THE SQUAD AS AN INTEGRATED PLATFORM
M
odernizing to achieve overmatch against poten- tial current and future adversaries is one of the Army’s top priorities, and is essential for the Army to respond to potential threats identified
in the 2018 National Defense Strategy. By focusing on the squad as an integrated combat platform, the Army has positioned itself to enhance close combat capability, from partnering with indus- try to developing more technologically advanced equipment for Soldiers. Te foundation to establish this integrated approach is the adaptive squad architecture (ASA), which henceforth will be the basis for all close combat squad capability priorities.
Te architecture is being developed in close collaboration between the Program Executive Office (PEO) for Soldier and the Soldier Lethality Cross-Functional Team by applying a system-of-systems engineering approach to the squad. Treating it as an integrated combat platform is similar to what we do with air and ground combat platforms. Te architecture addresses a key goal of the Close Combat Lethality Task Force based in the Office of the Secretary of Defense: to “develop, evaluate, recommend, and implement improvements to U.S. squad-level infantry combat formations in order to ensure close combat overmatch … against pacing threats and strengthen the combat, lethality, survivabil- ity, resiliency, and readiness of infantry squads.”
Adaptive squad architecture “is a set of tools and processes that will offer the requirements developers, science and technology community and materiel developers the ability to regard the squad as a platform and develop equipment toward that goal,” said Kathleen Gerstein, assistant program executive officer for Futures and Integration within PEO Soldier. ASA provides three essential functions: identification of interfaces, quantitative
assessment of new capabilities and system-level configuration management.
“By definition, an architecture is a unifying or coherent form or structure that is used to build to a standard,” said John Howell, adaptive squad architecture lead. “ASA is two software tools [the Architectural Assessment Tool (AAT) and the Configuration Database (CD)] that enable a number of capabilities supporting our key stakeholders. Te assessment tool will allow stakehold- ers to do integration planning in a virtual environment to see how new or existing equipment works on a Soldier and squad.
“It provides the capability of systems to work at the Soldier [or] squad level; it can determine the critical interfaces; it has the ability to maintain the latest and greatest versions for use; and it provides the ability to quantitatively predict how much more effective a squad will be with new or upgraded equipment,” Howell said.
PEO Soldier, the Soldier Lethality Cross-Functional Team and industry are partnering to develop the initial version of adaptive squad architecture in multiple phases over an 18-month period. ASA will be used to:
• Define the standards and interfaces for incorporating equip- ment in the future.
• Define approaches to centralized processing and power. • Enable wireless communications across the squad.
• Provide the tools and processes to address integration issues and more accurately identify the problems associated with Soldier load.
AFTER-ACTION REVIEW
Soldiers perform an after-action review through their IVAS devices after navigating through a shoot house. IVAS is designed to increase Soldier lethality, mobility and situational awareness by providing enhanced night and thermal vision capabilities, map displays and data collection capabilities. (Photo by PEO Soldier)
42
Army AL&T Magazine
Fall 2019
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