“We are data rich and information hungry.” – quote attributed to a General/Flag Office in the ‘Case for Change’ section of the Department of National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces Data Strategy
The war in Ukraine has warranted a complete rethink about battlefield dynamics. This conflict is one that has been marked by the use of electronic warfare at an unprecedented scale and it is changing what the Canadian Armed Forces and its allies have always known about how to fight. From a C4ISR perspective, there has been a distinct shift from an era of network-centric tactical communications and information systems to one that is decidedly data-centric.
Where there was once a heavy dependence on secure voice communications, supported by radios and closed tactical systems, the modern brigade requires a single information environment where users – from a Commander at HQ to the dismounted soldier on the front lines – can access the right data when and where they need it to facilitate real-time information exchange.
As the Canadian Army forges ahead with its digital transformation, one of its key focus areas will be on data: accessing it, protecting it, and leveraging it. Using General Dynamics Mission Systems–Canada’s DIGITALspine as a data-centricity enabler, the Canadian Army will realize game changing gains in decision-making power and operational effectiveness.
“Simply put, decisions are going to win battles. Using advanced technologies, DIGITALspine has the ability to process, and exploit the right information quickly and disseminate it across the network optimizing the decision-action cycle by presenting the essential information needed for agile decision-making,” said Andrew Shepherd, vice president, Land and Joint, General Dynamics Mission Systems–Canada
An integrated tactical network, DIGITALspine brings together previously siloed technologies – video, chat, radios, sensors, radars – into a single ecosystem providing a common operating picture. It offers the flexibility for the Canadian Army to plug and play choosing the solutions they like from across industry to effectively meet their operational needs.
“General Dynamics is committed to ecosystem collaboration and working with industry to leverage each other’s experience and technologies to ensure our nation’s deployed forces have the systems and capabilities they need to deter and defeat adversaries. We are demonstrating how the use of AI, machine learning, and cloud computing technologies can solve the challenges being faced in modern conflicts,” said Shepherd.
And the company has put that commitment into practice with its recently opened Battle Lab. As part of the Land Command Support System contracts awarded in 2023, General Dynamics has opened an incubator for its engineers, industry collaborators, and Army customer to come together, experiment, and innovate.
“Within the Battle Lab, we take feedback and quickly implement, test, and either succeed or fail in a controlled and safe environment. This space is one where we work side by side with our customer to look at specific capabilities, determine their use cases, and iterate until we get it right,” said Shepherd.
The Battle Lab does not seek to simply deliver demonstrations for experimentation’s sake, but rather to facilitate a continuous feedback loop with the Canadian Army. It also exists to showcase emerging capabilities which, through agile development, can be rapidly scaled to transform C4ISR capabilities across the front line command.
General Dynamics is currently supporting the rapid deployment and innovation efforts of C4 capabilities for the Canadian Army to support the evolution of the Dispersed Brigade Command Post for Op REASSURANCE in Latvia. By working side by side with soldiers, the company’s Mission Specialists and engineering experts – many of which are CAF veterans – are able to observe the operational use of the network while mentoring users and understanding their unique experiences and interaction with the technology during real time operations. From this position the team can take those in situ learnings and any observations, consolidate them and send them back to Canada for quick iteration before the next release.
“We are now in a position where there is an urgent need for the rapid delivery of technology with accelerated timelines to provide and maintain enhanced capability in weeks and months, rather than years and decades,” said Shepherd. “What we’ve been able to offer in Latvia to date – and the lessons we are learning from the real-time feedback we’ve received – can be taken into the Battle Lab and enhanced to continue to provide the Canadian Army with operational advantage in theatre.”
The work being done within the Battle Lab is also being used to augment General Dynamics’ DIGITALspine taking into consideration the changing operational context and the need for integrated tactical networks to be adaptable and interoperable, easy to integrate with, and able to optimize to work in denied, disrupted, intermittent, and low-bandwidth environments.
“It’s the ability to ideate, design, develop, and test in this digital incubator that unlocks so much value for the Canadian Army. We’re able to show them how the implementation of new technology will unfold; to quickly enable and disable features; to allow them to pick and choose the capabilities that work best for them; and to optimize those solutions in real-time. It is this close collaboration and agility that allows us to ensure the real-life applications are understood well before a solution is fielded and in the hands of Canadian soldiers,” said Shepherd.
