The Army’s Operation Jailbreak hackathon, which ran from May through late August, staged two major events that brought contractors, operational units and Army technical experts together to accelerate unmanned tactical networks, the Army said.
The first three-week event began in May, bringing 600 people and 50 defense companies to Fort Carson, Colorado, where contractors were asked to break into each other’s networks and make their autonomous machines communicate, according to Army officials.
“The completed effort dismantled longstanding system silos, proving that autonomous platforms, sensors, weapons, and command-and-control (C2) technologies can exchange real-time data seamlessly across disparate vendors,” the Army said after the final initiative concluded.
Within 30 days of the first event at Fort Carson, the Army began fielding system integrations with service members in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, according to the service.
Former Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said the idea for the initiative came after he traveled with then-U.S. Army Europe and Africa Commander Gen. Christopher Donahue to allied training sites in Germany to observe how Ukrainians integrated drones, sensors and shooting platforms onto a single network. Driscoll resigned on Aug. 31 after allegedly butting heads with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Donahue relinquished command of U.S. Army Europe and Africa in July and retired in August.
The hackathon comes as the Army stands up its new Futures and Autonomous Systems Command (FASCOM), established Oct. 1 by Acting Secretary of the Army Adam Telle. The command will be led by a three-star general, though the service has not disclosed who that leader will be. Acting Army Chief of Staff Gen. Christopher LaNeve redesignated Futures and Concepts Command as FASCOM, which will integrate and accelerate the work of its subordinate commands, including Combat Capabilities Development Command, Medical Research and Development Command and the Joint Modernization Command.
LaNeve tasked FASCOM with developing corps-level autonomous capabilities, specifically mentioning autonomous fires and watercraft units, as well as armored reconnaissance, breaching, manned-unmanned rotary aircraft and aerial surveillance formations. The Army also designated Fort Rucker, Alabama, as its “UAS Autonomy Center of Excellence.”
“This goes beyond drones,” LaNeve said. “FASCOM will pioneer operational concepts that harness autonomous capabilities across all warfighting functions.”
Some of the Army’s new Robotics Technician Integrators, the first batch of which graduated earlier this month, will be sent to FASCOM-supported experimental units to help proliferate autonomous systems across the force, service officials said.
Sources: DefenseScoop · US Army