Project Convergence was designed to aggressively advance and integrate the Army’s contributions to the Joint Force. DEVCOM was a leading member of the team of teams that executed PC 20 at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona in September 2020. More than 100 DEVCOM scientists, engineers, technicians and analysts took technologies they were working on out of the lab and into the dirt to work side-by-side with Soldiers who provided feedback about developmental technologies at PC 20. Gathering Soldier feedback in a realistic combat environment is critical to informing DEVCOM’s Soldier-Centered Design and Experimentation.
DEVCOM will conduct more than 200 Soldier touch points in 2021 to help advance technologies that Soldiers will need to fight and win. Getting S&T in the dirt, and experimentation overall, is an essential step to address the critical needs of the future Army. History has shown that experimentation can lead to extraordinary innovations including breakthroughs that are the result of combining different solutions that had never been combined or shown to Soldiers. Fostering this type of environment is key to pushing innovation that will empower the joint force on the hyperactive battlefields of 2035 and beyond.
DEVCOM demonstrated more than 20 potential technology solutions during PC 20, including FIRES Synchronization To Optimize Responses, or FIRESTORM. FIRESTORM significantly increases Soldier lethality and survivability by leveraging algorithms to speed decision-making, planning, coordination and communication involved from when a target is identified to when a fire mission is executed. FIRESTORM provides Soldiers with information from the top down and bottom up to support the rapid execution of fires.
Collecting and analyzing data was a key part of the PC 20 campaign of learning. The DEVCOM team collected data from three installations spread out over 1,000 miles. The vast amount of data collected during PC 20 will support AI development efforts for PC 21 and beyond.
The Army is using information gathered from PC 20 to improve this year’s PC 21 exercise, which will focus on joint interoperability with the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps in an INDOPACOM focused vignette. One of the key challenges in the joint fight will be the ability to rapidly and continuously converge effects across all domains – air, land, sea, space and cyberspace – through sensors, weapons, communications capabilities and data sharing on a single network.
DEVCOM is leveraging its Joint Systems Integration Lab at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, which serves as its primary System of Systems lab-based test environment where industry partners and DoD S&T experts can integrate and evaluate network components before they are used in field-based experiments. The JSIL currently has more than 70 Cooperative Research and Development Agreements with industry partners that work together to reduce risk for experiments and inform the Army on critical investment decisions.
PC is DEVCOM’s largest Soldier-Centered Design and Experimentation exercise and a critical part of the Army’s campaign of learning. The Soldier feedback gathered from PC and other experiments enables DEVCOM to develop capabilities to modernize the Army and provide transformational capabilities for the future force.