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By
Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. on April 20, 2021 at 6:01 AM
Technicians work with a robot’s control system during last fall’s Project Convergence wargames.
WASHINGTON: Hundreds of scientists, engineers, and support staff at nine locations worked feverishly earlier this month testing dozens of technologies ahead of this fall’s joint Project Convergence wargames. The hub for the event, Communications Exercise (COMEX) 2, was a new facility at the Army’s Aberdeen, Md. C5ISR Center, the Joint Systems Integration Laboratory.
Gen. James McConville
The JSIL was touted by no less a figure than Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville – normally not one to get into the technical weeds – in a recent Brookings webcast:
st Brigade and had planned extensive field tests in 2020. But the Airborne is the Army’s global rapid-response force, and the 1
st Brigade had two unscheduled deployments last year: one to the Mideast after US drones killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and sparked a regional crisis, the other to Washington, DC after police killed George Floyd and set of nationwide protests.
Those real-world crises, compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, forced the Army to postpone some tests and downsize others from a full brigade to just part of one. That’s why the Pentagon’s independent Director of Operational Test & Evaluation (DOT&E) urged the Army to slow down in its annual report for 2020, submitted to Congress on Jan. 13.
L3Harris Technologies Awarded Third LRIP Order on Radio Contract
L3Harris Technologies has received a $57 million competitive award for its Falcon IV® AN/PRC-163 two-channel handheld radios, along with related equipment and services, as part of the U.S. Army’s two-channel Leader radio IDIQ contract. Delivery is expected to begin in early 2021.
The versatile AN/PRC-163 enables warfighters to share information up and down the chain of command, integrating voice and data across the Army’s Integrated Tactical Network (ITN). The radio enables robust command and control by integrating seamlessly into soldier systems such as the Army’s Nett Warrior and Enhanced Night Vision Goggle – Binocular (ENVG-B) programs.