On Wednesday, April 27, AUVSI's XPONENTIAL featured keynote speaker was Heidi Shyu, the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, U.S. Department of Defense. In her role at the Pentagon, she works towards technological superiority of the U.S. military and is responsible for the research, development, and prototyping activities across the DoD enterprise.

She mentioned that DoD is now using the AeroVironment RQ-20 Puma, which is a small, battery powered, hand-launched unmanned aircraft system used for surveillance and intelligence gathering using an electro-optical and infrared camera. 

She says it's proving our ground forces local surveillance capability that they didn't have before. She also referred to the Air Force's Scan Eagle which has incredible capabilities not just surveilling the landscape, but in finding targets, accurately.

Shyu is excited about the technology and is aware of the challenges in make the connection from R&D to the user.  For example, on the AUVSI exhibit floor, right next door, new technology awaits that may exceed her expectation awaits: the Orion AIM X4L drone for instance is ideal, weighing in at just over 7 ounces without a battery and about 15 ounces with a battery, and perfect as “beyond visual line of sight” (BVLOS) technology for the warfighter.  Advanced technology is ripe for defense applications.
 

Technology Advancements Improve Capabilities

Shyu noted that UAV now has much improved sensors with better signal intelligence capability utilizing advanced computer vision, radar imagery and lidar technology.   All have greatly increased the capability of unmanned systems in the last decade. She says that if you look at where the industry is heading, many advancements are progressing in the cargo UAV market.  Such developments may be a help to defense applications as the military seeks the same for ship to ship, ship to land, and base to all these targets and more.  Having a UAV carrying cargo is much less dangerous than a person involved in carrying the cargo. 

She says we're now seeing a wider family of robots being used throughout the services with improved technology that is enabling more capabilities.  The use of robots is branching out and being used in conjunction with specific missions of service members.  For example, underwater UAVS are being used by the Navy and they are thrilled with their performance. All areas of critical technology, she says, meshed very nicely.

Shyu says the DoD is assessing capabilities and what technologies can help provide such capabilities to close any gaps between where they are and where they want to be.  This helps them budget for fiscal year 2023.  "We need to be leveraging the commercial capabilities to help solve the most difficult problems."
 

Invest In Tech – With the End in Mind

When it comes to where to invest in the future, she points out the need to know how to better get proof of concepts in the severity of real-world conditions.  Radar prototypes, for example, were tested in a benign environment, but may not be applicable in a contested environment.  Technology investments must be prototyped and tested in the harsher, contested environment to insure it provides the best value to the warfighter and the defense application it is intended for. 

For fiscal year 2022, she says the DoD has invested greatly in helping small companies ramp up to production.  Next year she says that investment must be directed at Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E) appropriations to allow production to finish. Last year, she explains, DoD invested about $1.6 billion in helping small businesses move from Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program Phase I to phase II.  But now it's important to help small businesses complete the development and move the technologies to the end users; small companies need help to push them through their designs and then into the hands of those who can use it and benefit from it. 

In working the issue, she and her staff is working with the leaders of small businesses to understand their issues better so they may be helped to move their technology to maturity.  She mentioned the need to pull together a "fabric of all issues" as now is the time to capture all the issues and find ways to work through them.
 

Creating Agility

She also pointed out areas within research and development that DoD is focused on improving, namely the acquisition process and matching it with prompt budget cycles.  When the Secretary of Defense sees all kinds of great technology and wants to know why DoD can embrace it, she alludes to the lagging budget cycle; today's technology that was recently discovered just isn't in the present budget.  The budgeting process, she says, must change so DoD can be more agile. 

"The whole system is designed for a Cold War," she says.  It's not just the red tape and the encumbrances of defense acquisition, but also improvements in budgeting and the budget cycle that can help increase agility within the program.