July 1, 2023

5G & Edge Computing: The Future of the DoD and JADC2

In December 2020, the Secretary of Defense published the “Department of Defense 5G Strategy Implementation Plan.” Within it, the Department of Defense (DoD) describes the importance of integrating 5G and edge computing into military operations, primarily for its higher performance, data-driven applications, and machine-to-machine communication. The strategy provides a baseline roadmap for development, experimentation, and prototyping 5G capabilities while ensuring the DoD will facilitate the advancement and adoption of 5G technology. This plan stresses the importance and emerging capabilities of the technology as well as on-going efforts with endless possibilities for implementation. However, 5G and edge computing can achieve much more. It is key to the military’s concept of Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) by greatly improving areas of command and control (C2), logistics, future weapon capabilities, and implementation into large scale combat operations.

Nov. 1, 2021

Winning The Counterland Battle By Enabling Sensor-to-shooter Automation

Machine-to-machine communication and automated intelligence reporting provide incremental improvements when used alone. Combining the two techniques significantly shortens a kill-chain. In order to fully harness the existing architectures, databases, datalinks, and communication pathways in the DoD, tactical experts need education on how to leverage new software and computer processing technologies. Once educated, experts from each area of responsibility need to make a concerted effort to sit down together on a regular basis. At the table, educated experts need to work down the joint prioritized target list with a laser focus on shortening each kill-chain. The focus cannot stay on widgets and gadgets to find things faster or track them better. The focus must shift to the specific tactics, techniques, and procedures to move information between the widgets and gadgets comprising the kill-chain.