FIELDING THE FUTURE
the Middle Eastern sun, nor have they carried an 80-pound ruck- sack across the mountains of Afghanistan at night. Additionally, requirement authors often prioritize industry’s feedback about what it can produce today, giving less consideration to a Soldier’s definition of a combat platform that has the potential to main- tain its relevance in the future. Having Soldiers provide direct and frequent feedback during every phase of development is the ideal way to define the capabilities necessary to make platforms relevant decades after their initial fielding.
After defining theoretical robotic combat vehicle requirements, the team had to evaluate these capabilities in a relevant environ- ment. We knew it had to demonstrate these capabilities to Soldiers to receive their feedback and to inform future iterations. Unfor- tunately, conducting multiple live experiments with surrogates or prototypes each year is not financially feasible. Terefore, the NGCV-CFT passed the baton to the Ground Vehicle Systems Center’s Soldier Experimental Gaming Analysis team to construct virtual experiments to assist with demonstrating the capabilities in a virtual and relevant environment.
CARRYING THE BATON
The Ripsaw M5 is a robotic combat vehicle (RCV) developed by Textron Systems and Howe & Howe Technologies Inc. This platform features an optionally tethered unmanned aerial system and a 30 mm chain gun. It will serve as the Phase II RCV (Medium) surrogate. (Photo courtesy of Textron Systems)
it to produce a vehicle today, or what was within the “realm of the possible.” Te team used this knowledge to establish the vehicle’s minimum, “must meet” requirements. Because the NGCV-CFT is building vehicles for the future, not the present, the team met with actual Soldiers and asked them to define their capability wish list, devoid of any cost, physics or other logical constraints.
Te NGCV-CFT wrote down every comment Soldiers provided, being careful not to dismiss a single idea. Many ideas failed to manifest themselves within vehicle requirements; however, allow- ing Soldiers this type of sky-is-the-limit input was invaluable for defining the program’s future objectives.
Often, and through no fault of their own, requirement authors have not recently been inside an armored vehicle roasting under
RACING VIRTUALLY Te Soldier Experimental Gaming Analysis team created virtual prototypes equipped with the capabilities and attributes defined during the NGCV-CFT’s market research efforts. Before this effort began, the Ground Vehicle Systems Center hosted numer- ous Soldier innovation workshops, during which Soldiers provided feedback about desired capabilities. Tis feedback enabled them to construct the virtual prototypes and served as critical jumping-off points for these virtual experiments.
Soldiers from across the Army traveled to Detroit to fight virtual wars and provided feedback to the Ground Vehicle Systems Center on what technology was helpful, as well as ideas for new robotic combat vehicle operating and employment techniques. Teir feedback was overwhelmingly positive, indicating that the vehicle and its current capability suite were useful, thus enabling the Ground Vehicle Systems Center to pass this analysis to the NGCV-CFT, which helped to establish a priority list of desired capabilities, ranking each capability and associated performance levels. It also helped to better define the program’s possible capa- bility trades for later phases of the procurement process.
Te team then needed feedback from those who would physically construct the vehicles. Accordingly, the team provided indus- try with its draft requirements for review and comment. Tis approach not only served as a reality check for the achievability of the Army’s desired requirements, it also enabled our industry
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