Digital Battlespace
AUSA Winter 10: DoD S&T initiatives focus on data management and network environments
In an opening address to the Association of the United States Army’s Institute of Land Warfare Winter Symposium and Exposition, Alan Shaffer, Principal Deputy to the Director of Defense Research and Engineering (DDR&E) [DDR&E is the primary technology officer for the Department of Defense], recognised many ongoing science and technology activities being conducted by individual armed services.
'But at DDR&E our job is to kind of “look across the top,”'he said. 'And in looking across the top, we are trying to come up with strategic initiatives that will tie all the services together. To date we have come up with two…and they are labeled “Data to Decisions” and “Systems 2020.”'
In explaining the Data to Decisions initiative, Shaffer began by presenting a graphical depiction of the amount of information 'traveling around the Internet.'
'We all know that the amount of information is expanding incredibly fast,'he said. 'But think about what we are doing to our soldiers on the battlefield. There is a huge push on intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. We are trying to go from some number of Predator orbits to doubling that. And each one of those systems puts down an incredible amount of information. So we are literally flooding the battlefield with bits and at some point we’ve got to think about how we do intelligent information management, data manipulation, machine intelligence – that’s another term for aided recognition, and human computer interface to better manipulate the data; to better manipulate all of this information that is floating out there.'
'I look at the plans the army has for “wiring the soldier,”' he continued. 'And we are really there. But if you put a computer on each soldier, then give him all of the information and data, we’ve got to worry about the tools that go with that so that the information turns into something the person can operate with.'
The second overarching DDR&E initiative is designated 'Systems 2020.'
'As we look forward and we think about where the army is going – where they are going with Future Combat System and where they are going in the future with the battalion and the brigade command teams – it’s all based on information in very complex networks. We have to think about how we will deal with the complexity of advanced information, advanced software, and advanced platforms. How do we develop things in multi-disciplinary development for autonomous software? How do we optimise performance of the human system interface? What does trusted and assured performance mean in information? Because remember, we are good in cyberspace but there are also other countries who are very good in cyberspace.'
Shaffer added that the 'Systems 2020' initiative also begins to look at the rapid manufacturing processes that will be necessary to support these issues.
By Scott R. Gourley, Fort Lauderdale
Email this to a friend.