To take one very tangible example, \u201cwe\u2019ve tried a number of different controllers and gotten really great feedback \u2026 that was a little surprising,\u201d said Brig. Gen.\u00a0Geoffrey Norman<\/a>, director of the Next Generation Combat Vehicles team at Army Futures Command, during a Warriors\u2019 Corner panel at the Association of the United States Army conference. \u201cReally elegant Formula 1-style controllers \u2026 were actually less popular than a simple laptop-keyboard-mouse set up that the gamers might be more familiar with.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of that feedback from an experiment at the Army\u2019s\u00a0National Training Center<\/a>\u00a0at Fort Irwin, Calif., recalled\u00a0Michael Cadieux<\/a>, director of the Ground Vehicle Systems Center at Combat Capabilities Development Command: \u201cThe operator at NTC [National Training Center] said, \u2018you know what, I don\u2019t need this kind of steering wheel that looks like an F1 steering wheel. [Just] give me a mouse and a keyboard, because I have like 29 hours of\u00a0War Thunder<\/a>\u00a0every day, and I can absolutely control multiple robots and their payloads from a mouse and a keyboard.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of our young people are digital natives and are very comfortable employing this type of technology,\u201d said Maj. Gen.\u00a0Curtis Buzzard<\/a>, head of the armor and infantry \u201cschoolhouse\u201d at Fort Moore (formally, the\u00a0Maneuver Center of Excellence<\/a>). That means they may be less vulnerable to information overload than their elders, he explained: \u201cCognitive overload \u2014 sometimes I think we may be overemphasizing that with young people because, again they\u2019re using to doing things and watching multiple things at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n At Fort Moore, Buzzard noted, \u201cwe run the small UAS [Unmanned Aerial System] master-trainer course, and we\u2019ve got to go through and train folks on a bunch of legal requirements\u201d \u2014 for example, safe operation in domestic airspace \u2014 \u201cbut we know a young person can grab a UAS and fly it within an hour.\u201d<\/p>\n Robust, easy-to-use controls \u2014 like those popularized for gamers and hobbyists \u2014 have become a major focus for the Army, Buzzard said. That requires settling on standardized handled devices and software interfaces across a whole future fleet of unmanned systems. That will include multiple types of aerial drones and ground robots, equipped with a wide range of possible payloads, from machine guns and Javelin missiles, to long-range sensors or medical supplies, and operating alongside humans as part of multiple different units, from heavy armored brigades to light infantry.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we don\u2019t want,\u201d Buzzard said, \u201c[is] we\u2019ve got five different things we want to employ, so we\u2019ve got to carry five different controllers and five different batteries that require five different types of training.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe key thing,\u201d added Norman, \u201cis regardless of what the physical construct is, that the software that\u2019s running behind them is common and that the interface allows the soldier to go from one platform to another to another to another without having to learn a new software system.\u201d<\/p>\n The foundation of that hoped-for future commonality is a set of software standards known as GCIA, intended to apply across the Army\u2019s entire future ground force of manned and unmanned vehicles. (It\u2019s a nested acronym for GCS (Ground Combat System) Common Infrastructure Architecture). GCIA compliance is mandatory not only for companies working on RCV but for those competing to build the\u00a0Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle<\/a>,\u00a0the replacement for the M2 Bradley troop carrier<\/a>.<\/p>\n GCIA, in turn, is an Army ground force implementation of a wider philosophy called\u00a0Modular Open Systems Architecture<\/a>, which aims to establish a strict baseline of technical standards but then allow plugging in a wide variety of software packages, or modules, from any company, as long as the software complies with the standard. The hope is this can break the all too common \u201cvendor lock\u201d monopolies, where one large prime contractor develops bespoke software that only it can modify for the rest of a system\u2019s service life.<\/p>\n \u201cThe intent there is to have an open system, where we are able to partner \u2026 with industry, best of breed athletes, that understand how to bring very unique and capable software modules into the platform,\u201d said Cadieux. \u201c[There are] probably greater than 50 different industry partners we\u2019ve been collaborating with.\u201d<\/p>\n Another way the Army is trying to get simpler, more flexible and more compatible systems is to separate software development from the work on the various unmanned vehicles. The Robotic Combat Vehicle Light, for instance, is \u201cactually two programs,\u201d explained Norman: \u201ca platform program to\u00a0develop the robotic vehicle itself<\/a>\u201d \u2014 with four companies competing \u2014 and \u201ca\u00a0Software Acquisition Pathway<\/a>\u00a0[for] modular system architecture.\u201d<\/p>\n That kind of split is increasingly seen as a more flexible alternative to old-school megacontracts in which one traditional prime contractor does everything.\u00a0The Pentagon has historically struggled to manage information technology programs \u2014 a problem that it\u2019s intent to overcome in an era of warfare where\u00a0software, not hardware, becomes ever more decisive<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/RCV_LNov2020V2-350x210-1.jpg\")