Army Refines Technical Framework for Weapons Development

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By Kris Osborn – President & Editor-In-Chief, Warrior Maven

Tanks, helicopters, infantry carriers and command and control technologies all need to be built with the most cutting edge and effective technologies available, yet Army weapons developers do not want to stop there….. but instead hope to position their future platforms for decades of continued modernization.

Mobile Protected Firepower, Future Long Range Assault Aircraft and Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle

The idea is to not deploy paradigm-changing new platforms such as the emerging Mobile Protected Firepower, Future Long Range Assault Aircraft, Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle and a host of robotic systems, but also architect those systems such that they can operate at the cutting edge in 2050 and beyond.

There is a particular technical strategy through which this can be accomplished, senior Army weapons developers say, and it pertains to the often used term “open architecture.” What this means is that systems are built with common IP protocol standards, interfaces and “1s” and “0s” which allow for continued modernization in the years or even decades following the emergence of a new platform.

“Having an open systems architecture allows for more innovation. 10 years from now there might be a whole new company with a whole new technology, for example, that would have a kind of radar or kind of sight for a tank, say, or some kind of new communications gear, that wasn’t even thought of when we designed the system and, and procured it. Really what you want is a way to bring in new things like that, without having to kind of start from scratch on the design. So I think it’s mostly across the board,” Assistant Secretary of the Army – Acquisition, Logistics & Technology, told Warrior in an interview.