ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND (APG), Maryland – To keep pace with the speed of technology advancement and evolving battlefield threats, the Army is turning to the source of rapid innovation–industry--for network and command and control transformation.
During its latest Technical Exchange Meeting, TEM 14, on May 30, Army experimentation and acquisition leaders highlighted the urgent need for industry involvement in the evolution of Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2) – the heart of the service’s network and C2 transformation efforts.
NGC2 leverages rapid progress in commercial technology to provide a data-centric C2 architecture across all warfighting functions, increasing the competitive advantage against sophisticated adversaries and enhancing readiness for future battlefields.
“NGC2 very much remains not just a suite of technology that is going to make our warfighters better, more effective, more able to make rapid decisions…but it’s also the institutional changes that are really necessary to sustain this going forward,” said Mr. Joe Welch, deputy to the commanding general for Army Futures Command (AFC). “We're taking a different approach from an institutional perspective, as well requirements, resourcing, acquisition and contracting, and we're well underway on that. Technology changes very rapidly. The threat changes very rapidly. We're going to continue to be looking for new solutions.”
Maj. Gen. Patrick Ellis, director of the AFC Command and Control Cross-Functional Team (C2 CFT), and Brig. Gen. Kevin Chaney, acting Program Executive Officer Command, Control, Communications, and Network (PEO C3N), supported by Army stakeholders and operational units, hosted the hybrid TEM 14 event for industry partners attending onsite at APG and virtually. The theme “Delivering Warfighters the Tools and Means for Decision Dominance” set the foundation of several topic areas including NGC2, multinational interoperability, Modular Open Systems Architecture (MOSA), and updates to current and future contract opportunities.
“It's all about the data, and data equals commanders making decisions; and those commanders may be U.S. commanders, they may be U.K., they may be Aussie commanders,” Chaney said. “At the end of the day, it needs to be shareable data across the board, so that our commanders can get inside that decision making process and execute faster than our enemies.”
During TEM 14, leaders provided insights based on NGC2 experimentation at Project Convergence Capstone 5 (PC C5) and discussed the Army’s process to assess and integrate capabilities into the continually evolving NGC2 architecture.
NGC2 will provide multiple iterative and competitive opportunities for vendors and vendor teams to contribute to a full stack of technology across a modular ecosystem of apps, data infrastructure, software, and hardware.
“We're doing a hybrid contracting approach, so we're reducing some risk as we leverage the momentum from PC C5 going forward, but this is going to be a competition,” Chaney said. “There's going to be other contracts out there, and so we'd like to see truly who's best-of-breed as we go forward and use PC C6 as kind of the culmination of this prototyping phase and then pivot into developing kit and getting out to other formations and continuing to iterate.”
Following more than a year of rapid operational feedback from multiple divisions and brigades as part of the Army’s Transformation in Contact initiative, the Army continues to refine technologies to keep pace with the evolving battlefield. The Army is at the pivot point from C2 Fix solutions for the current fight, to a “clean slate” full-stack NGC2 approach for future large scale combat operations.
“A common data source is critical,” Ellis said. “We've got to get rid of those boxes and stove pipes and get that data in a location where commanders and the warfighters can make decisions about what data they need at different points in the fight. We need to build a network that's very capable to do that for them.”
Part of that equation includes high throughput, low latency, and multi-orbit, multi-frequency network transport that can withstand enemy threats in the most austere and contested environments. This transport diversity will enhance network resiliency and “synthesize data feeds so they're immediately accessible and usable for the commander at the point of need.” Transfer of different Primary, Alternate, Contingency and Emergency (PACE) communications options will be automatic and seamless to the user; edge hardware and software solutions will be simple and intuitive, taking the cognitive load off of Soldiers across all segments of warfighting systems. The Army and industry will continue to mature NGC2 to provide a sophisticated network that can adapt to threats and prioritize the most important data at echelon, said COL(P) Michael Kaloostian, the next director for C2-CFT, AFC.
To support the delivery of NGC2 capability, the Army is using a persistent experimentation pathway that is now transitioning to rapid prototyping with the Soldiers who are actually going to use the equipment. The service has assigned C2 Fix technologies, and soon NGC2, to select units to have them provide feedback continually as they leverage the capabilities in large scale field training exercises and potentially real-world missions, Ellis said.
During the NGC2 opening panel, Lt. Col. Tad Coleman, commander of the 2nd Battalion, 37th Armor Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, emphasized that today’s multi-domain battlefield covers large distances, is continually contested and extremely complex, and Soldier and command post survivability remains a constant concern. He highlighted significant capability, data flow, and data relevance improvements when employing NGC2 during PC C5 at the National Training Center (NTC), Fort Irwin, California, compared to previous NTC rotations using legacy capabilities.
“I didn't have the problem of distance and data,” Coleman said. “I was able to use [NGC2 capabilities] to help visualize, describe, and direct the battlefield. The data was coming in quick enough that it actually could help me make some of the decisions that I needed to make.”
“[Data] was coming fast enough, and it crossed a longer distance than I ever had before, from multiple locations at the same time, which really changed my ability to actually get into the enemy's decision-making process,” he said.
MULTINATIONAL INTEROPERABILTIY
During TEM 14, Army and allied leaders also emphasized the need for network and C2 interoperability with multi-national partners, whose C2 challenges on future battlefields often mirror those of the U.S. Leaders agreed that coalition interoperability with common shareable data needs to be baked into NGC2 from the very beginning, which will be more cost effective and make it easier to on-ramp new technologies as they evolve while keeping allies connected throughout.
“Partnerships are all about communication and trust,” Chaney said. “I think it's key as we go forward that we continue those [allied] partnerships that allow us to be on the same sheet of music. We’re sharing lessons learned…we’re working hand-in-hand…and we're coming up with creative solutions for mission partner environments. We’ve got to have some commonality, and we’ve got to be creative, and we’ve got to be innovative. And that's where industry really can help us out.”
MODULAR OPEN SYSTEMS ARCHITECTURE (MOSA)
For the third major topic of the TEM, Army stakeholders discussed their search for the right balance of standardization to be able to rapidly integrate emerging C2 hardware and software capability into its ground combat and aviation platforms at the speed of technology, to gain and maintain decisive overmatch.
As the problem and solution space have continued to evolve with technology, the Army is working with industry to align MOSA standards and processes to the accelerated technology refresh cycle.
“We've got a lot of platforms. Historically, it's taken a long time to get things integrated into them,” Welch said. “I’m very enthusiastic about CMOSS and the standards work that the team’s done, but we need to check in and get feedback and see where we can have things easier for you…Are we hitting the mark from our Modular Open Systems Approach? Are we striking the right balance between standardization and enabling industry's ability to innovate?”
COMMERCIAL INNOVATION
Getting the NGC2 modular and open approach right from the onset will be key and the Army’s new transformation culture will help enable that, Chaney said, describing a culture where lessons learned are rapidly implemented to continually enhance capability and how it is used on the battlefield. In addition, Ellis highlighted that the Army will ensure requirement documents are more broadly written based on capability gaps, so not to hyper-specify requirements that could lock the Service into single boxed-in solutions.
As the day closed, both agreed that industry innovation will remain at the core of Army C2 transformation.
“Commercial industry is moving fast. We need to move fast, and our requirements give us that flexibility,” Chaney said. “We have to change how we're doing business…. If you have a good idea, give it to us and let us see it, and then we may be able to action off it…We've got a lot of great solutions; we're going to try to figure out ways to get them out there.”
The Army will conduct TEM 15 in December 2025.
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