Sec. 267. Sense of Congress on dual use innovative technology for the robotic combat vehicle of the Army
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Congress finds the following: The Army is developing the Robotic Combat Vehicle using a sound and innovative acquisition strategy. The Robotic Combat Vehicle program is leveraging dual-use commercial innovation for its autonomous driving system. The Army’s Robotic Combat Vehicle Software Pathways program will take an agile and phased approach to the ultimate solution, which is an autonomous, artificial intelligence-based navigation software. The technical focus will be on developing robust software pathways for the Army to conduct vehicle navigation in increasingly complex terrain, diverse operational conditions, and GPS-challenged environments, while still providing the ability to remotely operate the vehicle.
The Army’s acquisition strategy for the Robotic Combat Vehicle is smartly separating the platform ground combat vehicle prototypes from the autonomous software system. This approach is standard in the private sector and modern product development. With this approach, the Robotic Combat Vehicle program is establishing a blueprint for future autonomous development programs of the Department of Defense. By using this dual acquisition approach, the Army will receive the best value for the taxpayer as it will leverage private sector investments made on autonomous software and create an interoperable software stack for use on future applications.
It is the sense of Congress that— the Army should continue to use the software acquisition pathway approach and leverage dual-use, innovative commercial technology for the Robotic Combat Vehicle program; the Army should consider a similar framework for future ground vehicle programs, such as the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle program and the Common Tactical Truck program; and the other Armed Forces should consider using a similar dual acquisition approach for their autonomous ground vehicle programs.