The Army published the report “The Warfighters Science and Technology Needs” in September 2016 examining their specific needs for the Army’s Health Readiness Center of Excellence (HRCoE). The immediate goal is to enhance combat casualty care from the point of injury through en-route care to definitive care, and rehabilitation.
This can include a portfolio of medical equipment to support casualties during ground and air medical evacuations. Future technologies may include hyperactive stimulation of an individual’s immune system to improve resistance to diseases and medications that act upon antibiotic resistant bacteria.
The Army seeks to incorporate new technologies on the battlefield to increase treatment capabilities for impacts on the brain. For instance, technology is needed to support more accurate decisions on whether soldiers with mild TBI or PTSD should return to duty or be evacuated.
The Army’s speech interfaces are now in digital assistants. It is anticipated that augmented reality and other emerging technologies such as virtual reality and brain computer interfaces will be able to connect more directly with computational devices.
The Army sees robotics and autonomous systems redefining the role of the soldier in combat. The thinking is that the use of robots or semi-autonomous systems controlled by command nodes are capable of conducting a wide array of tasks to literally reduce the human footprint. Future autonomous systems may provide logistics, transportation, security, or construction services.
The Army has become adept at collecting information, but analyzing data is still largely a human endeavor. Algorithms are going be able to process ever larger data sets and increase the analyst’s capability to make sense of complex data to help commanders make better decisions. Analytical tools available to soldiers must run on hand-held or personal devices to enable smaller teams of analysts to support larger nodes.
Future Army leaders must be able to untether from command nodes while maintaining situational understanding and have the ability to leverage vast cloud computing capabilities to process stores of information.
In the future, the Army will use advanced processors in computers to increase computing capacity while decreasing power consumption. Future sensors will process large amounts of data and run powerful algorithms locally for extended periods of time reducing resupply or service rates.
Advancements in algorithms, hardware, software, and operating systems to maximize the value of multi core processors and the need for future high performance computing platforms is the Army’s focus area for future S&T investments.
www.defenseinnovationmarketplace.mil/resources/Army_Warfighters_ST_Needs_Bulletin.pdf has the U.S Army’s 9/21/16 publication “The Warfighters Science and Technology Needs”.