FIELDING THE PROTOTYPE
As with the camera system, FAST advisers actively seek out program management offices, research and engineering centers and even industry to meet established and emerging needs for U.S. Soldiers around the world. No other part of the institutional Army has such a complete network of acquisition-certified, tech- nically capable personnel in place. Tis network has the potential to deliver prototype technologies that can solve warfighter chal- lenges or have a direct, positive impact on a command’s mission capabilities.
BUILD CONSENSUS: COMMUNICATIONS WITH LIGHT Te U.S. Army Europe (USAREUR) area of operations has evolved into a rapidly changing and potentially contested envi- ronment. In his book “Te New Rules of War,” Sean McFate describes countries such as Russia that are “playing by new rules that we have not yet recognized.” McFate asserts that U.S. adver- saries take advantage of a tendency of our government to see war as “binary”—either we’re at war or we’re not—by operating below that threshold.
USAREUR has identified multiple ways that adversaries stay beneath that threshold, including interruption of communications
CUAS EFFORTS HAVE DEEP ROOTS
CCDC’s international engagement efforts are twofold: International technology centers bring the best of what international industry has to offer, and FAST teams get “shovel-ready” technology out of the labs and into the hands of Soldiers.
CCDC’s counter-unmanned aerial systems (CUAS) efforts have crossed both offices, starting back in 2013. In conjunction with the deputy assistant secretary of the Army for defense exports and coop- eration, the CCDC International Technology Center for South Korea established a project agreement on co-development of C-UAS technologies. This agreement meant that both the U.S. and South Korean defense researchers would put money and expertise on the table for a collaborative effort to develop CUAS technol- ogies that were capable, producible and interoperable.
FAST advisers actively seek out program management offices, research and engineering centers and even industry to meet established and emerging needs for U.S. Soldiers around the world. No other part of the institutional Army has such a complete network of acquisition-certified, technically capable personnel in place.
38 Army AL&T Magazine Summer 2020
Fast-forward to 2016, when the 8th Army needed assis- tance solving its “errant round” problem at Rodriguez Live Fire Complex, South Korea. There, FAST connected the dots to provide a venue for field testing of the radar component of the C-UAS project agreement, simulta- neously putting a component promised to the South Korean Agency for Defense Development for charac- terization and integration.
The DOD Coalition Warfare Program liked the CUAS project agreement enough to award funding in 2016, which has been further extended through 2020, allow- ing additional maturation.
through electronic signals disruption. Tis topic arose during USAREUR leadership engagements in 2017 and 2018, leading the USAREUR G-6 (networks, communication and informa- tion security) to initiate a search for improved communications technologies that would help resolve this emerging challenge.
In 2018, the CCDC FAST team at USAREUR queried the command’s Army Research Laboratory and C5ISR Center and returned to USAREUR with details on developmental light fidel- ity (Li-Fi) infrared wireless communications technology, capable of sending 600-plus megabits per second in inclement weather, with no residual radio frequency signature. Te USAREUR G-6 had heard about this new technology and, working hand in hand with
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