WASHINGTON – Senior leaders from U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, or DEVCOM, discussed Building the Army of 2030, the theme of the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual meeting held October 10-12, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.
On the first day of AUSA, DEVCOM Commanding General, Maj. Gen. Edmond ’Miles’ Brown, participated in the Warriors Corner, Project Convergence 22 – A Campaign of Linked Experimentation and Learning. Project Convergence is a campaign of learning that began in 2020 and is now in its third year. It leverages a series of joint, multi-domain engagements to integrate artificial intelligence, robotics, and autonomy to improve battlefield situational awareness, connect sensors with shooters and accelerate the decision-making timeline. The Army is hosting PC22, which kicked off this month and will continue into November.
This year, the experiment will include two international partners – United Kingdom and Australia. PC22 will be a joint service, all-domain experiment that will focus on three scenarios: maritime-centric, land-centric and PC22 Technology Gateway.
The mission of PC22 Technology Gateway, which DEVCOM is spearheading, is to pull in industry partners early in the process to learn how their technologies can best be integrated into the services. The Army conducted science and technology evaluations with 53 technologies, followed by one-on-one engagements with industry partners. Some of the technologies were included in maritime-centric and land-centric experiments.
“The Army is piloting a rubric that puts sufficient rigor against each of the technologies to determine what we need to do for the Army of 2030 and the Army of 2040,” Brown said. “The takeaway from this is we now…have a pilot going for a sprint CRADA [Cooperative Research and Development Agreement], and we’ll be able to push CRADAs with our eight centers and labs inside the Combat Capabilities Development Command.”
DEVCOM will leverage the CRADAs in other experiments including the annual Network Modernization Experiment “that will continue to inform in terms of data collection analysis,” he added.
At AUSA, two of DEVCOM’s eight technology centers and laboratories – DEVCOM Armaments Center and DEVCOM Soldier Center – were part of the Army exhibit booth.
The DEVCOM Armaments Center theme was, Armaments for Decisive Lethality. The exhibit included models of the Extended Range Cannon Artillery Rate of Fire; and Small Caliber 6.8 Next Gen Family of Ammunition for the XM913 and XM915 cannons. A video of live fire test events using the technology was also displayed in the booth.
The theme of the DEVCOM Soldier Center kiosk was, Science Behind the Soldier. A few of the technologies in the exhibit included a CAMO ’aerosol’ spray paint that enables Soldiers to better blend in a new environment; a female Army Tactical Brassiere that is flame retardant and provides better comfort and support for female Soldiers; and an Integrated Head Protection System for increased Soldier protection, lethality and situational awareness.
Several DEVCOM leaders participated in round tables and Warriors Corners, including Joe Welch, director of DEVCOM Command, Control, Computers, Communications, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Center. Welch was one of the presenters in the Warriors Corner, Data Centricity at Speed and Scale. He discussed the art of the possible, or path ahead, including how C5ISR partners with industry to deliver a mobile and expeditionary Army network that will support multi-domain operations.
“We are bringing in not just our solutions but the solutions that are out there commercially to help inform how they can be tied together, and where the Army’s capabilities documents might need to point in a direction of achievable technologies so our warfighters can have these capabilities as quickly as possible,” Welch said.
Michael Cadieux, DEVCOM Ground Vehicle Systems Center director, participated in the Warriors Corner, Advancements in Next Generation Combat Vehicle Development. Cadieux discussed the importance of pulling systems and tools together into a single thread and partnering with industry to develop ground system capabilities for warfighters.
“We are starting to focus and partner with the program manager to see where there are opportunities where we can partner with folks who have been doing this for a very long time to increase the awareness and expertise among the engineers that we have, and who are the right partners who we need to engage with. So, it isn’t just individual, analytical subject matter experts but weaving it all together into a single environment,” Cadieux said.
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The U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command — DEVCOM — is home to the Army’s largest pool of civilian scientists, engineers, analysts and technicians who are the bedrock for discovering and developing the capabilities Soldiers need to deter and, when necessary, defeat current and future adversaries.
DEVCOM is a major subordinate command of Army Futures Command and, together, the Team of Teams provides the scientific and engineering expertise necessary to better integrate modernization priorities and give the Army, as part of the Joint Force, the ability to act faster and more effectively than the adversary.
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