Department of the Air Force Technical Architecture Design, Integration, and Evaluation
Abstract
The Department of the Air Force (DAF) Tech Architecture resources activities to oversee and shape the technical architecture of the entire Air Force and Space Force and foster modular and agile architectures within individual programs and across programs to rapidly deliver warfighting capability. Potential adversaries are modernizing faster than anticipated. They are advancing individual systems while bringing families of systems (or systems of systems) together into an architecture to deny U.S. interests and counter potential U.S. action. One such example is the increasingly coupled investments and integration of space, air, and maritime sensing with long-range missile systems. The mix of capabilities and the integration of capabilities are just as important as the individual systems themselves because they have to work together in order to achieve the necessary operational effects and do so on increasingly rapid timelines. Successful companies follow a similar approach across product lines, and the same approach is needed for the DAF. The DAF must not only invest in superior capabilities but also invest in superior architectures that enable those capabilities to integrate and modernize. First, the DAF needs a technical architecture that enables platforms to leverage modular open subcomponents and to integrate them together to achieve operational mission threads, such as Decision Superiority and Information Advantage, Agile Combat Employment, Rapid All-Domain Kill Chains, Logistics Under Attack, Space Domain Awareness, and Space Defense. The Department does not have an integrated reference architecture, so it should not be a surprise if capabilities do not work together as desired or the technical achievements fail to match the warfighter's desired operational effects. An integrated architecture is necessary and must dynamically mature as threats advance and new technological opportunities arise. This architecture must also ensure that programs and platforms are built with agility via Modular open systems and open standards so that they can adapt and upgrade components quickly in response to threats or opportunities to integrate technology as advances are made. Efforts in this arena often fail to produce the desired results as organizations often stop at the "blueprint” phase or the design phase and fail to move from a great design into mission-ready capabilities on the battlefield. Second, the DAF needs to rapidly field systems-of-systems to deliver incremental gains in capability while creating the path to scaled deployment and sustainment. The Department of the Air Force does not have a deliberate campaign that integrates technology into the force at the architecture level. Architecture Integration addresses this technology integration challenge, highlights architecture level gaps, and rapidly delivers immediate flexible capability improvements in priority areas in advance of scaled solutions. By rapidly fielding open solutions, the DAF has uncovered mission-critical gaps that might not have been found at test ranges before being discovered on the road to conflict when it would likely be too late to correct. Therefore, a regular campaign to deliver time-critical technology with a bridge to scaling at the architecture level is critical to deliberately advancing the DAF's technological edge and impact overall architecture design, investments, requirements for future capabilities, and acquisition baseline updates for current systems. This activity is directed by the DAF Chief Architect Officer with oversight by the Secretary of the Air Force along with the Chief of Staff of the Air Force and Chief of Space Operations. This activity is executed by the Air Force Research Laboratory. This program element may include necessary civilian pay expenses required to manage, execute, and deliver Department of the Air Force Tech Architecture. The use of such program funds would be in addition to the civilian pay expenses budgeted in program element 0605827F, 0605828F, 0605829F, 0605831F, 0605832F, 0605833F, 0605898F, 0606398F, 0605831F and/or 0604858F. In FY 2022 $2.267 million is forecasted for civilian pay expenses in this program element. This effort is in Budget Activity 4, Advanced Component Development and Prototypes (ACD&P), because efforts are necessary to evaluate integrated technologies, representative modes or prototype systems in a high fidelity and realistic operating environment. This effort is in Budget Activity 4, Advanced Component Development and Prototypes (ACD&P), because efforts are necessary to evaluate integrated technologies, representative modes or prototype systems in a high fidelity and realistic operating environment.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Project
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2023
- Source ID
- 645352_0604006F_4_3600_PB_2023
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