PROBLEM SET
“Now, that’s what the challenges are about … capabilities that you get by taking a technology, and another technology, and maybe another technology, and com- bining them and demonstrating them together so that you’ve got a solution rather than a ‘widget’ or a partial solution.”
For instance, the problem of force protec- tion poses at least three specific challenges:
• It takes too long and too much man- power to deploy, set up, protect, sustain, and relocate combat outposts and patrol bases.
SOLDIERS AT THE CENTER
SSG Bert Finland, 56th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, checks his headset radio in a Stryker vehicle before patrolling in Taji, north of Baghdad, Iraq. The Army’s focus in new vehicle designs is increasingly the Soldier, to ensure optimum operability. (U.S. Army photo by SGT Doug Roles.)
The TECD process is essentially the spear- head activity to validate and/or identify issues with the new S&T business model. The TECD focus is on providing a near- term, integrated, advanced-development capability intended for transition, but this top-down business model remains valid for mid-term and far-term efforts as well. The problem set is enduring, and advanced solutions enabled by less mature technologies and new technology applica- tions will evolve from the seeds of Applied and Basic Research activities—the 6.2 and 6.1 programs, respectively. The TECD approach provides capability, whereas the ATO’s focus is on individual technical objectives that have to be integrated later to provide an operational capability.
Defining the most pressing problems for Army S&T to address set the stage for Army leadership in early July to approve top S&T priorities for the FY14 Program Objective
78 Army AL&T Magazine
Memorandum (POM), Freeman said. In prior years, S&T decision-making tended to trail the POM process.
In the coming year, Freeman plans to focus the Basic Research program bet- ter on what Army problems need to be addressed for longer-term investment. The program tends to look either for breakthroughs that can be exploited rap- idly or for technologies that could solve problems in 10 to 20 years.
SEEKING RESULTS The June workshop was not just about problems, Freeman said; it was also about delivering specific solutions within two to three years.
The seven problem areas (see sidebar on Page 81) are generic, she noted. “The question is, what’s the S&T community going to do about them?
• Current gear, clothing, and other protective measures do not provide ade- quate protection against the varied and complex spectrum of threats encoun- tered by Soldiers in small units without adding significant mobility challenges.
• Vehicles are designed to put Soldiers in rather than designing vehicles around Soldiers. Increasing the platforms’ pro- tection levels makes them heavier and affects the interior spaces, reducing mobility, maneuverability, and freedom of movement.
“Why do we think S&T can help solve these problems? The answer is, there are a number of enablers that have been worked on for quite a while,” Freeman said. “In this case, there are deployable force pro- tection technologies, there’s robotics to do labor-intensive tasks, there’s rapid inser- tion and pre-fab shelters we could use, there’s sensor-to-shooter combinations… things that we could bring together that typically are developed separately.”
Ultimately, those technologies must be integrated to produce concrete, measur- able results, she said. In the case of force protection and basing, an S&T program is called for that will reduce the number of Soldiers needed to set up a combat outpost or a patrol base and will protect against
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