By Kris Osborn, Warrior

“A generational investment” was the phrase used by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth regarding the highly anticipated and prioritized homeland defense “Golden Dome” effort, a series of advanced technologies intended to defend the US against ballistic missiles and hypersonic weapons. 

Conceptual and developmental work has already been underway, and the Pentagon has taken specific steps to remove bureaucratic hurdles and expedite Golden Dome development with the intent of initial testing beginning in 2028.  

The Pentagon is likely beginning to quietly review hundreds of Golden Dome industry proposals which arrived in Oct, 2025 .. for the program called SHIELD, for Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense. 

Pentagon Outlines Golden Dome Concepts of Operation

The most important elements of Golden Dome, in terms of technological specifics, are not available for security reasons, yet the Pentagon is already working intensely with its industry partners … many of whom attended a recent Golden Dome public industry day in August of this year. Without mentioning technical details related to specific offerings, many industry partners and offering advanced technologies to the Department of War. 

“What jumped out at me was one just the breadth of different companies that came to the industry day, from large primes to small businesses offering unique solutions. I think right now the department is really studying the architecture (of Golden Dome) and trying to get the fundamentals right on that. So, you know, they're looking at their existing systems and how those systems and sensors can be used, and then also identifying additional sensors and possibly effectors that would need to be created. But again, central to that I think, is really that command and control layer and that engagement management,”  Mathew Steenman, Chief Technology Officer, Elbit America, told Warrior in an interview. 

While entirely unclassified, the Golden Dome industry day in Huntsville, Ala., was only discussed in a general way given the importance of security to the missilon.  An interesting essay in Defense One on the Golden Dome Summit cited a statement on the event from the Department of War. 

“The Golden Dome for America office is examining current and future solutions across the services and interagency to identify the most effective ways to modernize and quickly field the capabilities our nation needs to protect our homeland, ” Office of the Secretary of Defense said in a statement provided to Defense One. 

Command and Control

While specific offerings are not available, industry experts are discussing some of the broad technological parameters likely to define ongoing discussions and testing regarding Golden Dome, as the threat equation is of course known to be serious. Any potential solution is almost certain to involve advanced AI and multi-domain networking. For example, Medium and Low Earth Orbit satellites are being launched by the hundreds to increase redundancy, optimize throughput and help support advanced targeting systems able to track an incoming projectile from one radar aperture or field of view to another.  

“With the space based sensors and trackers, we're effectively looking at the entire world at any one time and having to observe that and make decisions on the data that's being fed in. Uh, so there's definitely a problem of scale to be dealt with, I think, for this next generation command and control system that we'll need to get employed,” Steenman said. 

Continuous Target Track

Establishing a “continuous track” is extremely difficult for missile defense systems, particularly in the realm of hypersonic weapons .. as they do not follow a traditional ballistic missile trajectory and maneuver at unprecedented speeds. 

For this reason, it seems highly likely that any advanced Golden Dome protective system would heavily rely upon what industry experts described as software-enabled “engagement management.” 

“If you look at Iron Dome or the integrated air and missile defense that they have over in Israel, Elbit actually plays a central role in that system with something that we call engagement management. So it's a software application that really focuses on bringing together the different sensors that are out there, using that data to generate a common operating picture, and then choosing the effectors and suggesting to the operator which effectors should be used and when they should be used. This is intended to both maximize the engagement potential, but also to minimize any collateral damage,”   Mathew Steenman told Warrior.

While Steenman did not address any specific offerings, his comment about command and control and engagement management makes great sense regarding the anticipated Concepts of Operation fundamental to Golden Dome. Without citing specific systems, Steenman made a general point about how industry and the Pentagon are currently exploring a wide range of integrated “countermeasures.” 

"So I think everything is on the table at this point. Obviously, you know, we've got a long history with your more traditional kinetic type effectors, and that's a core functionality of what our engagement management application does, is suggesting to the operator very quickly which effector the system believes, you know, based on all the training that it's gone through, which effectors should be used at any one time and when it should be used, to prevent the collateral damage,” Steenman said. 

Golden Dome & AI 

As part of the Pentagon’s surge forward with early innovations for its Golden Dome homeland defense system, US military industry partners are also likely to be assessing how artificial intelligence can support national defensive efforts. 

While there are many potential applications, one critical area exists in the sphere of discrimination and target verification, as AI-enabled algorithms can bounce incoming sensor information off of a vast data base to distinguish targets from decoys and instantly support defensive intercepts. 

"I think AI can play a couple of key different roles in Golden Dome, such as identifying targets and tracking targets against different fields of regard. I don't necessarily think identifying possible targets is the hard part, but it's deciding which of those targets are actually real targets and not decoys that the enemy has employed to try to overwhelm your system or make you use effectors against a non real threat,"  Mathew Steenman, Elbit America, Chief Technology Officer, told Warrior.

Steenman aligned his comments about AI, in a conceptual way, with his discussion about Command and Control, as AI-enabled systems can aggregate, organize and perform analytics on otherwise disparate pools of incoming sensor data. It seems almost self-evident that Golden Dome will need to connect sensor data from satellites, drones, manned ISR fixed wing platforms, ground based command and control and even surface ships using Aegis radar to track ballistic missiles. 

 "I think one of the other areas with AI we talk about is command and control. We talked about how big the defensive network will have to be. It's likely that anybody who's going to launch that type of attack at you is also going to attack your networks, and maybe through electronic warfare ..... so implementing AI at a layer where it's going to deal with healing the network and finding the most efficient way to get the data around despite those effects from the adversary, I think is really important," Steenman said. 

AI can prove particularly significant in the realm of sensor-to-shooter pairing, as it can bounce verified target information against a database compilation to recommend an optimal shooter or countermeasure for a given threat scenario. Perhaps the area is cloudy so a laser weapon will not be effective? Perhaps it is a populated area, so a kinetic effector may not work as explosive material could damage civilians? 

Perhaps the attack is in the form of a drone swarm or salvo of ballistic missiles requiring a deep magazine of interceptors, proximity fuse to generate an “area” explosion against multiple targets or even EW to “jam” the RF signal of a group of attacking drones at one time. This kind of AI-enabled ability could support Golden Dome kinds of defenses against incoming rockets, mortars, ballistic missiles or even hypersonic attacks. Steenman said Elbit America is currently integrating a wide range of interceptors or countermeasures to support homeland defense. 

Attacks en mass

“Now, if you look at  attacks in mass, especially against point targets, I think that's when you start to look at the other technologies, like you mentioned, with high power microwave......we've seen that be effective in situations or as you mentioned, directed energy. But I think it all depends on the threat and the number of threats and how fast that threat is coming at you. I think these systems that we employ, and hopefully through the use of AI are bringing those suggestions and courses of actions to the operators incredibly quickly," Steenman said.

Kris Osborn is the President of Warrior Maven. 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 Master’s Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.