The Army wants to ensure cutting-edge technology it buys from the private sector will contribute to a Pentagon-wide data integration initiative—and will work.
Several days of demonstrations in Yuma, Ariz., this week—ranging from augmented reality to aircraft self-piloting software—illustrated the Army’s plan to pursue rigorously tested and safe command and control technology.
Yuma is ideal for testing because of the heat, said Lt. Gen. Thomas Todd, Chief Innovation Officer of the Army Futures Command. The Army will adopt commercial technology after it’s “baked in the sun a while,” he said.
“We have had a tendency to really just take advantage ...