ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. (Dec. 15, 2014) -- The Australian Army G6 visited the U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center, Dec. 9, as part of initial coordination efforts leading up to his military's participation in the Network Integration Evaluation.
Col. James Murray, director of Enabling Systems Development, toured CERDEC facilities and explored opportunities for collaboration going forward.
"For me, this is essentially my initial planning conference to start the Australian Army road to NIE 17.1 in 2016. Establishing those personal relationships and connections between counterparts is really important," Murray said.
This will be the first time that the Australian Army has participated in NIE; to date, the United Kingdom is the only coalition partner that has participated.
"More and more, we are conducting operations as a multi-national coalition force. Collaborative R&D efforts will help to strengthen these relationships by learning each other's requirements and understanding the path of technical development that both forces are pursuing," said Col. Mark T. Stiner, CERDEC military deputy.
The Australian Army is digitizing its battlefield communications, both in the tactical radio space and battle management systems; NIE will be the first major opportunity to test the interoperability of these systems in an operational setting with coalition partners from the U.S. and the U.K.
"We've asked for support from CERDEC to do some testing so we can tweak things as necessary before we bring the technologies to NIE 17.1," said Lt. Col. Matthew Kitchin, Australian foreign liaison officer to CERDEC.
"Col. Murray, who is the Army sponsor for the project, is delivering that equipment, so he has a vested interest in meeting and greeting the people that will be helping with the testing and have a clear understanding of the requirements so he can manage the project through that process," Kitchin said.
These include systems ranging from battalion to platoon echelon tool suites for C2, SA and targeting, to enhanced deployed local area network systems and new tactical SATCOM narrow-band and wide-band systems.
CERDEC is the NIE's designated organization for all lab-based/field-based assessments and risk reduction for candidate technologies hoping to participate in NIE.
"Working military to military R&D allows you often to go deeper into your research without commercial concerns and considerations. So with military to military R&D sharing you can share lessons learned as partners about operational procedures and about the unique employment of technology in military circumstance, which sometimes the commercial and industry providers won't have that depth of knowledge and understanding," Murray said.
Though this marked the first visit by the Australian Army G6 to CERDEC, it is a continuation of a broader collaboration between the Australian Defense forces and the U.S. Army to improve interoperability during multi-national coalition operations.
"Coalition interoperability is essential and that continues to be demonstrated across real-world operations. Even now as we reinvest our commitments into Iraq together, it's absolutely fundamental that we're able to interoperate at the tactical and operational levels, so everything we can do with interoperability to continue to improve it can only be good for our Soldiers," Murray said.
-----
The Communications-Electronics Research Development and Engineering Center is part of the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, which has the mission to develop technology and engineering solutions for America's Soldiers.
RDECOM is a major subordinate command of the U.S. Army Materiel Command. AMC is the Army's premier provider of materiel readiness--technology, acquisition support, materiel development, logistics power projection and sustainment--to the total force, across the spectrum of joint military operations. If a Soldier shoots it, drives it, flies it, wears it, eats it or communicates with it, AMC provides it.
Related Links:
U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command
Social Sharing