

Communication and data transport between satellites — and between satellites, aircraft and ground systems — will be critical for that initiative.

As the Pentagon seeks to leverage algorithms in space, it needs to make sure satellites have sufficient edge-computing capability and new software code can be uploaded rapidly, Air Force Chief Information Officer Lauren Knausenberger noted.

“You have the modern space companies really thinking through this,” she said. “How can I make sure that my satellite is really well-equipped, not just for the capability that I know it needs to have today, but for that capability that it might need in a couple of weeks? How do I push code rapidly?”

For example, SpaceX’s Starlink has been agile in upgrading its systems during the Ukraine-Russia war in response to Russian attempts to jam its signals, she noted.

Costa wants the Space Force to leverage the digital “infrastructure” that the commercial sector is building.

“I don’t expect DOD to be at the forefront of putting infrastructure into space” when it comes to things like cloud computing and storage and other technology that enables “really computationally heavy AI in space” without having to download data to ground stations, she said. “I want to take advantage of industry’s investment in putting infrastructure into space.”

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The initial focus will be on making integrated circuit chips customized for tri-service munitions.

Cooperative research and development agreements (CRADAs) are vehicles that enable federal entities to combine resources and engage in R&D with non-government institutions to unlock breakthroughs around topics of shared interest. Such agreements aren’t new, but a CRADA signed this week between the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (CCDC) Armaments Center and the National Armaments Consortium (NAC) has multiple elements that make it unique.

“We sat down with [Army officials from the CCDC Armaments Center at their headquarters] in Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey, with their technology transfer office. We’ve done some CRADAs in the past, but as we were brainstorming, we thought, ‘What if we could create a master CRADA?’” NAC Executive Director Charlie Zisette told FedScoop in an interview on Friday.

CRADAs offer a variety of benefits for government, industry and academic organizations involved, like access to laboratory facilities and equipment, and flexible intellectual property and licensing options to push forward innovation. But Zisette noted one challenge associated with these agreements is that “they are a legal document — even though no money is exchanged, it is a contractually binding agreement, if you will. And if you’re a nontraditional [contractor], and you’ve never done anything like this,” they can be difficult to navigate.

“What we did as a consortium is we went and hammered out all of the terms and conditions, through our contracts and our legal [resources], through the Army’s contracts and their legal, and created a base agreement that would ensure to protect all of our members as well as the government. That kind of sets the stage for doing all that hard work upfront,” he explained.

This newly signed “master” CRADA allows for all of NAC’s more than 970 member organizations — of which more than 80% are nontraditional defense contractors and academic institutions — to participate in different statements of work, or “annexes,” anticipated to be released by the CCDC Armaments Center.

The way Zisette puts it, each impending annex can be thought of as an addendum to the CRADA. Essentially, the plan is that when the Department of Defense has a fresh armaments-related problem statement down the line, the consortium can quickly send it out to about 4,500 people who are on its list of almost 1,000 members. 

Those interested can then sign the annex, “and then it’s off to the races,” Zisette said.

While CRADAs are often between one specific government laboratory and non-governmental organization, another notable aspect of this agreement, according to Zisette, is that other Pentagon-affiliated laboratories besides the CCDC can sign on. And a Navy component already has.

“Now, it’s kind of a pilot, right? Because the Army has never done this, and so we all agreed — let’s get it started,” Zisette said. “We’ll take this as our first thing, and if this works, then anybody can use this CRADA.”

Under the first annex of this master agreement, the CCDC Armaments Center is set to work with the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division and a number of NAC members to develop and refine an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) that is broadly compatible with tri-service munitions.

Due to the sensitive nature of the topic, Zisette noted that he couldn’t go into great detail about the technology the participants aim to innovate. But, speaking generally, he offered some context.

“Smart weapons are critical to what we do, right, and part of being smart is not just maybe in guidance and control, or GPS and navigation — but it’s also in knowing exactly what my target is, and when and how I need to put effects on the target,” Zisette said. 

He brought up a variety of conflict scenarios, like needing to “take a group of vehicles out, versus I have a hardened and deeply buried target where I need to go all the way into the ground.”

This envisioned ASIC, according to Zisette, “becomes the computer chip or the computer set that allows us to have the intelligence onboard to address multiple and complex targets, and allows us to do it right the first time, every time.” 

He added: “And that’s really important because what we don’t want to do is create an individual munition for every single thing we’ve got to do.”

Those collaborating ultimately intend to help pave the way for versatile and smart weapons.

“Since we have this technology, in terms of computational capability and integrated circuitry, we now can have that intelligence onboard and we can allow that intelligence to make those decisions, obviously, through our programming and communications, with the weapon. And that is hugely powerful,” Zisette said.

Verified NAC members interact via a secure common platform. The consortium is accepting new members interested in cooperating for this and potential future projects. Barriers to entry are pretty low, Zisette noted, but it is restricted to only U.S. companies. 

“Much of everything we do at a minimum is controlled unclassified information. Many of the projects we do, of course, are classified,” he explained. “It isn’t that we can’t use foreign technology, and we encourage foreign technology, but they end up being like a subcontractor.”

Although it’s tough to put timelines on innovation, Zisette said the technology is fairly well understood, so he’s optimistic that outcomes from the CRADA will be seen in the next year or so.

“We all know exactly all of the inputs that the Army in this case needs to have, and the Navy, so that they can start to shape their basic architecture and the requirements, and be able then to take that as a package and come back out to industry and say, ‘Okay, we’re ready for primetime. Let’s go do some real scale-up, prototyping and discovery from there,’” Zisette said. “I wish things were like super fast, but we are dealing with weapon systems.”

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