Army's Project Convergence Continues on 10-Year Learning Curve.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew

YUMA PROVING

GROUND, Ariz.--The Army brought more than 100 technologies to the desert in late fall to see if it could one day perform the Herculean task of connecting them all in a seamless AI-driven network of sensors and shooters mat can fight faster than the speed of human thought.

And just to make things more difficult, the service invited the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps along to integrate some of their capabilities into a series of exercises to learn whether they can fight together in "multi-domains."

Project Convergence is the Army's version of the joint all-domain command and control concept that is transitioning to a new U.S. military doctrine. The Air Force calls it the Advanced Battle Management System and the Navy, Project Overmatch. Its originators call it "mosaic warfare."

While the names are different, the overarching goal is the same: link manned and unmanned platforms through a network that passes sensor data to weapon systems, using artificial intelligence to quickly pick the most appropriate "shooters" regardless of what service owns the platform. And do that while fighting in every domain--not just land, sea and air--but space, cyberspace and the electronic spectrum.

In one scenario, a small drone hunting for enemy tanks spots a potential target. It uses the computational power of the "combat cloud" to provide a trigger puller with the best options to match that particular target: long-range artillery, a nearby armed drone or jet fighter, or perhaps a Navy ship.

At this point in the concept's development, a warfighter then "pulls the trigger" because Defense Department policy wants a human in the loop when it comes to launching lethal effects.

Project Convergence 21--the second year the experiment was held--is part of a learning curve that will continue for about eight more years, Army officials said.

At the end of a long day watching demonstrations, Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. James McConville said he is already seeing "exponential progress" in the second year, especially in the ability to move data across the network at higher speeds.

"We want to provide the combatant commander with multiple options of different types of forces that can work together, really to deter any strategic competitors in the region. And that's what I'm seeing," he said.

Project Convergence is different from other experiments that show the service how to employ present-day technology. This is about the future, he said.

Col. Andre Abadie...