By Kris Osborn, President, Center of Military Modernization
The Army is preparing for a new kind of high-speed, AI-enabled multi-domain combat by replicating future warfare conditions in specific scenarios linking drones with helicopters, armored vehicles and ground control stations. The concept is to not only share, process and transmit time-sensitive information but help Army weapons developers and futurists craft new concepts of operation and advance modern paradigms of Combined Arms Maneuver.
The speed and interoperability of networking technology, combined with paradigm-changing, AI-enabled data processing and transmission, is fast generating Army weapons developers to craft new requirements, concepts of operation and Combined Arms Maneuver strategies.
Instead of traditional, linear mechanized formations requiring time-consuming information transmission, data processing and soldier decision-making, technology has massively changed the equation and enabled satellites, drones, air assets, armored vehicles and even dismounted infantry to identify, confirm, close with and destroy enemy targets in seconds of milliseconds.
“At the end of the day we need seamless data, immediate data to be seamless in transition across warfighting functions,” William Nelson, Deputy, Army Futures Command told Warrior in an interview.
It is a long sought after Army breakthrough, as the service has been trying to achieve “system-of-systems” force wide networking since the days of its Future Combat Systems as far back as the early 2000s. In subsequent years, the Army developed a software programmable radio technology called Joint Tactical Radio Systems designed to send IP packets of voice, data, text and video across the force in real time using high bandwidth waveforms. This effort, like FCS, made tremendous progress but also encountered developmental complexities. The Army intent and goal has for decades been to network the force and enable seamless data exchange, paradigm-changing high speed attack and new maneuver formations.
Advanced algorithms employed by AI-capable computers can organize otherwise disparate pools of sensor data and identify the optimal “weapon” or “shooter” or “countermeasure” method for a given combat circumstance in a matter of seconds.
The Army is now achieving long sought after breakthroughs in the areas of combat networking, multi-domain connectivity and sensor-to-shooter time ….. Due in large measure to the advent of new AI-empowered computer systems, gateways able to integrate otherwise disparate transport layer technologies and new concepts of maneuver. Technological progress, and the need to stay ahead of or in front of an enemies decision cycle, is inspiring new doctrinal thinking and leading the Army to develop new conceptions of what senior leaders call “fighting at the speed of relevance.”
These breakthroughs have been achieved over the last few years, in large measure through a multi-year Army experiment called Project Convergence in which specific weapons, platforms and technologies are put into specific combat scenarios to achieve breakthrough warfare speeds. The thrust of the accomplishment relates to sensor-to-shooter time advances in which AI-enabled systems truncate or shorten the sensor to shooter kill web from 20 minutes down to 20 seconds. The idea is to use multi-layered, multi-domain platforms such as drones and mini-drones called “air launched effects” to obtain time-sensitive targeting information, relay it across the force through an AI-enabled computer system to discern the optimal effector, shooter or weapon for a particular targeting scenario. Latency in the transmission of battlefield information and pairing of sensor-to-shooter time is massively reduced and humans can approve or decide upon a particular course of action in a matter of seconds.
An AI system can use advanced algorithms to take incoming sensor data and pools of information, organize it, bounce it off a seemingly limitless database and perform analytics, which means solving problems, finding solutions, drawing comparisons based on historical occurrences and performing analysis.
Project Convergence represents the Army’s contribution to the Pentagon’s Joint All Domain Command and Control effort to enable multi-domain interoperability both within and across national and multinational combat formations.
“Through experimentation, Project Convergence has forced the JADC2 conversation to happen in the dirt. It got it right out of the whiteboard and theoretical and started connecting weapons and platforms,” William Nelson, Deputy, Army Futures Command told Warrior in an interview.
This synergy between the operational and experimental is exactly what Project Convergence seeks to capture and learn from, as emerging technologies regularly change maneuver formations, tactics and overall approaches to Combined Arms Maneuver. For instance, a multi-domain-capable networked force with longer-range sensors and high-speed data processing can enable a more dispersed, yet highly lethal force in ways that have never previously been possible. A mini-drone could identify a target and, in a matter of seconds, transmit specifics to an AI-empowered database to immediately determine the best method of attack. The idea is to fight at the “speed of relevance,” and destroy an enemy at safer standoff ranges before being detected.
“Through persistent experimentation we have been able to define “bite-size” pieces of JADC2 and generating the ability to share data across allies and partners,” Nelson said.
This Army contribution to the JADC2, as DoD is now working on a specific implementation plan to fast-track breakthrough networking and data security technology across the services into operational readiness. The Air Force has a similar program called Advanced Battle Management Systems and the Navy has a comparable Operation Overmatch. The Pentagon is now leveraging each of these service programs and integrating them into one another to create a seamless, secure, ultra-high-speed joint warfighting environment known as JADC2. The idea is to see, identify and destroy enemy targets faster and more efficiently than an enemy can … and thus prevail in a combat situation.
Information itself has become a critical, outcome defining weapon of modern war and, simply put, the forces that sees, targets and destroys the other first, faster and at greater ranges from different attack points and domains is the one which will dominate future wars.
There are some very interesting parallels between the concepts behind the Army’s former Future Combat Systems and Project Convergence. One could, in a general way, suggest that Project Convergence represents the “achievement” of the “system of systems” networking ambitions first outlined by FCS. While FCS was canceled, in part because the technology had not reached the requisite level of maturity, the ability to link armored vehicles to sensors, drones and even dismounted soldiers in real-time was indeed the vision of FCS. Certainly the advent and maturation of many key new technologies, coupled with enterprising Army modernization strategies, helped accelerate the process of bringing this to fruition at Project Convergence, yet Army Futures Command leaders say the intensity of the Army’s effort has been filled with a sense of “urgency.”
Army AI – Gateway
The Army is taking measures to fully empower and network the future force through a dispersed, integrated series of “meshed” nodes, multi-domain force and series of “gateway” technologies designed to connect different transport layer formats to one another.
The concept is to accumulat
e, gather and organize otherwise disparate pools of incoming sensor data and connect them to one another in real time. Perhaps an RF signal is bringing in communications data, while a GPS receiver is tracking detail provided from satellites and computer networks are using common IP protocol standards to exchange data? This is precisely the kind of scenario for which the Army is developing “gateway” technology systems able to essentially “translate” data arriving in different formats and technical configurations to organize, distill and analyze information streams in relation to one another in real time.
Rainmaker
One such “gateway” oriented AI-program now being fast-tracked by the Army is called Rainmaker, a technology aimed at integrating sensor data through a specific “architecture” designed to break down barriers and enable interoperability and data sharing through a common technical configuration. Rainmaker, which integrates sensor data, is aligned with an AI-enabled system called Firestorm which pairs sensor and targeting specifics with shooters or weapons systems.
“We have certainly launched out with innovation funds on an AI program called Rainmaker, and it is getting after integrated sensors, and we have launched out already on an acceleration effort with Firestorm, which is linking shooters. This combination of the two, allows us to put the entire architecture together that needs to be there to fully sense and fully engage,” Lt. Gen. Thomas Todd, Former Chief Innovation Officer, Army Futures Command, told Warrior in an interview in 2022.
While breakthroughs have been taking place for the last several years, the Army is still quick to refer to its ongoing Project Convergence experiments as a “campaign of learning” exercise wherein weapons developers discover the realm of the possible refine requirements and test the limits of operational use for promising new systems.
“Rainmaker is essentially a reference architecture for us to build off of, and continue to evolve off. If we needed an AI architecture for sensors, that’s it, we’ve chosen it. We’ve said that’s what we’re going to use to not only demonstrate research, discover and evolve, but also protect our data. “This whole idea of protection of data is huge. Data is almost everything to us on the future battlefield. Right. It is our eyes and ears. It helps us make decisions. It helps us with targeting and helps us with patient care. It helps us with all kinds of things and so in the sensor arena for us, Rainmaker becomes how we talk to industry, how we talk to researchers, how we operationalize. And so we have a common foundation to work off of,” Todd said.
Kris Osborn is the President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University
