Experimentation
Abstract
The Experimentation project funds experimentation campaigns to explore new concepts and their applications in operationally relevant environments and within a system-of-systems warfighting context. Concepts and enabling technologies including but not limited to, airborne targeting, autonomy, spectrum warfare, artificial intelligence, machine learning, expeditionary base defense, agile combat operations, and joint all-domain operations hold great promise, yet their transition to acquisition programs and fielded capabilities is typically hampered due to uncertainties regarding their military utility and organizational adoption. Experimentation campaigns assess hypotheses that new capabilities will deliver decisive competitive advantage against our adversaries in a dynamic threat environment. These campaigns dramatically shorten the acquisition process by delivering robust information including operational utility assessments, total life cycle cost estimates, preliminary product support strategy, reliability and maintainability metrics, operational utility assessments and Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel, Leadership and Education, Personnel, Facilities and Policy implications. A key element of the experimentation campaigns is strong stakeholder partnerships and buy-in from Air Force Futures, Air Force Plans and Programs, US Space Force Futures and Integration, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, warfighting Major Commands and Combatants Commands (capability recipients/end users), Space and Missile Systems Center and Air Force Material Command (capability developers) that ensures rapid transition of capabilities when operational utility, affordability, sustainability, and industrial capacity meet the Department of Air Force needs. Experimentation campaigns are centered on an operational level warfighting concept to provide context for assessment. They use wargaming, simulation, demonstrations, and field/flight experimentation to evolve, refine, and validate the warfighting concepts leading to solid, evidence-based materiel and non-materiel capability development approaches with associated recommendations. Experimentation campaigns improve the effectiveness of operations by refining concepts and generating new information to address challenging threats of the future which aids the fielding of advanced technologies by providing the credible evidence needed to make sound strategic decisions and investment choices. Warfighting concepts evolve based on the latest threat assessments and the Experimentation Campaigns are likewise modified to ensure the Department of the Air Force retains a competitive advantage. The Department of the Air Force's component of the Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve (RDER) is one of the many experimentation efforts executed within this project. To facilitate rapid modernization of the force, the Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve (RDER) initiative was established in the Defense Planning Guidance for Fiscal Years 2023-2027, to encourage multi-component experimentation through a campaign of learning. Services, Agencies, and other participating organizations are to identify "best of breed” capabilities developed among the DoD prototyping programs, and execute approved projects through large-scale experiments in order to refine and/or validate the Joint Warfighting Concept (JWC). Organizations nominate proposals to the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E)) that are multi-component — involving Joint Services, International partners and/or other government agencies — and link to one or more of the four key supporting concepts ("functional battles”) of the Joint Warfighting Concept: Joint Concept for Fires, Joint Concept for Command and Control, Joint Concept for Contested Logistics, and Joint Concept for Information Advantage. Experimentation is focused on rapid learning and then pivoting existing or future capability development efforts based on that knowledge to ensure the most pressing operational gaps are addressed and our warfighting advantages are preserved. Further details can be provided in the appropriate forum.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Project
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2023
- Source ID
- 645350_0604858F_4_3600_PB_2023
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