Army selects Applied Intuition for RCV
Army selects Applied Intuition for RCV
Applied Intuition has been selected by the Army and DIU to deliver an end-to-end autonomy software development and test platform
The Nexus Newsletter
Welcome to the 12th edition of The Nexus Newsletter - a bi-weekly newsletter covering important news from the nexus of national security and autonomy.
Our top line news item today: Applied Intuition has been selected by the Army and the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to deliver an end-to-end autonomy software development and test platform for the Army’s Robotic Combat Vehicle (RCV). Learn more about the announcement below.
Army Selects Applied Intuition to Accelerate Autonomy Development for RCV
Earlier this week, we announced that the Army and the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) selected Applied to provide a foundational modeling and simulation platform to manage the development and testing of software for mission and mobility autonomy for the Army’s Robotic Combat Vehicle.
The $49 million contract ceiling for the competitive prototyping phase will span 24 months. The award is the result of an innovative contracting mechanism, DIU’s Commercial Solutions Opening, where the Army’s RCV program worked in close coordination with DIU to acquire commercial software via the Software Acquisition Pathway.
“We are excited to bring our proven enterprise autonomy development toolchain to the Army’s RCV program,” said Qasar Younis, Co-Founder and CEO of Applied Intuition. “Our modeling and simulation development environment will enable continuous improvement of autonomy software across the program’s lifecycle and will ultimately enhance the Army‘s broader approach to autonomy stack development.”
Breaking Defense: Can the Army’s robotics programs build AI the Silicon Valley way?
Key quote: That’s why it’s worth noting that, [on Monday], a small Silicon Valley company called Applied Intuition announced it had won a contract — brokered by the Pentagon’s embassy in the Valley, the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), using its streamlined Commercial Solutions Opening process — to provide software tools for the Army’s Robotic Combat Vehicle program (RCV). (This contract complements the Army’s existing deals with Qinetiq and Textron to build prototypes). While pocket change by Pentagon procurement standards, with a maximum spend of $49 million over two years, Applied’s contract could help bring private-sector innovation in self-driving vehicles to the armed forces.
“Commercial industry has a leg up on this, because they’ve invested a tremendous amount into these efforts,” said David Michelson, a former Army infantryman who now manages autonomous systems for DIU. “The industry also understands how to deploy this stuff and how to get these systems and software actually out in the real world.” [...]
“That’s new for a lot of acquisitions offices out there; they haven’t really had to think about the software development pipeline,” he said. “When you’re fielding a tank, you’re thinking about the logistics tails and the maintenance for it, actually having parts on hand, and the training that goes into that… There’s no thought of software development pipelines, updating algorithms.”
But the Defense Department has to start somewhere — and RCV, Michelson said, is “the pathfinder for the Department.”
Applied hosts delegation from the OUSD (R&E)
Earlier this month, our team hosted a delegation from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD (R&E)) at our Mountain View, California headquarters. The delegation visited Applied to learn about commercial best practices for autonomy development and how those best practices could be applied to a range of autonomy programs within the Department of Defense (DOD).
“Building warfighter trust in autonomous systems is a key priority for OUSD (R&E),” said Maynard Holliday, Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Critical Technologies. “Ongoing collaboration between the DOD and innovative commercial companies will prove essential to building trust and promoting principles of responsible AI. As the number of defense autonomy programs expands, the DOD must continue to harness commercial best practices for autonomy development and program design to ensure mission success.”
News we’re reading
Autonomous systems are gaining momentum in the national security space. Below, we’ve pulled key quotes from recent articles of interest, plus brief commentary from Applied Intuition’s government team:
Inside Defense | Project Convergence, Ukraine war underscore importance of unmanned systems, Army says
Key quote: “What I would say, certainly, we've seen a lot of the things that we've been seeing in Ukraine, the importance of unmanned aerial systems, the importance of being able to do sustainment in a contested environment,” she said.
Lt. Gen. Scott McKean, deputy commanding general of Army Futures Command and experiment director of Project Convergence, suggested that this fall’s experimentation may have revealed some issues with emerging unmanned technologies.
“What we learned was employing autonomous capabilities is not as easy as they seem on pamphlets and videos,” McKean said. “There's a lot that goes into those. I think some of the experiences that we're seeing in Ukraine drives what we're doing out here with our partners, in the sense of understanding how do we employ these capabilities across a multinational coalition?”
Our take: We agree that one of the primary takeaways from the war in Ukraine is that manned units should not make first contact with adversaries in any future conflict. Unmanned and autonomous systems should be the first through the door in a conflict, prepping the environment and providing valuable intelligence to enhance warfighter survivability and effectiveness. The importance of autonomous systems to future conflicts makes the experiments and exercises taking place at Project Convergence essential. This applies to aerial and maritime platforms in addition to ground vehicles!
The Drive | Array Of Sensors, Unmanned Systems Creating Data Headaches For Army Commanders
Key quote: Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth, who has now presided over her second Project Convergence event as the service’s top civilian leader, told reporters that data management was still a serious challenge to achieving a truly joint network into which sister services and allied militaries can plug in and operate. There is no lack of data streaming in from manned aircraft, soldiers on the ground, unmanned ground and aerial vehicles, and other sources, she said. Problems arise with combing through that glut and providing the right commanders with the data they need and nothing more, she said.
“We still need to keep working on how we standardize the data so that we're all able to access it and we're all able to share it across services and platforms,” Wormuth said. “I think we're making progress on that, but there's still work that has to be done. … We're now able to tap into a huge volume of data. A lot of the challenge is going to be figuring out how we process that as quickly as we can, and I think we did see some real improvements in terms of how quickly we were able to take information and change it into what I would call more actionable knowledge. The other thing I think we have to do is commanders are going to have to figure out what are the critical information requirements that they need."
Our take: We’re glad to hear that the Army understands the importance of ingesting, managing, and sharing data, including sensor log data from unmanned and autonomous systems deployed across domains. It’s imperative that the Department establish a robust enterprise data management solution to ensure that they are getting the most use out of the data that they are collecting.
For more on enterprise data management in defense, read our recent blog post. We also published a handbook on managing sensor log data for autonomous systems - download it here.
Breaking Defense | OMFV race revs up: All 5 competitors bid to build Bradley replacement prototypes
Key quote: While painful, this reduction in crew size and passenger capacity is critical to keeping down the overall weight and volume of the vehicle, making it easier to fuel, maintain, and transport.
Because of the iterative process, the official expected that “these designs are going to be very similar on things the layman would consider, [such as] size, weight, crew, weapons. [Instead,] the differential will be along the lines of artificial intelligence, predictive maintenance.”
That the Army can afford to focus on such stretch goals shows how far the OMFV program has come since 2019, when its very survival was in doubt. But the Army’s long history of failed procurements still leaves ample reason for uncertainty. And with the driving threat for armored vehicle combat, the Russian military, disintegrating in Ukraine, the US Army has yet to make a clear case for OMFV’s relevance to a Pacific war with China.
Our take: We agree that the element that differentiates each of the five separate OMFV bids from each other is the software, rather than the hardware specs. Autonomy, no matter the level, is a software problem, rather than a hardware problem, and we’re glad to see that the Army recognizes that. The crew task reduction component of OMFV will likely be where the OEMs differentiate their proposals and designs.
National Defense Magazine | JUST IN: Emerging Tech Essential for Logistics in Contested Battlespace
Key quote: In the National Defense Strategy, the Defense Department said that the ability to securely and effectively provide logistics and continue operations “in a contested and degraded environment, despite adversary disruption” is a key priority as it develops the future force.
To have this capability, the department must do a better job utilizing technology such as artificial intelligence in logistics planning, said Undersecretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Alan F. Estevez.
“If we're not thinking about how we use AI in … logistics, then we are missing the boat,” Estevez said. “We need to start thinking about how we're going to pull data and use the data that we have … we need to be more agile on how that data is used, so that we're not pushing stockpiles forward or waiting for a pull forward, that we are more dynamic in how we resupply forces on the battlefield.”
Our take: Autonomous systems are the perfect tool to execute logistics missions in contested and degraded environments. In many cases, the application of autonomy to the logistics function and logistics platforms is the easiest technical route to implement autonomy and learn quickly; logistics missions are much more similar to the commercial investment already applied to on-road trucking or urban air mobility, than to combat missions.
Inside Defense | Air Force’s Skyborg Vanguard to transition to Collaborative Combat Aircraft PEO
Key quote: “In ‘23, we’re looking forward to a final demonstration of our software, which is really going to be demonstrating the autonomy skills and the different applications . . . and demonstrating out that architecture that allows this to be portable across the system of systems, if you will, for these collaborative combat aircraft,” Baldwin said.
Though the Vanguard office for Skyborg will close, all of the technology and architecture for the software will transition to the CCA program, Baldwin said. Lessons learned from the program will also be used in the future for weapon systems and domains beyond CCA.
Our take: We’re glad to hear that the software and lessons learned from the Skyborg program will be moved over to the CCA program. We’re looking forward to seeing how PEO CCA will build warfighter trust alongside software and hardware development efforts - building that trust will prove essential to fielding those systems effectively in the future.
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