Digital assets are becoming an increasingly valuable and influential aspect of the U.S. Department of Defense’s mission. Whether it’s cybersecurity fortification, electronic warfare or cloud migration, digital transformation efforts are widespread and come with a host of reforms, new programs and reinventions of preexisting systems. Here is a guide to three major recent modernization initiatives by the U.S. Army, all centering on the growing importance placed on data.
If you’re interested in delving deep on the Army’s priorities and future plans and want the opportunity to network with top Army officials and accomplished industry members alike, register and attend Potomac Officers Club’s Aug. 1 8th Annual Army Summit. It will be held at Hilton-McLean in Virginia and include delicious breakfast and lunch spreads.
Data analytics platform: Vantage
The Army has decided to diverge from its single-vendor approach to data analytics by awarding multiple vendors contracts to build a cloud-based platform called Vantage. This platform would connect and compound a host of data points into artificial intelligence- and machine learning-based applications and would be cleared to populate on classified and unclassified networks and spaces.
Contracts to build Vantage are on track to be awarded by the end of the calendar year.
Gabe Camarillo, under secretary of the Army and its chief management officer, said Vantage performs “the part of the work that involves developing a data platform, working with the specific Army users to ingest unstructured and structured data that’s in legacy systems into a new visualization platform, and then developing it in a way that can work.” He also said the shift to the multi-vendor strategy “allows for best-in-breed industry approaches, and allows us to tailor the products for the specific use cases.”
Camarillo will be the opening keynote speaker at the Army Summit. Don’t miss his riveting remarks—register now!
New electronic warfare instruments
The Army is currently trying to balance the expanding need to be able to meet the intensifying threats on the electromagnetic spectrum where electronic warfare is waged with the physical limitations and realities of current hardware and technology, which may not offer the literal surface area to attach more capabilities.
A new methodology called the C5ISR Electronic Warfare Modular Open Suite or CMOSS of Standards has been devised to help combat the space shortage. It functions by taking communication, navigation and timing and mission planning and compressing them onto a card that is implanted into a standardized ruggedized chassis. The desired effect of this strategy is to make the Army more flexible while diminishing development cycles and mitigating equipment downtime.
“As we continue to push to an open-standards, open-architecture approach, it will really facilitate different form factors, different approaches to that hardware-software integration,” he added. “And I see a lot of investment by the Army in that direction. I think that that’s going to continue over the next few years.”
Camarillo also attested in December that he viewed a promising Multi-Function Electronic Warfare – Air Large or MFEW-AL model.
Weapons & technology sustainment
The Army is always looking for new ways to handle and potentially mitigate weapon system maintenance and sustainment costs, which constitute roughly 70 percent of a weapon’s price tag across the full lifecycle.
Their latest venture, says Christopher Lowman, assistant secretary of defense for sustainment, is the rapid sustainment execution reserve, which has been okayed by Deputy Defense Secretary and Wash100 Award winner Kathleen Hicks. This effort seeks to encourage the DOD to spend more money up-front on a procured system so that it will be both functional and less of a financial burden in the long-term.
Additionally, Lowman described data’s role in the improvement of the sustainment process, pointing toward the establishment of something called “sustainment health strategies,” which harness information in DOD databases to create more accurate readings of weapons’ needs and statuses.
“We’ve talked a lot about conditions-based maintenance over the years, and the department has done a pretty good job of sensoring platforms to record a whole host of data elements,” Lowman said. “We’re going to build on that and start focusing on the business intelligence needed at each echelon.”
Lowman will be a participant in the “How to Ensure Mission Success in the Modern Battlefield” Panel discussion at the upcoming 8th Annual Army Summit, from Potomac Officers Club. Register here now to hear his thoughts at length and join this exciting, essential event.
