INNOVATION IS OUR SUPERPOWER
level of sophistication and scale in the future. Each of the six imperatives identified below has complex technical problems embedded in it. Tis is where collaboration among public and private organizations is vitally important in finding solutions.
• Sense farther and more persistently. • Concentrate highly lethal low-signature combat forces. • Deliver precise, longer-range fires. • Protect our forces against air, missile and drone attacks.
• Communicate and share data with ourselves and joint and coalition partners.
• Sustain the fight across contested terrain.
TECHNICAL CHALLENGES While the Army has outstanding scientists working in its research centers, I believe we need to harness a far wider circle of the science and technology community, both in government and the
private sector, to achieve the Army’s goals. It’s vital that we, in the Army, work to cast a wider net to find solutions to our challenges.
Let me outline in more detail some specific challenges we are facing and where we need help.
Autonomous systems. One area is autonomous systems, both in the air and on the ground. I want to differentiate between auton- omous systems and simply unmanned systems, which we have in great numbers today. Most of our current unmanned systems require data links for control and operation, links that are both vulnerable to a sophisticated enemy and extremely burdensome on our communications networks to maintain, especially at large scale. As a result, the smarter our unmanned systems are, the more they can do on their own without direct human control, the less vulnerable they will be to the enemy and the less demand they will put on our networks.
Tere is, of course, a huge amount of research in the private sector in this area that we certainly want to leverage.
Tactical energy. A second area where we need help is dramati- cally reducing the energy demand of our weapon systems and our platforms and, concurrently, dramatically increasing our ability to generate energy in the field. We’ve gone to war in the past with extremely large and vulnerable supply lines. Te American way of war is war through logistics. It’s one of our greatest strengths. In doing so, however, we create a vulnerability that a sophisti- cated enemy could interdict. We need less energy demand in the front, and we need more energy capacity produced at the front to dramatically shrink those supply lines.
We have near-term technology efforts underway today in areas like hybrid electric vehicles. Te Army’s climate strategy requires aggressive action, to which we are firmly committed. However, in the longer term, we need significant advances in areas like new battery chemistry, much longer lasting materials, and ruggedized solar and wind power generation to move the dial dramatically in making Army forces in the field require less energy.
POINTING THE WAY
Mauricio Martinez, assistant product manager for Laser Target Locator Module at the Program Executive Office (PEO) for Soldier, conducts a demonstration of the Laser Target Locator Module for Lt. Gen. Robert Marion, principal military deputy to the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, Oct. 6, 2022, at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. (Photo by Jason Amadi, PEO Soldier Public Affairs)
Affordable directed energy. Another area to highlight is afford- able directed energy. Here we are finally seeing, through a lot of research and many years of development, the long-discussed promise of lasers and high-powered microwave systems that can provide meaningful military capability. Tat’s the good news. Te challenge now is moving to directed-energy systems that have the promise to be affordable at scale to deal with new threats, such as swarms of drones, that are otherwise very costly
6 Army AL&T Magazine Spring 2023
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