FORT BELVOIR, Va. (Oct. 26, 2026) — Army research in aided target recognition is bringing greater lethality by delivering technology designed for the extreme conditions in which Soldiers fight on the battlefield.
Commercial Aided Target Recognition (AiTR) models often assume optimal conditions; however, Soldiers face combat under the most difficult settings. AiTR deployed in tactical applications must overcome challenging, degraded environments where distant targets are hidden under camouflage, often with terrain cover. The Army’s key R&D objective is enabling Soldiers to automatically detect targets faster, reducing the cognitive burden, shortening the kill chain, and engaging threats almost simultaneously as the imagery becomes available.
To close the gap between operational requirements and commercial-off-the-shelf technology, the Army’s Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C5ISR) Center is steering industry partners to develop more advanced capabilities. The importance of unmanned aerial systems is growing across the military, along with automated threat detection.
“It’s essential that we continue to push the technological boundaries of what’s possible in AiTR for these vital Soldier missions,” said C5ISR Center Director Beth Ferry. “Developing capabilities that directly impact the Soldiers ability to identify targets and engage threats is an important mission of the C5ISR Center.”
The C5ISR Center recently experimented with an operational unit, rapidly integrating and tailoring AiTR solutions at the tactical edge for UAS operations, according to electronics engineer Grace Hummel. The team adapted the technology for new operational use cases that enabled the unit to experiment while subject-matter experts incorporated Soldier feedback on system performance.
“We’re able to experiment with operational units to gain feedback from Soldiers to see what works for rapid AiTR adaptation to meet emerging mission demands,” Hummel said. “These efforts will strengthen targeting effectiveness and performance.”
Army S&T bridges the technological divide as the Center works with industry on evolving threats to ensure machine-learning models are optimized to deliver enhanced AiTR performance, protecting Soldiers in contested environments.
The team is building more robust AiTR capacities defined by real-world situations with real data and systems, Hummel said. This capability is designed to scale and replicate across multiple platforms to reduce the overall cognitive load on the Soldier and ensure more accurate decision-making. The Army has collected and curated imagery against tactically relevant targets across multiple biomes and environments, which serves as the mechanism to train and deliver more effective automated target detection and recognition models to units.
“Over time, the algorithm learns to identify the unique visual patterns of these objects on its own, much like a Soldier studying flashcards before a vehicle recognition test. Once this training is complete, the AI model can be deployed to instantly recognize and flag similar targets in new, real-time video feeds on the battlefield,” Hummel said.
The team partners with fellow Army R&D organizations such as the Aviation and Missile Center (AvMC). The C5ISR Center is integrating its technology with AvMC’s teaming architecture and mission autonomy software to evaluate AiTR performance and utility for groups of UAS and launched effects. The teams will combine areas of expertise for an upcoming live flight test at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona. Additionally, C5ISR Center is working with multiple industry partners to provide its Army-tailored AiTR technology for integration with commercial UAS platforms and payloads.
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The U.S. Army Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Center is the Army’s applied research and advanced technology development center for C5ISR capabilities. As the Army’s primary integrator of C5ISR technologies and systems, DEVCOM C5ISR Center supports our networked Warfighters by identifying, developing, maturing, and rapidly integrating innovative technologies to drive continuous transformation.
DEVCOM C5ISR Center is an asset of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command. DEVCOM is the Futures and Autonomous Systems Command’s leader and integrator within a global ecosystem of scientific exploration and technological innovation. DEVCOM expertise spans seven major competency areas to provide integrated research, development, analysis and engineering support to the Army and Department of War. From rockets to robots, drones to dozers, and aviation to artillery, DEVCOM innovation is at the core of the combat capabilities American Warfighters need to win on the battlefield of the future. For more information, visit c5isrcenter.devcom.army.mil.
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