The Army will test new software for its vehicles' computers

The Army is bringing two software products into the testing environment as the service changes its approach to its new vehicle-based common mission command system, the service’s program manager said.

The Mounted Computing Environment will serve as one component of the Army’s eventual common operating environment, which envisions a suite of tools that provide commanders and soldiers the same look and feel from the command post to the tactical edge. The Mounted Computing Environment will be featured on ground combat platforms.

The two software products, which operate on Mounted Family of Computer Systems (MFoCS) hardware, include Frontline v2.0 — the core software that has a common look and with Command Post Computing Environment software — and the Android Tactical Assault Kit (ATAK) solution, which has a common look and feel with Nett Warrior.

The Army will test these software products at the upcoming Network Integration Evaluation at Fort Bliss in October and November. These customer tests will inform the design for Mounted Computing Environment going forward, Col. Troy Crosby, project manager for Mission Command at Program Executive Office Command, Control Communications-Tactical, told C4SIRNET in an interview at the AUSA annual meeting.

Following NIE, Crosby said the manufacturers should have the broad technical data from the instrumentation as well as useful soldier feedback to continue to mature the design.

Crosby added Army leaders and representatives from industry are looking for a conditions limitations report coming from Army Test and Evaluation Command and coupled with the feedback, the two can make the necessary adjustments to the development effort.

A best case scenario fort he Mounted Computing Environment from NIE, Crosby said, would be getting a dedicated Forces Command unit to equip an entire brigade with and work with them to mature the design.

To date, the experimentation with Mounted Computing Environment has been developmental testing as the program office has not had a dedicated unit from Forces Command to conduct the demonstrations with.

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