MORE BANG FOR GOVERNMENT BUCKS


IN-HOUSE DEVELOPMENT A forward-firing miniature munition, known as Spike, is loaded on a rail launcher developed by ARDEC for a recent counter-unmanned aerial vehicle demonstration on the land range at the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division in China Lake, CA. When RDECOM develops a system or technology, the government owns the intellectual property—and can use it to design and procure new systems with common software or hardware that can be reused. (U.S. Navy photo)


reduce development time and save money. In comparison, to use outside contractors to develop all the MFCS variants would cost considerably more and extend the time it takes to develop and field systems. While the government can send out a technical data package using already developed, government-owned IP, a con- tractor would have to spend time and money getting up to speed. In addition, contractors often prefer to develop pro- prietary systems, using their own IP; they then have the option to reuse it them- selves, lowering their overhead costs, and the maintenance and upgrades to a pro- prietary system often offer the possibility of future work. More than one contractor might be involved, increasing adminis- trative costs, at the very least.


Conversely, ARDEC has the institutional knowledge to get a system fielded quickly. Figure 1 on Page 54 depicts the cost and schedule avoidance achieved by numer- ous programs in ARDEC’s Weapons and Software Engineering Center through the reuse of both hardware and software.


HOWITZER HARDWARE REUSE


U.S. paratroopers load a M777A2 howitzer during a live-fire exercise at the Joint Multinational Training Command’s Grafenwoehr Training Area in Germany in April. Exploiting software and hardware commonalities keeps development and maintenance costs low and allows the Army to field weapon systems faster. (U.S. Army photo by Markus Rauchenberger)


THE HARDWARE ANGLE Common hardware components are used across several of the systems, and new components are introduced with back- ward compatibility. Identical MFCS software is used in the M113 (MFCS Heavy), Stryker and Dismounted 120mm Mortar Fire Control System, which has the capability to function in either a gun- or fire-direction-center mode with a simple user command. Te weapon system software can also be used for computer-based trainers, which lowers the cost of training Soldiers on the system since the identical software and associated updates apply to both.


Figure 2 on Page 55 depicts the percentage of software and hardware reused during the development of the Picatinny Light


56


Army AL&T Magazine October-December 2015


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